The Opening Bell by NEA
Some New York Districts Cutting Back On Foreign-Language Programs.
The New York Times (9/13, MB1, Hu) reports, “After years of expanding language offerings,” suburban districts across the New York City metropolitan region “are now cutting back on staff and instructional time, phasing out less popular languages, and rethinking whether they can really afford to introduce foreign tongues to their youngest students while under constant pressure to downsize budgets and raise achievement in English and other core subjects.” However, these cuts “have dismayed and frustrated some educators and parents, who say that children need more, not fewer, foreign language skills to compete in a global marketplace.”
iPods Used To Help ESOL Students Improve English Skills. The Hilton Head Island (SC) Packet (9/14, Cerve) reports that “at Hilton Head Island Middle School and others with high numbers of students with limited English skills, teachers use” iPods “to help students learn to read.” Sarah Owen, the district’s ESOL coordinator, said that “the school district paid about $200 for each” of the 30 iPod Touch units it purchased last year “using federal money earmarked for ESOL students.” In Nancy Davis’ ESOL class, “students use the iPods about twice a week” to “listen to stories as part of a fluency program designed to develop vocabulary, improve pronunciation and emphasize important words and concepts taught in core subjects.” In addition to Island middle school, five other “county schools will use iPods in their English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) classes this year to tailor instruction to students with different levels of English proficiency.”
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In the Classroom
Dallas Magnets Among Highest-Performing Schools In Texas, New Rankings Show.
The Dallas Morning News (9/13, Hacker) reported that several Dallas Independent School District magnet campuses “are among the best public schools in Texas, based on a new set of rankings that considers everything from test scores to class sizes to graduation rates.” Though many organizations “try to pinpoint top campuses,” the Children at Risk study “ranks Texas elementary, middle and high school campuses based on more measures than most. … The Children at Risk study uses 14 categories to measure high schools, which gives parents a different lens through which to view their schools.”
Educators See Up To 21 Percent Gains On Writing Tests For Students Who Used Online Tool.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch (9/13, Lizama) reported, “Last school year, five Chesterfield County middle schools piloted an online essay-grading tool and saw as much as 21 percent gains on eighth-graders’ Standards of Learning writing test scores.” The MyAccess online writing tool is intended to “supplement writing instruction.” It “offers students more than 200 writing topics,” then “the system scores and grades student essays instantly on grammar, content and focus, and gives feedback on their strengths and weaknesses.” The Chesterfield county school board last week “authorized the school system to spend about $45,000 to buy licenses for all eighth-graders to use the MyAccess online writing tool to supplement writing instruction, and an additional $5,000 to train teachers.”
Elementary School Offers Gifted, Performing Arts Programs.
The Arizona Republic (9/14, Javier) reports on the Renaissance Gifted Academy and Music Academy at Esperanza Elementary School in north Phoenix, which “offers a program for students who have a passion and talent for music.” Electives include “choir, band, and” handbells. In addition, “the school is set to receive pianos for a piano lab and violins for third-graders. Students also will have the opportunity to take part in three music classes every week.” The school is “operated by the Deer Valley Unified School District, one of several school districts offering performing-arts magnets and gifted programs.” According to Lynn Tuttle, director of arts education and comprehensive curriculum for the Arizona Department of Education, “students with an integrated fine-arts education can better recall important facts and topics during a test and retain what they’ve learned longer.”
Oregon’s Lack Of Spanish-Language Standardized Tests Seen As Disadvantage For Schools.
The Oregonian (9/14, Owen) reports that “The federal No Child Left Behind Act allows students to be tested in their native languages, but the U.S. Department of Education decided the commercial Spanish test that Oregon used — Aprenda — did not meet federal requirements. So the state cut it last winter.” Consequently, “the number of third-graders meeting or exceeding state benchmarks for reading dipped at some schools in Forest Grove, Woodburn and Beaverton, making it appear as if fewer students met ‘adequate yearly progress.’” Forest Grove Superintendent Yvonne Curtis said the unavailability of tests written in Spanish is “a disadvantage for…children whose first language is Spanish.” However, the Oregon Department of Education “is developing a Spanish language test that meets federal requirements, said spokesman Jake Weigler. The test is expected to be available next spring.”
Some Arizona Valley Schools Opt Not To Hold 9/11 Commemoration Activities.
The Arizona Republic (9/11, Gersema) reported, “Ever since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, teachers and schools have grappled with talking to kids about the impact and significance of that day in American life.” This year, some schools in the Arizona valley had “special events commemorating the day, such as a flag ceremony or an extended moment of silence.” Other schools, however, did not hold “any events or special classroom activities to honor the victims of 9/11, and their teachers” did not discuss “the topic in class.” For instance, San Tan Elementary, “in the Higley Unified School District…held a Patriot Day but didn’t talk about 9/11.” Maureen Migacz, principal at San Tan, said she “would rather have the students celebrate democracy than focus on 9/11.” Furthermore, officials in the Osborn District and other Valley school districts say that “most students don’t relate to the subject” of 9/11 because many of them “had not been born yet” or were very young “when the attacks happened.”
On the Job
District’s Consultant Links Teacher Absenteeism To Achievement Gap.
Washington’s News Tribune (9/12, Cafazzo) reported that “after receiving a consultant’s report” noting “the gap between white students and many racial and ethnic minorities on test scores, grades and other measures of student achievement,” Tacoma School District officials “pledged this week to” work toward eliminating the gap. According to the consultant, “students who are taught by substitute teachers, or who spend time in the library or gym because no substitute can be found, lose out on learning opportunities.” Furthermore, “the impact can be greater on students who are already struggling.” Each year, “Tacoma teachers earn 12 sick leave…as well as an additional five days of leave that can be used for other reasons.” Tacoma’s assistant superintendent for human resources, Laurie Taylor, “said the district is working to create data that can help principals identify patterns of absenteeism.” Last year, Tacoma schools began studying absenteeism within the district.
Zoo Director Provides Educators With Hands-On Science Ideas For the Classroom.
Julia Steiny, a former member of the Providence School Board, writes in an opinion piece for the Providence Journal (9/14) that “these days, teachers are seeking out real-science experience for themselves, to make science more engaging and a lot less abstract for their students.” Lou Perrotti, “the conservation director of Roger Williams Park Zoo,” provided this experience to a group of teachers “from Westerly, East Providence, West Warwick, and Central Falls” last week by showing them “how to make their own beetle traps.” After constructing the traps, the teachers buried them in a field. “Each day subsequently, teachers took turns pulling out the traps and tallying the yield.” Steiny notes that the training was a collaboration between the zoo and the East Bay Educational Collaborative (EBEC). Furthermore, she adds, “the Web sites of the zoo, EBEC, and Audubon provide a wealth of information about all sorts of professional-development opportunities for teachers,” which she says “will spark kids’ interest in how really cool science can be.”
