NEA To Encourage Best Teachers To Teach At High-Need Schools.
USA Today (10/1, Toppo) reports that the National Education Association “will encourage local chapters to ignore contract provisions that in the past have kept school districts’ best teachers out of schools that serve mostly poor and minority students.” In testimony before the House education committee on Tuesday, NEA President Dennis Van Roekel said the move “is part of the union’s ‘Priority Schools’ campaign that will also encourage ‘the most accomplished teachers-members’ to start their teaching careers in high-needs schools, remain there or transfer there.” The NEA “has come under fire from critics for supporting contracts that allow experienced teachers with more seniority to transfer to schools that serve more middle-class children.”
Jay Mathews wrote in a “Class Struggle” blog for the Washington Post (9/30), “Data show that schools in poor neighborhoods tend to have a disproportionate number of unqualified, inexperienced or out-of-field teachers. That compounds the schools’ many academic challenges.” Thus, NEA President Dennis Van Roekel “said in prepared testimony that the union would ask ‘every local NEA affiliate to enter into a compact or memorandum of understanding with its local school district to waive any contract language that prohibits staffing high-needs schools with great teachers.’”
Just published! A Place for Wonder, by Georgia Heard and Jennifer McDonough, offers a variety of centers and projects that primary teachers can weave into existing routines as they teach nonfiction literacy. Click here to preview the entire book online!
In the Classroom
Florida District Sees Some Gains With “Inquiry Math”.
The Orlando Sentinel (10/1, Weber) reports, “Gains in student test scores offer evidence that a controversial approach to teaching math is working in Seminole County public schools, district officials said Tuesday night. Since Seminole began using ‘inquiry math’ in middle schools three years ago, they said, the number of students scoring at the proficiency level in math on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test has risen from just over 67 percent to nearly 73 percent.” In the program, “teachers don’t explain formulas or ways of solving problems. Instead, they encourage students to work in small groups and discover solutions on their own.” That “has brought complaints from some parents and even some teachers, who question the effectiveness of the new instructional method and call it ‘fuzzy math.’” Yet at Tuesday’s school board meeting, “most of the approximately 130 people who showed up were teachers and principals supporting the new program.”
Kentucky School Uses Literacy Program, Weekly Tracking To Address AYP Shortfall.
The Louisville Courier-Journal (10/1, Cunningham) reports, “Principal Rob Clayton said he wasn’t surprised that his South Oldham Middle School didn’t make enough progress on state reading tests to meet one of its No Child Left Behind goals. But that didn’t make it an easy thing to hear.” Principal Clayton said, “We’re already putting a few things in place to help us address what’s going on.” Among the things being put in place are “a literacy program that provides one-on-one and small-group interventions for students,” and “a new program that will help teachers track progress on a weekly basis.”
Nevada District Developing Aligned Reading Curriculum For Whole District.
The Nevada Appeal (10/1, Vance) reports, “Each school in the Carson City School District has milestones in reading that students are expected to meet.” Now “teachers are beginning a three-year process to align the reading curriculum throughout the district.” So “reading specialists at each of the schools met last week with teachers to introduce the process, called ‘curriculum mapping,’ where individual elements of learning are broken down and analyzed.” Then “teachers will collaborate to assign specific goals, from the big ideas they want students to think about to what each student should be able to do to demonstrate proficiency in the particular area.”
Law & Policy
Indiana Legislators Hear Arguments For Later School Starting Date.
The AP (10/1, Smith) reports, “Having a uniform starting date for schools in late August or early September would save schools money and give families and kids more prime vacation time, several parents told an interim legislative committee Wednesday.” And “some tourism industry lobbyists also said a later, uniform starting date statewide would boost the tourism industry, but some education lobbyists said the issue should be decided locally.” Some districts had started earlier in August “because statewide standardized tests were given in the fall,” but “tests are now given in the spring.” Supporters of a later starting date, “Save Indiana Summers…say it would save schools cooling costs in the dog days of August — money that could be used instead on education. They also say a later date would allow high school students to work longer in the summer and earn money for college.”
Michigan District Uses Truancy Court To Combat Absenteeism.
The Lansing (MI) State Journal (10/1, Lavey) reports, “Almost 20 percent of students in the Lansing School District missed more than 21 days of class last year,” and “the problem is most acute in high schools,” as “almost 47 percent of Eastern High School’s 1,604 students … A third of Sexton High School’s 992 students,” and “about a quarter of Everett High School’s 1,835 students missed 21 or more days.” Supt. T.C. Wallace Jr. said, “It’s unacceptable.” Lansing is said to be having some success with a truancy court, where “Kids who are ticketed for skipping school appear in after-school sessions with Ingham County Probate Judge Richard Garcia to explain why they haven’t been coming to school.” Julie Lemond, chief academic officer in Lansing, said that “the district will be able to use Title I money…to help boost attendance rates. But she said getting kids to show up more often for school requires creativity from administrators and teachers in each school.”