Teacher Of The Year Says Classroom Management, Fun Are Keys To Learning.
The Ridgefield (CT) Press (9/11, Sanders) reported on the Effective Ridgefield Teacher workshop, a day-long, “annual session put on at the end of each August for teachers joining the Ridgefield Public Schools.” The agenda included topics ranging from effective teaching techniques to “nurturing the self-reflective learner.” The training was made up of “presentations to the whole workshop as well as smaller ‘break-out’ discussions by elementary, middle school, and high school teachers.” In the middle school breakout discussion, Mike Settanni, a former Teacher of the Year, told the teachers, “Kids really want to know the boundaries in the classroom. … If they know the boundaries, they know they’re safe – that’s for any level kid. It doesn’t matter how old they are.” He also noted that in addition to classroom management, “having fun” is also a “key to success in the classroom.”
Sole Teacher Strike In America Nears End.
The AP (9/13) reported that Dale Folkerts, a Kent, WA teachers union official “says a tentative agreement has been reached aimed at ending the nation’s only teacher strike.” Folkerts “says the agreement came around 7 p.m. Sunday during weekend talks between the Kent School District and union negotiators.” According to the AP, a “key element for the strikers was smaller class sizes.”
Special Needs
Appeals Court Ruling Aims To Define Public Education Standards For Disabled Students.
The Dallas Morning News (9/13, Weiss) reports that a recent federal appeals court ruling “is the latest attempt by judges to define the level of public education that disabled students are entitled to receive.” The ruling “imposes new standards for parents in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi who seek reimbursement from school districts for some special education services not available from public schools.” The case “focused on the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act,” and involves a girl from Richardson, TX who “entered the Richardson public schools in 1999,” and “was found to be autistic and bipolar with a constellation of other personality disorders, all of which qualified her as disabled.” The federal appeals court vacated a lower court ruling in favor of the parents, sending the case back to assess a new legal test outlined by the federal panel.
Safety & Security
High School Violence-Prevention Efforts Lacking, Parent Survey Finds.
U.S. News and World Report/HealthDay (9/13) reported that a University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health finds that “only about one in four U.S. parents say their child’s high school deserves an ‘A’ for its bullying- and violence-prevention efforts.” However, nearly four in 10 respondents “gave an ‘A’ grade for such efforts at their child’s elementary or middle schools.” According to HealthDay, last May, researchers “asked 1,087 parents across the United States about how they would grade their child’s school in five categories: safety of the school overall, building security, bullying and school violence prevention, safety during school-wide emergencies, informing parents of school-wide emergencies.”
Some School Districts Ban “Jelly” Bracelets Over Concerns About Use In Sex Games.
The New York Times (9/13, A31, Frosch) reported that Mike Medina, principal of Angevine Middle School in Lafayette, CO has “sent an e-mail message to parents on Thursday warning” about “jelly” bracelets, “whose colors are said to indicate a level of sexual activity that a student has either experienced or is willing to engage in, said Briggs Gamblin, a spokesman for the Boulder Valley School District.” The “rubbery bracelets look like the sort that became popular during the ’80s. But over the past few years, some schools across the country have banned them amid fears that they have become synonymous with sex.”
Also in the News
Average Class Sizes World Wide Similar To US Average.
Catherine Rampell wrote in an Economix blog for the New York Times (9/11), “Earlier this week we posted some new data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on teachers’ working hours, pay and demographics around the world.” In response to a request from a reader about class sizes around the world, Rampell added that American schools “aren’t really much more crowded than educational institutions in other developed countries,” as on average, 23.1 students “fill the typical American primary school classroom, which is just above the O.E.C.D. average of 21.4 students.” Also, “some of the countries with some of the world’s highest achieving student bodies – like Korea and Japan – have the biggest class sizes.”
Parents Sue South Dakota District Over Dress Code, Citing Financial Hardship.
The AP (9/13) reported though unexpected school expenses “can stress any parent,” for many with students in South Dakota’s Cheyenne-Eagle Butte School District, “finding gas money or a ride to an affordable store can prove all but impossible, much less paying for the clothes if they get there.” Carol Moran and other parents have joined the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe “in a federal lawsuit seeking to block the school district from enforcing the dress code, which requires students to wear black, white or tan shirts, pants, skirts or shorts.” Administrators “say it is intended to avoid gang violence.”
NEA in the News
Judge Finds Missouri District’s Collective Bargaining Policy Constitutional.
Missouri’s News-Leader (9/11, Trotter) reported that last week, “Greene County Circuit Judge Michael Cordonnier ruled in favor of the” Springfield (MO) school district, “and against the district’s largest teacher organization, the Springfield National Education Association,” when he found a “disputed collective bargaining policy” to be constitutional. In June, the SNEA “sued Springfield Public Schools…after the school board adopted policy HH,” which “requires teachers to vote if they want just one labor group to represent them. If they do, they would be asked to choose between” the Springfield National Education Association and another teachers union “or for no representation at all.” According to SNEA attorney Sally Barker, “the policy is unconstitutional because it allows a minority party to potentially undermine the majority interest.” She “also said collective bargaining is accepted to mean the exclusive representation by a majority vote.” The News-Leader notes that “SNEA will have 40 days to appeal the decision.”
Teachers In Washington Accept Tentative Contract, End Strike.
The Seattle Times (Bartley, Brunner) reported that “The Kent teachers strike ended shortly before 10″ Monday “morning after teachers voted overwhelmingly to accept a tentative contract agreement reached Sunday evening.” Under the new contract, class enrollments for grades K-3 will be capped at 29 students, “and grades 4-6 at 32. In the contract that had expired, the caps were 31 and 34 respectively.” The Seattle Times pointed out that “class size had been the most contentious issue in the strike that began Aug. 27, with teachers asserting that not only are Kent’s classrooms seriously overcrowded, but many students have health or behavior problems, come from impoverished families and are not native English speakers.”
Lynne Varner wrote in the Seattle Times (9/15) Ed Cetera blog, “Facing $200 a day in court-ordered fines, teachers in the Kent School District chose to return to work” on Monday. Meanwhile, some “interesting” casualties “of the strike may be some members of the School Board,” who, “during the strike…cancelled” the board’s Sept. 9th meeting. This angered some parents, including “a group calling itself the Kent Parents Coalition” who “launched on Facebook a petition to recall the elected board.”
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In the Classroom
Online Program Allows Teachers To Add Standards-Based Data To Progress Reports.
With The Baltimore Sun (9/15, Gencer) reports that for Baltimore County public school students, “an online program that has been in the works for several years will allow teachers to detail students’ specific skills,” on progress reports and report cards “such as whether they can describe what running water does to the Earth’s surface in science or know how to work with variables in math.” The information is aimed at providing student feedback “beyond the typical As, Bs and Cs.” The reports also provide “a list of key course objectives, with more detailed skill indicators under each element.” School officials said that “training for teachers and administrators” on how to use the online program “started this month…and parents should receive the progress reports in the spring semester.” Baltimore County also plans to share “the copyrighted program…at no cost with all of the state’s school systems.”
Students Fold Flags For Soldiers To Commemorate National Day Of Service And Remembrance.
Maryland’s The Capital (9/14, Hulette) reported that students at Crofton Woods Elementary School in Maryland folded 2,000 flags last week that are being “sent to U.S. soldiers serving overseas.” The flags were also a way for Crofton Woods teachers to “broach the subject” of Sept. 11 “with children born around the same time it happened.” According to Principal John Barzal “the details of Sept. 11 are best left to parents to discuss with their children.” So educators at the school instead took “a cue from President Obama’s declaration of Sept. 11 as Patriot Day and National Day of Service and Remembrance” and “put together an afternoon curriculum for third-graders that included lessons on American landmarks and the national anthem…a chorus of ‘I’m Proud to Be an American,’” and the paper-folding project.
Closing Latino Achievement Gap Seen As Crucial For Nation’s Economic Progress.
William McKenzie writes in a column for the Dallas Morning News (9/15) that if “we don’t close” the Latino achievement gap, “America’s workforce will lack the high-order skills the economy demands. There’s no upside to allowing such a fast-growing demographic group trail behind, unless we prefer second-tier nation status.” However, the Obama administration “gets the problem, as did the Bush administration. In fact, going back to the first Bush presidency, the White House has had an initiative to improve Latinos’ educational progress.” Juan Sepuvelda “now heads that effort, and the former San Antonio management consultant was in Dallas last week as part of a national listening tour. He’s learning what communities are doing to improve Latino success in schools and what they must do to ramp it up.” Both Sepuvelda and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan are on a campaign to boost the number of Latino teachers, and the “answer is not a quota system, but more teachers who can reach students from a similar culture.”
On the Job
State Grants Provide Monetary Incentives For Some Teachers In Richmond, Virginia.
The Richmond (VA) Times Dispatch (9/14, Lizama) reported, “Although the debate about performance-based pay for teachers is a long way from being settled, many Richmond-area teachers already receive thousands of dollars in additional pay for education degrees and certifications through state grants.” During the 2008-09 school year, for instance, “the Henrico County school system paid about $260,000 in extra pay for teachers…through different state-administered programs” such as the Virginia Middle School Teacher Corps. “For every hired teacher accepted for Teacher Corps, school systems receive $10,000 for an annual salary differential for that teacher. If a teacher who is already working at a school system is accepted into Teacher Corps, that teacher gets a $5,000 annual salary differential.” Some school systems also “participate in the National Board Certified Teachers Program, a voluntary program that allows teachers to demonstrate competence in teaching.” Once they become certified, teachers “receive a one-time $5,000 bonus…and $2,500 annually for the life of the certificate, which is nine years.”
Virginia District Prepares To Launch Merit-Pay Pilot Program. The Richmond (VA) Times-Dispatch (9/14, Lizama) reported, “The Henrico County school system is poised to start a pilot program in which teacher pay would be tied to student performance.” District officials are “waiting for Congress to authorize hundreds of millions in funding for performance-based pay programs for teachers.” President Barack Obama “has recommended $487 million in funding in fiscal 2010 — up from $97 million the previous year — for the Teacher Incentive Fund to support performance-based teacher and principal compensation systems in high-needs schools.”
Teachers In Some Colorado Districts Working Without Contracts.
The Denver Post (9/15, Meyer) reports, “Nearly a month into the school year and teachers in several Front Range districts are still working without a contract.” Although “Colorado teachers have not waged a strike for 15 years,” and “no one expects a strike this year…teachers unions from Pueblo to Greeley are battling their districts over contract offers they say are unfair.” However the state has “asked districts to hold back $110 million from their spending for a crisis reserve that most expect the legislature will raid in January.” Kerrie Dallman, president of the Jefferson County Education Association, noted that more is being demanded of teachers, but compensation is not keeping up. Meanwhile, “federal mediators are being called in to help negotiations this week” in two districts.
More Districts Hiring Foreign Teachers, Report Says.
The New York Times (9/15, A16, Dillon) reports that some school districts in the U.S. “have turned increasingly to overseas recruiting to find teachers willing to work in their hard-to-staff schools, according to a new report” by that by the American Federation of Teachers. The study “used government data to estimate that 19,000 foreign teachers were working in the United States on temporary visas in 2007, and that the number was rising steadily.” The AFT “published the report in the hope it would lead to heightened regulation, it said. The report cited the prosecution of several recruiting companies and three Texas school administrators on charges related to smuggling immigrants and visa fraud and other cases as examples of the dangers that can accompany the foreign recruiting of teachers.”
Law & Policy
State Anti-Bullying Laws Not Uniformly Enforced, Review Finds.
The AP (9/14, Walker) reported that in light of recent student suicides, parents and advocates are “complaining that anti-bullying laws enacted in nearly every state are not being enforced and do not go far enough to identify and rid schools of chronic tormentors.” According to the AP, 44 states “expressly ban bullying, a legislative legacy of a rash of school shootings in the late ’90s, yet few if any of those measures have identified children who excessively pick on their peers,” an AP review finds. Also, few states “offer any method for ensuring the policies are enforced, according to data compiled by the National Conference of State Legislatures.”
Education Data Systems Viewed As Key To California’s “Race To The Top” Eligibility.
The Los Angeles Times (9/15, Felch, Song) reports that California’s chance to receive hundreds of millions in “Race to the Top” funds “may rest heavily on an obscure and long-neglected piece of education infrastructure: a statewide data system that tracks students, teachers and administrators year to year.” Such data systems “are expensive, complex and do not win elections for politicians.” Yet experts “say they are essential to learn how much of the nearly $60 billion that California spends on K-12 education makes a difference, a fact that student achievement tests only hint at.” According to the Times, last month, California “rolled out the first component, a student database known as CalPADS. … The second major component, a teacher and administrator database known as CalTIDES, will not come online until 2011.”
Safety & Security
Cyber Thieves Targeting Public Schools, Universities Across US.
Brian Krebs wrote in a Security Fix blog for the Washington Post (9/15), “A gang of organized cyber criminals that has stolen millions from businesses across the United States over the past month appears to have turned its sights on public schools and universities.” According to Krebs, on Aug. 17, hackers “who had broken into computers at the Sanford [CO] School District…initiated a batch of bogus transfers out of the school’s payroll account.” Also, the Sand Springs, OK district “was attacked by a cyber gang the week prior on Aug. 11,” and cyber thieves stole more than $189,000 from Marian University in Fond du Lac, WI.
Levels Of Toxicity In Air Worse Than Once Thought At PA School.