Facilities
Geneva, Illinois, Completes Long Period Of Construction.
The Geneva (IL) Sun (10/1, Norgaard) reports, “Last month’s official opening of Geneva’s Fabyan Elementary School finally gave residents of South Mill Creek their own neighborhood school,” as “construction on the 103,000-square-foot building was completed over the summer.” And “the completion of Fabyan marks the end of a long period of construction within the Geneva School District, which was intended to accommodate the rapid growth in the community in recent years. However, the slowdown in the housing industry has curbed that growth for the time being, and no further construction is planned in the immediate future.”
New Orleans Has Yet To Create Oversight Panel For $2 Billion In School Facilities Projects.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune (10/1, Carr) reports, “Nearly a year after the state and the Orleans Parish School Board approved a nearly $2 billion facilities spending blueprint for New Orleans schools, the panel charged with overseeing the projects and spending has yet to meet. In fact, it doesn’t even exist.” Yet “school officials have already spent or committed to spend more than one-third of the $700 million designated for the projects in the first phase of the plan.” But “state officials said the process of collecting nominations for the panel has gone more slowly than anticipated, but that it’s now a priority. They anticipate the panel will be formed in the next month.” Recovery School District Superintendent Paul Vallas said that “he’s not opposed to the oversight committee, but doesn’t think it’s as vital as some do.”
Massachusetts School Building Authority Approves $660 Million In Construction Projects.
The Boston Globe (10/1, Parker) reports, “State officials moved ahead with $660 million in school construction projects in 15 districts throughout the state yesterday in a move that State Treasurer Tim Cahill said would provide a boost to the state’s economy.” The projects “approved by the Massachusetts School Building Authority will combine state and local funding to build or renovate three high schools, three middle schools and nine elementary schools, said MSBA Executive Director Katherine Craven,” and “serve about 1 percent of the state’s total student population.”
School Finance
DC Schools Chancellor Launches New Teacher Evaluation System.
The Washington Post (10/1, B1, Turque) reports that D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee “has launched a rigorous evaluation system that will make some District teachers among the first in the nation to have their job security tied to standardized test scores.” The effort “is a cornerstone of Rhee’s agenda and a goal for education reformers nationwide.” Rhee “is investing $4 million in the system, called IMPACT, which will also assess teachers against an elaborate new framework of requirements and guidelines that cover a range of factors, including classroom presence.” However, IMPACT “is likely to be another flash point in Rhee’s turbulent relationship with local and national teachers union leaders. They say that growth statistics are too unreliable to include in performance evaluations and that the new assessment system…is an instrument to identify and remove struggling teachers, not a means to help them improve.”
Oregon May Adopt Performance Pay To Be Eligible For Race To The Top Funds.
The Salem (OR) Statesman Journal (10/1, Loew) reports, “Oregon school districts soon may evaluate teachers and principals based on their students’ performance. The state is gearing up to compete for federal ‘Race to the Top’ funds,” and “‘pay for performance’ is among the reforms required to win a share of the federal stimulus money.” While, “Oregon’s education unions traditionally have opposed the concept,” yet “Margie Lowe, education policy adviser for Gov. Ted Kulongoski, said the potential amount of grant money — $43 million or more — has prompted a new level of cooperation.” Still, “Becca Uherbelau, a spokeswoman for the Oregon Education Association, said the group remains opposed to tying teacher pay to student test scores.” Instead, “OEA and the National Education Association are lobbying U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan to revise the rules.”
Arizona Charter Advocates Warned Against Seeking Funding Equity Through Courts.
The Arizona Republic (10/1) in an editorial notes that “a group of parents and a student supported by the Arizona Charter Schools Association have filed a pair of lawsuits to force the Legislature to spend more on public education,” to attain “funding equity among traditional, district schools,” and “for charter-school students.” Yet, “If there is an education-funding cause the Arizona Legislature might consider favorably, it would be more money for these public-school hybrids.” Also, “Charters came into being here in 1994 based, in part, on the premise they could do more for students with less money.” While “there is no doubt both traditional and charter schools in Arizona operate on skin-and-bones budgets,” and “many of the most successful national charter organizations will not open shop here because per-student funding just won’t cut the bottom line,” yet “pursuing that equity through the courts is a dodgy proposition.”