USA Today (9/14, Morrison, Heath) reports, “Almost a year after tests by USA Today found significant levels of two potentially toxic metals in the air outside” Highlands High School in Pennsylvania, local health officials “expanded their own monitoring efforts here. The reason: Air samples taken by the county earlier this year showed even higher levels of the metals than what USA Today found — on two days, at least nine times more.” Highlands “is among scores of schools where regulators…are monitoring outdoor air for toxic chemicals, many that pose unique dangers to kids.” The monitoring “came in response to the USA Today investigation that identified hundreds of schools where chemicals from nearby industries may permeate the air.”
Deaths Of Three High School Football Players Heat-Related, Researcher Says.
The AP (9/14) reported that Dr. Fred Mueller, director of the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research at the University of North Carolina, “says at least three teenage football players died as school practices started up this summer” in the U.S., fatalities “which followed new health warnings to coaches about the risks of heat stroke.” Though none of the deaths “have been confirmed as heat-related,” each “has heightened awareness about heat illness.”
Also in the News
ACT Viewed As Better Gauge Of Academic Achievement Than SAT.
The Washington Post (9/14) published excerpts from a recent “Answer Sheet” blog written by Valerie Strauss in which Edward Carroll, a standardized test expert and tutor at the Princeton Review answered questions on the relevance of the SAT and the ACT. Carroll is quoted saying that the SAT is “not a measure of a student’s raw math or verbal ability. The College Board itself does not claim that the SAT predicts subject skills, but rather that it is a predictor of performance in college.” However, according to Carroll, the ACT “tests what students learn better than the SAT. It has its own flaws, but what it purports to do it does better than the SAT.”
NEA in the News
Labor Groups Working Out Details Of Reunification.
The Washington Post (9/15, MacGillis) reports, “When President Obama arrives” in Pittsburgh today “to address the AFL-CIO’s convention, he will find a labor movement eager for the opportunity his election presented — and yet still consumed with divisions that threaten to distract from its agenda.” Four years ago, the Service Employees International Union “and a handful of others broke away from the AFL-CIO, declaring that the federation had grown complacent and was too focused on preserving the gains of existing members instead of the organizing needed to reverse labor’s decline.” Now, union “leaders in both coalitions” are “looking to patch things up.” Still, “what form reunification might take is unclear. Former Michigan congressman David Bonior presided over discussions this spring among the two federations and the National Education Association, which is independent.” Bonior said that the unions have had differences, but added that they are not “insurmountable.”
Illinois Allows Labor Leaders To Base Pensions On Union Salaries.
The Chicago Sun-Times (9/15, Novak, Golab) reports that “A Chicago Sun-Times examination of the state’s 17 largest government retirement plans found more than five dozen retired government workers whose pensions are based not on their public salaries but, instead, on what they were paid by labor unions, lobbying groups and other non-governmental organizations.” For instance, “Reginald L. Weaver, a former elementary school teacher in Harvey, gets a yearly state pension of $226,485 based on his salary as president of the National Education Association in Washington, D.C.” He has “12 years with the NEA and the Illinois Education Association.” While Weaver “contributed about $200,000 toward his state pension…the unions contributed about $492,000, records show.
NEA To Spend $6 Million Increasing Teacher Effectiveness In High-Needs Schools.
Education Week (9/17, Sawchuk) reports, “The National Education Association plans to put $6 million over six years into ‘comprehensive strategies and policies to increase teacher effectiveness in high-needs schools.’” The money will be used to support “four strategies outlined in” a report by Barnett Berry, president of the Hillsborough, N.C.-based Center for Teaching Quality. “Among Berry’s major recommendations, states and districts should focus on comprehensive initiatives to lure teachers to hard-to-staff schools and ensure that they grow in effectiveness while there.” The NEA “will survey teachers in high-needs schools to understand the working conditions they need to be successful and review policies that seem to get in the way of those working conditions.” It also “promises support for the national-board-certification process and to encourage incentive-pay systems to offer at least $10,000 for such teachers to work in hard-to-staff schools.” Furthermore, the NEA “pledges to support ‘state and local affiliates who are legitimate partners in pursuit of innovative incentive and compensation programs, through funding streams such as the [Teacher Incentive Fund] grant program.’”
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In the Classroom
New York To Launch First Game-Inspired Public School Curriculum.
Popular Science (9/17, Hsu) reports the upcoming “launch of the first U.S. public school curriculum based entirely on game-inspired learning,” which “hopes its guided approach can help students take on the role of explorers, mathematicians, historians, writers and evolutionary biologists.” Manhattan’s Quest to Learn (Q2L) school is not a place “where children spend their day playing commercial videogames,” and “a look at the school’s curriculum confirms a far more ambitious and hands-on approach to education.” Attending students, “each equipped with a laptop, attend four 90-minute periods each day, rather than study individual subjects.” A noted “sample curriculum” has “students create a graphic novel based on the epic Babylonian poem ‘Gilgamesh,’ record their understanding of ancient Mesopotamian culture though geographer and anthropologist journals, and play the strategic board game ‘Settlers of Catan,’” as well as use Google Earth to “explore the regions of ancient Mesopotamia.”
Florida IB Student Refuses To Read Sexually Provocative Required Novel.
The St. Petersburg Times (9/17, Solochek) reports that “in the world of literary criticism, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is considered a modern masterpiece, its best-selling Japanese author Haruki Murakami worthy of the Nobel Prize.” The book features “themes of self-identity and post-war Japan,” but the sexual imagery Murakami employs in the novel are offensive to some, including Gulf High School student Mari Mercado, who “refused to read the book, even though it is a key requirement in her IB English course.” Mercado’s “parents, Rafael and Mindy, support her decision and have asked for an alternative text.” The family has “not reached a compromise with Mari’s teacher or administrators,” but it has “reached out to the Pasco County School Board with their concerns. And they’ve sought guidance from the Christian Law Association.” At least two school board members agree with the Mercado’s’ decision.
Reliability Of Standardized Test Results Questioned.
Maureen Downey wrote in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (9/16) Get Schooled blog, “I have to tell you that after writing about education for 12 years, I am still baffled by whether any test results can be trusted, whether in Gwinnett County…or on the national level.” Recently, the New York Times noted that on New York’s state tests, “even random guessing could produce a passing score. … On the sixth-grade English test, for instance, a student had an 89 percent chance of reaching Level 2 this year by randomly guessing,” the Times analysis said. Downey admits, however, that she has found “high SAT and ACT scorers” to be, “in fact, smart kids.” She added that the “tests seem fair reflections of the students operating at the highest proficiencies,” but questioned their reliability “with lower performing students.”
Blogger Notes Lack Of Analysis On Asian, White Achievement Gap. Liz Bowie wrote in the Baltimore Sun (9/16) Inside Ed blog, “We spend a lot of time concentrating on how to improve the achievement of African Americans and Hispanic students, but when I pore over data sometimes I wonder: Why aren’t we analyzing the achievement gap between Asians and whites?” Asians students tend to “have higher pass rates on most of the state and national tests that” Bowie has observed “in the last several years.” She noted, specifically, that on Maryland’s “list of…National Merit Semifinalists,” the percentage of “Asian surnames” appeared “to be higher than the percentage of Asians in the general population in Maryland.”
On the Job
Teachers Increasingly Turn To Local, National Donors For Classroom Supplies.
The Dallas Morning News (9/17, Holloway) reports that “Vernon Lewis, a music teacher at Mesquite’s Poteet High School,” wrote grant proposals in hopes of winning money to pay for “electronic tuners and metronomes” needed to keep instruments in tune. Vernon was able to secure two grants for that purpose. The Dallas Morning News notes that “more and more teachers are turning to outside donors to provide everything for their classrooms from Manila paper to iPods, from books to scientific equipment and even rugs to keep students off the floor.” The funding comes from “local school foundations [and] national nonprofit groups” such as the NEA.
Students At Elementary School In Maryland Learn H1N1 Prevention Techniques.
The Washington Post (9/17, A1, Hernandez) reports on its front page that schools throughout the Washington, D.C. area “are building up chemical stockpiles and barraging students with lessons on how to wash their hands and cough into their elbows,” to combat the spread of swine flu. Because “all the soap and sanitizer in the world won’t do much good if children don’t use it,” educators at Spark M. Matsunaga Elementary School in Germantown, MD, teach students how to master “the art of coughing into their elbows and not touching their eyes, nose or mouth.” Students are also reminded “to be on guard against germs” at all times by “the posters of the hand-washing cartoon Henry the Hand” hanging on walls.
District Allows Unlimited Excused Absences To Encourage Sick Students To Stay Home. The Clanton (AL) Advertiser (9/16, Averette) reported, “The Chilton County Board of Education has suspended a rule that limits how many excused absences students can have per year” in order to “combat the spread of the H1N1 flu by keeping sick students home.” After a student has reached the district’s limit of six excused absences per year, “parents or guardians must provide medical or legal documentation for absences to be excused.” Superintendent Keith Moore said that the move was temporary, but he was unsure how long the new policy would be in place.
Denver Teachers Union Members Voting On Pay Deduction.
The Denver Post (9/17, Meyer) reports, “Teachers in Denver’s union are voting on whether to accept a renegotiated contract with the district that would pay them 1.65 percent less this year, saving DPS about $5 million.” They “began voting on the tentative agreement Tuesday, and ballots are expected to be returned by Friday.” Wednesday, “the district and union released a joint press release…outlining the terms and reasons for reopening the three-year contract that was inked last year.” While “the original agreement gave teachers a cost-of-living raise that was the rate of inflation in the metro area plus 0.25 percent … since that agreement … the economic situation has drastically declined.” As a result, districts have been forced “to hold back 1.93 percent of state funding in a reserve until January, when the legislature will decide what to do with it.”
Law & Policy
Education Department’s School Improvement Efforts Said To Circumvent Local Prerogative.
Education Week (9/16, Klein) reported that as the Department of Education “prepares to throw $3 billion in one-time money on the table to improve perennially foundering schools, a gulf is emerging between what federal officials would like to see done with the funds and what many districts say is their capacity — and inclination — to deliver.” Though some districts say the federal funds “and direction will help advance improvement strategies already under way,” other districts warn the Department’s vision, “leaves little room for local prerogative.” That “proper balance of federal oversight” will be a crucial test for Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s “pledge to turn around what he has termed the nation’s 5,000 ‘chronically underperforming’ schools,” via the Title I School Improvement fund, which is receiving $3 billion in stimulus dollars for fiscal 2010 “on top of $546 million the program already is getting this fiscal year.”
School Finance
DC Schools To Lay Off Teachers As A Result Of City Budget Shortfall.
The Washington Post (9/17, B1, Turque) reports on the front page of the Metro Section that D.C.’s budget woes “will force its public schools to trim as much as $40 million in spending by the end of October, prompting teacher layoffs and, in some cases, increasing class sizes, Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee announced Wednesday.” Rhee “said she did not expect any disruptions to major academic programs or course offerings,” adding that the moves “are the result of a shortfall created when the D.C. Council made additional cuts to the fiscal 2010 budget in August.”
Also in the News
Aldine, Texas Independent School District Wins Broad Prize.
The AP (9/16, Rhor) reported that the Aldine, TX Independent School District “won the nation’s top prize in public education, winning $1 million for making strides in student achievement.” Aldine was honored with the Broad Prize for Urban Education “for showing consistent student improvement over the last 10 years. The prize money goes to scholarships for graduating seniors who show financial need and academic improvement.” The Broad Prize “is given annually to an urban district that shows the strongest student performance, while closing achievement gaps between ethnic and racial groups.” The Christian Science Monitor (9/17, Paulson) reports that Aldine “was up for the award for the fourth time. … Between 2005 and 2008, it reduced the gap in middle-school math scores for African-American students by 14 percentage points.” Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced the winner in Washington, and is quoted saying, “Aldine shows us that it’s possible for a district facing tough circumstances to get excellent results.”
Seema Mehta wrote in a L.A. Now blog for the Los Angeles Times (9/16) that the Long Beach, CA Unified School District “failed to capture the top prize of $1 million in college scholarships,” but “received $250,000 in scholarships for the class of 2010 as one of five finalists.”
NEA in the News
East Providence Education Association Continues To Reject Performance Pay Plan.
The Providence Journal (9/17, Morgan) reports that in a letter dated Tuesday, the East Providence Education Association “has offered to resume negotiations with the School Committee, but again rejected the committee’s call for paying teachers based on their performance rather than their seniority.” EPEA President Valarie Lawson said that the committee’s proposal for “a collaboration to develop the performance system beginning in 2011″ was “just another publicity stunt.” She added, “The School Committee knows we’re ready to sit down and talk if they have something to say other than ‘You’re going to have to pay for the deficit,’ she said.”
Texas Aligns High School, College Standards.
Education Week (9/17, Gewertz) reported, “Educators nationwide are becoming increasingly aware that high school diplomas too often leave young adults unprepared for college.” Thus, experts say the development of the Texas College and Career Readiness Standards puts the state “at the leading edge of a movement to reshape K-12 education into an experience that ensures students are ready for college or for careers that increasingly demand college-level skill.” According to Education Week, other states like South Carolina “are beginning to grapple with pieces of the gap separating high school and college.” However, “experts say Texas boasts more elements of a systemwide effort to align high school with college.”
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In the Classroom
Schools Celebrate Constitution Day.