Also in the News
Brookings Estimates Cost Of Closing Schools At Nearly $50 Billion.
The AP (10/1) reports, “Closing schools and day care centers because of swine flu could cost between $10 billion and $47 billion, a report by the Brookings Institution think tank found.” Brookings “called that a conservative estimate.” Closing schools would require “parents to stay home from work too, and some of those parents are health care workers, the report said.”
On its “Booster Shots” blog, the Los Angeles Times (10/1, Maugh) reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised that schools only close in “exceptional circumstances,” since the swine flu virus is already widespread. Brookings figured that “as much as 12% of the workforce would be absent from the job” if schools were to close, and that “up to 17% of healthcare personnel would also be absent, severely impeding the ability of authorities to deal with the pandemic.”
Police Increase Security At Chicago High School Plagued By Violence.
The Chicago Tribune (9/29, Mack) reports that “Chicago police geared up to provide extra security at Fenger High School” in Chicago “on Monday as they reviewed a graphic amateur video showing a student beaten to death with wooden two-by-fours.” After the incident, some families “expressed reservations about” their children “returning to Fenger on Monday.” The school has been closed since last Thursday, “when brewing gang rivalries that started at school spilled onto the streets of the Roseland neighborhood on Chicago’s Far South Side.” Police presence around the school is expected to be increased in order to “ease fears students and their parents may have about safety, Morgan Park District Cmdr. Mike Kuemmeth said. The beefed-up security will remain until the public perception that the school is dangerous decreases, he said.”
The AP (9/29, Hawkins) reports that “for Chicago, a sharp rise in violent student deaths during the past three school years — most from shootings off school property — have been a tragedy and an embarrassment.” Between “10-15 students were fatally shot each year” before 2006. Then, “in the 2006-07 school year,” the number rose to 24. Last Year, “and 34 deaths and 290 shootings” occurred. To address the problem, the city of Chicago this month “announced a $30 million project that targets 1,200 high school pupils identified as most at risk to become victims of gun violence, giving them full-time mentors and part-time jobs to keep them off the streets.”
Advertisement
How can we create writing classrooms that are friendlier to boys? In Boy Writers, Ralph Fletcher explores how to give boys more choices and how to engage them in classroom discussions. He tackles difficult issues such as gender differences, violence and humor, edgy language, and handwriting. Click here to read Chapter 1: The Trouble with Boys.
In the Classroom
Top-Performing New York City High School Teeming With Students.
The New York Times (9/29, A1, Medina) reports on its front page that Francis Lewis High School in Queens, NY has “nearly twice as many students as the 2,400 it was designed for,” forcing administrators to “look for every possible nook and cranny of space – and time – to cram in more bodies.” Francis Lewis “is just one of a number of New York City public school buildings teeming with students despite an overall drop in enrollment in the past few years.” Students “extol the benefits of Lewis, as students call the school – their electives have included forensics, psychology, bioethics and aerobics.” Francis Lewis’ “graduation rate, 81 percent, far exceeds the citywide rate of 56 percent.”
Teacher Eliminates Desks From Classroom To Allow Free Movement.
Indiana’s Journal and Courier (9/28, Watling) reported that “instead of rows of desks in fifth-grade teacher Rebecca Schpero’s Murdock Elementary classroom, there are piles of colorful pillows for students to grab and create their own seats.” Schpero created “the nontraditional setting” in her classroom “after attending training through the Kennedy Center for the Arts” to make the room more conducive for integrating art into lessons. Schpero said “the desks were in the way.” However, a few desks are available in the class “for children who aren’t comfortable with the freedom of movement. And there are a few tables on the side in both rooms where kids can use a solid surface, if they want.”
On the Job
Expert Says Reduced “Total Student Load” Is Key To Improving Test Scores.
Education Week (9/30, Viadero) reports that according to “management expert William G. Ouchi…the key to improving student achievement is lightening teaching loads.” Mr. Ouchi studied “442 schools in eight large urban districts that have devolved power to local principals” and found “that schools that have reduced” total student load (TSL) “in measurable ways also tend to have higher passing rates on state exams.” Ouchi explained, “When you reduce TSL, you increase by far the likelihood that a student will encounter a teacher in a hallway or an office and have a one-on-one conversation that will motivate the student to keep going.”
Law & Policy
Texas Students Face October 1 Deadline For Vaccinations.