The Nashua (NH) Telegraph (9/18, Brindley) reports, “Schools around the nation will celebrate Constitution Day today, holding a variety of lesson plans and activities on the historic document’s 222nd anniversary.” Schools that receive federal funding “have been required to teach about the Constitution on Sept. 17, the anniversary of the date on which the document was adopted,” since 2005. Although “many educators were caught off guard by the requirement” in 2005, principals now say “they are…fully aware of the requirement and have been planning activities for the day.” Nashua’s Pennichuck Middle School Principal Paul Asbell said that he is not bothered that schools must “teach about the Constitution on a specific day. … Setting aside a day each year will hopefully raise student awareness about its historical significance, he said,” noting, “It’s a critically important document.”
Student Permitted To Choose Alternate To Required Novel For IB Course.
The St. Petersburg Times (9/18, Solochek) reports that “after meeting with school officials Thursday,” Mari Mercado will “no longer would be required to read an assigned novel that” she “thought contained too much graphic sex.” Instead, she and her parents “will get to pick an alternate book from an approved list.” Mercado, a high school junior, will be able to use that book instead of Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle for her required world literature essay.” Before the agreement was reached, Mari would have gotten “a zero for not writing the essay, a grade that could have jeopardized her chances to successfully complete an IB diploma.” But, “on Thursday, assistant superintendent Ruth Reilly said the district had consulted with IBO officials, who said that in instances where parents cannot be convinced of the value of the material selected, the program will allow for an alternate text.”
On the Job
Dallas District Schools’ “Organizational Health” Scores Mixed.
The Dallas Morning News (9/18, Rado) reports that school “organizational health” scores provided by the Dallas district “reveal a wide range of working conditions at more than 200 buildings in 2008-09, based on surveys that rate factors such as staff morale, problem-solving ability, innovation and creativity at schools.” According to the Morning News, the data reveals that middle schools “fared worst in the analysis.” Organizational health “relates to a school’s ability to function effectively, cope with problems, focus on goals and change and grow.” Organizational Health: Diagnostic and Development Corp. “has been doing the organizational health surveys and other consulting work since 2003-04,” and the company “links this health to students’ performance on state achievement tests.”
New York City Schools Chief Pressures Principals To Hire From Reserve Teacher Pool.
The New York Times (9/18, A28, Medina) reports that in light of the fact that more than 1,500 existing teachers on New York City’s payroll are without permanent job placements, schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein “has told principals that if they do not fill those jobs by the end of next month, they will lose any money they had allocated for their teacher vacancies.” Principals across the city “have resisted hiring teachers from the so-called absent reserve pool, in which teachers are placed if they lose their posts when a school is shut down or forced to shrink its teaching staff because of budget cuts or declining enrollments.” According to the Times, by “forcing principals to fill the remaining 1,050 vacancies in the system from the existing pool,” city education officials “expect to save about $75 million.”
Elementary School Staff Employ Heimlich Maneuver Training To Save Choking Students.
The Plainfield (IL) Sun (9/18, Lundquist) reports that at Lincoln Elementary School, “two children choking on food were saved by fast-acting staffers in separate incidents that occurred weeks apart.” The first incident occurred on Sept. 2 when a fourth-grader choked “on a piece of chicken” in the school cafeteria. “Lunchroom Supervisor Abigail Carter performed the Heimlich maneuver on” the student, and when she had “dislodged the chicken…the lunchroom burst into applause.” Then, last Friday, a student in Jill Beckes’ first grade class choked on a grape in the classroom during snack time. “Beckes knew how to do the Heimlich maneuver from information provided by the school nurse” days earlier.
DC Mayor, Schools Chief Accused Of Using Budget Cut “Pretext” To Fire Union Teachers.
The Washington Post (9/18, B2, Turque) reports that D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray “angrily accused” Mayor Adrian Fenty’s administration “of seeking to ‘scapegoat’ the council for impending public school budget cuts announced this week and called the reductions a pretext for firing unionized teachers.” Fenty and Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee “announced late Wednesday that the District would be forced to lay off teachers as part of an estimated $30 million to $40 million cut in the $770 million public school budget for the new fiscal year.” Gray “said the mayor and chancellor were attempting to deflect responsibility for cuts in a budget that the mayor signed last month without any mention of possible teacher layoffs.”
Law & Policy
Federal Judge Backs South Carolina District’s Ban On Confederate-Themed Clothing.
The AP (9/17) reported, “A federal judge has sided with a South Carolina school district in a lawsuit by a student who says a ban on Confederate-themed clothing violated her right to free speech.” According to the judge, the student “didn’t have enough evidence to mount a successful case. The North Carolina-based Southern Legal Resource Center in 2006 filed a lawsuit to force Latta High School to let the then-15-year-old sophomore wear the Confederate emblem. School officials said the apparel was disruptive.”
Student Will Appeal Ruling On Confederate-Themed Clothing. The AP (9/17) reported that Candice Hardwick, a student who sued the Latta School District (SD) “over the right to wear Confederate-themed clothing to school will appeal a ruling that sides with the district,” said Kirk Lyons, an attorney for the Southern Legal Resource Center. In 2006, the SLRC filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Hardwick, then a high school sophomore. Hardwick’s attorneys “argued that the teen – who was forced to change clothes, turn shirts inside-out and was suspended twice for Confederate-themed clothing in middle school – felt that a ban on wearing the Confederate emblem violated her right to free speech.” That argument “was tossed out last week by a federal judge, who ruled that Hardwick’s attorneys didn’t have enough evidence to succeed with their case.”
Parents Concerned “Religious Release Time” For Some Students May Disrupt Learning.
The Oregonian (9/18, Navas) reports that “a religious group wants to pull elementary students out of Sherwood schools for bible study, drawing concern from a group of parents who say the missed time could disrupt their own children’s learning or allow religion to spill into the classroom.” The nonprofit Christian group PREP4Kids “wants to offer the off-campus classes for Sherwood School District’s five elementary schools for the first time this year.” In Oregon, “school districts must allow for up to two hours of religious release time per week for elementary students.” In Sherwood, “students will only be allowed to participate if their parents sign permission slips,” education officials say. Also, the district “will not pay for transportation to and from the off-site church location and students would be responsible for making up any missed assignments.”
Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Challenging South Dakota District’s Dress Code.
The AP (9/17) reported that U.S. District Judge Charles Kornmann “has dismissed a lawsuit that sought to prevent a South Dakota school district from imposing a dress code.” Kornmann “took the action Thursday after learning that the Cheyenne River Sioux tribal council, which filed the suit, had withdrawn its support.” According to the AP, some parents “had complained they couldn’t afford the required clothing. … School officials say the dress code already has helped reduce gang-related behavior problems.”
Safety & Security
Report Examines Efforts To Ensure Safe Schools In Tennessee.
The Clarksville (TN) Online (9/18) reports that a study “released Tuesday by the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury’s Offices of Research and Education Accountability (OREA) examines Tennessee’s efforts to make sure that its schools are safe.” The Keeping Tennessee Schools Safe report was initiated “after a tragic fatal shooting at a Tennessee high school in 2008.” It “provides a comparison of state laws, policies, and requirements with accepted best practices for keeping schools safe from violence.” According to the report, “Tennessee has made significant progress since the mid-1990s toward ensuring the safety of its students and school personnel.” However, even though “safety and violence prevention efforts are addressing most of the identified best practices for safe and secure learning environments, staff and funding needed to implement the requirements are limited and decreasing,” it said.
Georgia District Will Allow Random School Searches Before, During, And After Class.
WJBF-TV Augusta, GA (9/17, Clervaud) reported that “this year, officers with the Richmond County Board of Education Public Safety Department” will work “with faculty and staff to have random searches before, during, and after school.” Josey High School Principal Dr. Donald Wiggins said that the “new random searches can be used as an education tool.” He noted, “If students do have questions about school safety, it can give them a chance to actually counsel those students into making better decisions.” Furthermore, the “searches will give students and faculty a better sense of security,” educators say.
Also in the News
Students In Los Angeles Create Social Network Site To Educate Peers On Obesity.
Robert Lopez writes in the Los Angeles Times (9/17) LA Now blog, “Teachers and students from South Los Angeles and Baldwin Park this morning will announce the launch of a social network website to educate youths about junk food and obesity.” A group of “40 students from high schools in the two areas” created the WereFedUp website “to share information about the perils of fast food and teen obesity.” It “features photos of the students involved in the social network, as well as videos and blog posts about nutrition, junk food and exercise.”
School Crossing Guard Donates Bikes To Students.
The St. Petersburg Times (9/18, Perez) reports that last weekend, school crossing guard Denice Rigali “and her husband, Darryl…hit the flea market, garage sales, and pawn shops” for bicycles. “Sellers conspired like elves, letting the bikes go for $5 to $20, or even free.” Once home, Darryl “tweaked” the bikes before handing them over on Monday to six children who cross Denise Rigali’s path to school. “The Rigalis plan to give away about six more, so that every kid on the route who wants a bike has one.”
Fewer Schools Teaching Penmanship Amid Rise Of Computer Technology.
The AP (9/19, Breen) reported that penmanship “is being shunted aside at schools across the country in favor of 21st century skills.” According to the AP, the “decline of cursive is happening as students are doing more and more work on computers, including writing. In 2011, the writing test of the National Assessment of Educational Progress will require 8th and 11th graders to compose on computers, with 4th graders following in 2019.” According to Katie Van Sluys, president of the Whole Language Umbrella, handwriting “is increasingly something people do only when they need to make a note to themselves rather than communicate with others,” as students “accustomed to using computers to write at home have a hard time seeing the relevance of hours of practicing cursive handwriting.”
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In the Classroom
Teachers In Central Texas Rely On “Subtle Technologies” To Facilitate Learning.
Texas’ American Statesman (9/19, Gallaga) reported on four “subtle” technologies that are “changing the ways students learn and teachers teach” and “helping educate Central Texans in new and surprising ways.” One of these technologies, the dolce database, is a collection “of more than 50″ musical selections that “have been arranged so that students at different skill levels can play [guitar] together.” The database was “created by Austin’s Classical Guitar Society” and is currently being used by “twelve schools in Austin. There are also subscribers in other parts of the country and even one in Norway.” Another technology being used in Austin schools is a website called VolunteerSpot. Teachers use the website to communicate important messages to parents, and both “teachers and parents in the Eanes school district also use VolunteerSpot to coordinate lunchroom volunteers, recess chaperones, and concession workers for sports events.”
Efforts Of Teachers Who Transferred To Struggling Schools Chronicled.
The Houston Chronicle (9/20, Mellon) reported in a story “chronicling the experiences of Houston ISD teachers who accepted a $20,000 bonus to transfer to a troubled middle school,” on the efforts of Cheryl Contreras and Nicholas Lopez, both of whom started this year at “Fondren Middle School, a southwest Houston campus branded ‘academically unacceptable’ by the state.” They “are part of a national study that seeks to” determine whether “standout teachers” can “get the same results from students at troubled campuses” that they get from students at higher-achieving schools. The study involves seven districts and is known as the Talent Transfer Initiative. Lopez “teaches eighth-grade English to non-native speakers,” and is said to be “making headway with his second-period class, his toughest, with 33 students of different literacy levels.” Meanwhile “Contreras is worried that her first-period advanced class is falling behind.” She also “has turned to her former co-workers at Marshall for copies of their lesson plans” and said that Marshall “also had a better-stocked library.”
On the Job
Arizona District Sets Aside $1.2 Million For Professional Development Initiatives.
The Arizona Republic (9/18, Scott) reported that the Paradise Valley Unified School District “has fewer teachers this year than it would like,” but “is committed to developing existing teachers as much as possible, officials say.” Professional development will be provided by “more than 10 firms” under the district’s $1.2 million “budget for professional development.” The money “can be used to assist teachers in achieving highly qualified status, hiring substitute teachers for teachers involved in professional development, teacher mentors, academic coaches, stipends, trainers and consultants among other things.”
Law & Policy
New York City Extends Cash Incentive Anti-Poverty Program.
The New York Times (9/21, A20, Bosman) reported that an experimental New York City “antipoverty program that pays poor families up to $5,000 a year for going to regular medical checkups, attending school and keeping jobs has been extended for a third year.” According to Linda I. Gibbs, the deputy mayor for health and human services for New York City, “early results in the education component of the program that showed students improved their attendance and passed more exams when they were rewarded with cash.” Still, “results are not yet available in the work and health categories of the program,” so “it is still too early to tell if the program will be successful.” The program, Opportunity NYC Family Rewards, has distributed “more than $11 million” to “2,400 low-income families” so far.
Massachusetts Praised For Standards That Put Many Schools Out Of Compliance With NCLB.
The Boston Globe (9/21) in an editorial says, “Massachusetts maintains among the highest academic standards and toughest tests for students in the nation, even at the risk of looking bad on federal measures of ‘adequate yearly progress.’ That’s the right course, even when the latest scores on the MCAS tests in math and English push more than half of the state’s schools out of compliance with federal expectations.” So “parents should take a deep breath. Ten years ago, only 24 percent of the state’s 10th graders scored proficient or higher on the math MCAS exam. Today, 75 percent do. There’s no sense in losing sleep over each quiver in the federal government’s hypersensitive needle.”
Columnist Calls Arizona District’s Discipline Policy “Genuine Apartheid.”