The Dallas Morning News (9/29, Farwell) reports that Thursday “is the deadline for kindergartners and seventh-graders in Texas to meet new vaccination requirements.” After the deadline, students “who have not received the necessary shots — or a waiver” will not be allowed to attend school. The Dallas Morning News notes that earlier this month, Dallas County health officials “expressed concern that thousands of children had not been properly vaccinated,” and a last-minute vaccination rush would lead to “long lines at clinics.”
School “Thoroughly Cleaned” Following Possible Swine Flu-Related Student Death. The Dallas Morning News (9/29) reports that the Fort Worth, TX, school district said “it has thoroughly cleaned” Leonard Middle School in southwest Fort Worth after a student “died at Cook Children’s Medical Center on Sunday night, four days after showing signs of illness.” Sandra Parker, medical director for the Tarrant County Health Department, “would not say whether or not the swine flu was a possibility in the death. Further test results are due Tuesday.”
State Laws Seen As Likely To Spur Resurgence In Public School Driver’s Education.
USA Today (9/29, Copeland) reports that “driver’s education in public schools, which virtually disappeared a generation ago, could be staging a comeback.” Currently, only “about 15 percent of eligible students take high school driver’s ed compared with 95 percent in the 1970s, says Allen Robinson, CEO of the American Driver and Traffic Safety Education Association.” But the trend is moving upward in some areas nationwide. In Georgia, for instance, “the number of high school driver’s ed programs…has increased 22 percent to 150 since the state required that any 16-year-old seeking a driver’s license after Jan. 1, 2007, complete a state-approved driver’s ed course.” And this month, Texas “enacted a law…requiring police investigating crashes involving new drivers to determine whether they took driver’s ed in a public or commercial school or learned from their parents.”
Special Needs
Chicago Public School District Refutes State’s Special Education Review.
The Chicago Tribune (9/29, Ahmed, Huppke) reports that an Illinois State Board of Education report on special education in Chicago Public Schools found that “40 percent of the 96 schools” observed “were not properly implementing Individualized Education Plans (IEPs). Another one of the report’s 11 findings says that “about half the schools reviewed failed to give enough services to kids with disabilities, stifling their ability to make appropriate progress from year to year.” The report is “part of a 17-year-old federal case in which the district was accused of illegally segregating special education students.” Part of the settlement for that case “requires routine monitoring of the district’s special education program.” The Chicago Tribune adds that the school district “is challenging the report,” arguing that “there are only six areas that need more work, and” blaming “the state’s findings on flawed methodology.”
Safety & Security
Most Complaints Sent Through Florida District’s Online Bullying Hotline Are Unfounded.
The Tampa Tribune (9/29, Ackerman) reports that by the end of last week, Hillsborough County, FL, school officials received 45 incident reports “under a new anonymous online reporting system designed to make it easier for victims of bullying to step forward.” Judith Rainone, Hillsborough’s director of administration, said that “most complaints came from parents and most were unfounded. … Some of the complaints started with bullying allegations but escalated into complaints from parents about other parents.” Another complaint “involved charges of one teacher bullying another,” but “only a handful of incidents fit the state’s definition of bullying.” Through the system, each complaint is “automatically…sent to four people — the school principal, the school’s area director, Rainone, and Tracy Schatzberg, supervisor of the district’s psychological services. The district has three days to respond and then must work to resolve complaints or forward them to the proper authorities.” None of the complaints, so far, “have resulted in law enforcement involvement.”
School Finance
Federal, State Funds Do Not Cover Expense Of Autism Education In Some California Districts.
California’s Press Enterprise (9/28, Perrault) reported that “five years ago, the Riverside County office of education created a class for one preschooler with autism.” Now, “there are 28 classrooms for students ages 3 to 22 and another 120 students attending in-home programs.” Although “students with mild autism often can be blended into general classroom environments,” those with “more severe cases” often must be in smaller classes with “a teacher and two education assistants…to provide intense, one-on-one instruction.” Such “classes required to teach autistic children cost an average of $36,000 per student, compared to just under $8,600 for mainstream students,” but “federal and state funding hasn’t kept pace, forcing districts to be creative about staffing classrooms, finding additional resources for more services and tapping innovative programs that have worked elsewhere.”
Also in the News
EPA Advises Schools To Test Caulk For Toxins.
The AP (9/29, Quaid) reports that “hundreds of school buildings across the United States have caulk around windows and doors containing potentially cancer-causing PCBs,” according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The agency is not sure how dangerous the situation is for students or “how many schools could be affected.” However, it is advising schools officials to “test old caulk and remove it if PCBs turn up in significant amounts.” Meanwhile, the EPA plans to “conduct new research into the link between PCBs in caulk and in the air, which it said is not well understood.” In addition, it will “conduct its own tests on PCBs in schools.” Currently, the agency “recommends testing for PCBs in peeling, brittle, cracking, or deteriorating caulk in schools and other buildings that were built or renovated between 1950 and 1978. The caulk should be removed if PCBs are found at significant levels, the agency said.”