Columnist Doug MacEachern wrote in an opinion piece for the Arizona Republic (9/19), Over the summer, the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) “board adopted a ‘Post-Unitary Status Plan’ that it expects will help the district escape a decades-old federal desegregation order.” While he described the goal “to see more minority students enrolled in advanced-placement programs” as “laudable,” MacEachern points out that the school board is also “calling for a two-tiered form of student discipline. One for Black and Hispanic students; one for everyone else.” Under the premise of “creating a ‘restorative school culture and climate’ that conveys a ‘sense of belonging to all students,’ the board is insisting that its schools reduce its suspensions and/or expulsions of minority students to the point that the data reflect ‘no ethnic/racial disparities.’” MacEachern asserts that “the students of the Tucson Public School District certainly deserve more” than “genuine apartheid.”
Federal Policymakers Urged To Promote Use Of Healthy Foods In School Lunches.
The Washington Post (9/21) editorializes that it is “encouraged that there is a growing movement” to promote the use of healthier foods in school lunches. Amid a pending reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, President Obama “has signaled his interest by including an extra $1 billion in his 2010 budget proposal for school food improvements, and his administration is formulating policies said to be aimed at improving the nutrition and ultimately the health of children.” First Lady Michelle Obama “has made healthier eating a signature issue, using the White House garden as a way to engage children in the importance of fruits and vegetables.” According to the Post, “Key to the movement is revising the nation’s outdated nutrition guidelines,” and “coming up with the money that school officials need to cover the cost of quality ingredients, train staff and provide proper facilities.”
Special Needs
Maine Seeking To Reduce Use Of Private Schools For Students With Severe Special Needs.
The Kennebec (ME) Journal (9/20, Stone) reports, “The way school districts provide special education services to a segment of students with severe special needs could gradually change, if state education officials have their way.” That is because the state has “a $66 million budget gap this year,” and so is seeking to develop “more public programs that serve students with autism, mental illness, rare learning disabilities and emotional disorders.” Currently, “school districts and Maine state government spend millions of dollars each year to send students with severe special needs to private schools” at a cost for instruction and transportation that “can exceed $100,000″ per student. Education Commissioner Susan Gendron said last week “that she’s working with superintendents to identify lower-cost alternatives to placing students in private programs.” Meanwhile, she is “urging special education directors to work with neighboring districts to establish regional, in-school programs serving high-need students.”
Facilities
Detroit District’s Emergency Financial Manager Seeks To Convert Schools Into Elemiddles.
The Detroit Free Press (9/21, Walsh-Sarnecki) reports that “after nearly a century of middle and junior high schools, Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb wants to eliminate all the district’s middle schools and switch back to kindergarten through eighth grade buildings.” Elemiddles, which “can be found in a handful of other metro Detroit districts,” are also “springing up in large cities such as Philadelphia, Baltimore and Cincinnati.” Some educators say elemiddles provide “a more nurturing environment” for students and “give children consistency in their learning…make it easier for teachers to know their students, and” allow teachers to “coordinate the curriculum across the grades.” Although “there’s no fixed timetable,” Mr. Bobb “would like the approximately 90 remaining elementary and middle schools changed as quickly as possible,” and “he has earmarked $189 million to convert schools.”
School Finance
Early Learning Challenge Fund Could Be Created By End Of Year.
The New York Times (9/20, A20, Dillon) reported, “Tucked away in an $87 billion higher education bill that passed the House last week was a broad new federal initiative aimed not at benefiting college students, but at raising quality in the early learning and care programs that serve children from birth through age 5.” The Early Learning Challenge Fund “would channel $8 billion over eight years to states with plans to improve standards, training and oversight of programs serving infants, toddlers and preschoolers.” The Senate is expected to pass similar legislation this fall, and President Obama could sign it in December. Education Week (9/18, Klein) also covered the story.
Also in the News
New Guidelines On Treating Hoarseness May Benefit Teachers.
In the USA Today (9/21) Your Health column, Kim Painter writes that “new guidelines on treating hoarseness published in the journal Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery” may benefit “more than half of teachers” who are sidelined by the condition “at some point” in their careers. “Singers may be better known for losing their voices, but 28 million Americans in jobs ranging from telemarketing to fitness instruction are at risk.” And, “teachers are among the hardest-hit.” But few seek medical attention. However, “if you smoke, have a lump in your throat, have trouble swallowing, are coughing up blood or have injured your throat, a full evaluation is urgent.” Fortunately, “many schools are becoming more aware of teachers’ voice problems and installing amplification systems in classrooms,” which “also help students with certain hearing or learning problems.”
South Africa’s Education System Seen As Failing Many Children.
The New York Times (9/20, A1, Dugger) reported on its front page, “Thousands of schools across South Africa are bursting with students who dream of being the accountants, engineers and doctors this country desperately needs, but the education system is often failing the very children depending on it most to escape poverty.” According to the Times, since the end of apartheid, South Africa “is at grave risk of producing what one veteran commentator has called another lost generation, entrenching the racial and class divide rather than bridging it.” Half of South Africa students “never make it to 12th grade. Many who finish at rural and township schools are so ill educated that they qualify for little but menial labor or the ranks of the jobless, fueling the nation’s daunting rates of unemployment and crime.”
Hazing At Top-Ranked High School In Massachusetts Stigmatizes Some Female Students.
The New York Times (9/19, A13, Kelley) reported on an annual hazing ritual at top-ranked Millburn (NJ) High School in which senior girls create a “‘slut list’ of incoming freshmen for the first day of school. A dozen or more names are written on a piece of notebook paper, with crass descriptions, and copies are passed around — hundreds this year, some say.” According to the Times, numerous stories detailing hazing incidents “were out in the open on Friday after half a dozen parents complained to public school officials and a discussion of hazing on a private email group for mothers made its way around this Essex County township.”
NEA in the News
NEA Disapproves Of Senate Finance Committee’s New Health Care Bill.
Alyson Klein wrote in Education Week’s (9/18, Klein) Politics K-12 blog, “The National Education Association, which is pouring money and manpower into the effort led by Democrats to overhaul the healthcare system, is less than thrilled with the new bill released earlier this week by the Senate Finance Committee.” According to the NEA, “the bill fails to provide affordable coverage for the 46 million uninsured through a public option, and will raise costs even more for middle-income workers.” Furthermore, the group “is disappointed the bill doesn’t include a public option.” Klein points out that “it may be important for Democratic leaders that groups like the NEA support their bill, particularly if there aren’t any GOP takers.” However, “leaders are also working hard to get moderate Democrats on board, who might have a different view from the NEA’s.”
Merit Pay Seen As “More Generous” Than Firing Underperforming Teachers.
The Richmond Times Dispatch (9/20) editorialized, “Merit pay is not rocket science. It obeys the obvious principle that good employees should not be treated the same as bad employees, and that bad employees can be encouraged to improve by offering them higher pay if they do so.” The Times-Dispatch asserts that this “certainly seems a more generous approach to work force motivation than simply firing those who underperform.” The paper concludes, “We wonder if the National Education Association…would find that line of reasoning persuasive.”