NEA in the News
Duncan Seen As Revitalizing School Reform.
The New York Times (9/28, A22) editorialized, “With sound ideas and a commitment to rigorously monitor the states’ progress, Education Secretary Arne Duncan has revitalized the school-reform effort that had lost most of its momentum by the closing days of the Bush administration.” The NEA also “seems to understand that the time for defending the status quo has passed.” Still, the Times added, “the difficult part is yet to come. Mr. Duncan must be prepared to reject” Race to the Top fund applications from states “that do not meet the eligibility requirements, but he also must be willing to encourage states to innovate.” Furthermore, Mr. Duncan must resist “pressure from politicians demanding that he finance all of their states’ programs and from community purists demanding that he reject projects that don’t comply with their views.”
Oregon Officials Formally Announce Race To The Top Effort.
The Oregonian (9/29, Hammond) reports that on Monday Oregon “Gov. Ted Kulongoski (D) and Oregon schools superintendent Susan Castillo made their first formal joint pronouncement today that Oregon is going to mount a serious effort to win part of the $4 billion in ‘Race to the Top’ money that U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan plans to award next spring.” The officials named “22 people, mostly educators and education advocates, who are the ‘design team’ for Oregon’s bid for the money,” and “unveiled a web site where the public can learn more about the Race to the Top and Oregon’s plans to try to win.” According to the Oregonian, “officials at the Oregon Education Association say they support high-quality performance evaluations of teachers” — a preliminary guideline for states hoping to win the grant — and hope that “the final rules on Race to the Top” will not require states to “promise performance pay for teachers.”
Rhode Island Working “Closely” With Teachers Unions On Education Reforms.
The Providence Journal (9/29, Jordan) reports, “Rhode Island Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist says the state is well-positioned to institute the reforms” necessary to win a portion of the federal Race To The Top grant “and will aggressively compete for the unprecedented infusion of federal education money.” Gist “has assembled a 23-member steering committee” made up of “lawmakers, parents, students, K-12 and higher education leaders, union officials and representatives from principal, superintendent and school committee organizations.” The Providence Journal notes that the NEA “has criticized the Race to the Top Fund,” but Gist said that the state is “working very closely with” the NEA in Rhode Island and other state teachers unions, and “is hopeful [they]…will support the state’s application.”
Hawaii Teachers, State Agree To Schedule Furlough Days On Fridays.
The Honolulu Advertiser (9/27, Moreno) reported that “to the dismay of thousands of public school parents,” Hawaii State Teachers Association (HSTA) “officials stood by their decision last week to schedule 17 teacher furlough days on Fridays.” Last week, “teachers approved a new two-year contract…that, starting Oct. 23, will close schools on 17 Fridays — equal to a 7.9 percent pay cut.” Although the lost instruction days could have been avoided if the union and state “had scheduled furloughs on holidays and teacher planning days,” HSTA president Wil Okabe “said that opting for furloughs on Fridays” is “consistent with potential furlough days chosen by other state worker unions.” He added that Friday “was the day Gov. Linda Lingle (R) initially planned to furlough state workers.”
In a separate story, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin (9/27, Kubota) also reported that “as Hawaii education officials and teachers revise public school schedules, parents are beginning to ask questions about the effects of a shortened instructional year on students.” And some critics say that “the elimination of 17 days of instruction lowers the state in the standings” in national rankings. Critics also “critics point out that students in special education will have more difficulty adjusting to the 17-day furlough.” Meanwhile, some parents “with children in special education are considering litigation” over the deal.
NEA Opposes Furloughs, Layoffs In Response To School Budget Crisis. In a separate story, the Honolulu Advertiser (9/25, Wilson) noted that “other cash-strapped school districts in the nation that have implemented furloughs are scheduling them to take place on teacher preparation and training days, though most are dealing with far fewer furlough days than Hawai’i's public schools.” However, the NEA, “of which the HSTA is an affiliate, opposes furloughs and layoffs as a means of responding to budget shortfalls.” NEA spokeswoman Cynthia Kain explained, “Our position is still that there are other ways we can deal with this crisis other than furloughing teachers or laying off educators. Even in an economic crisis, we should be finding money to invest in education.”
Advertisement
“Perhaps the most powerful and teacher-friendly book ever published” (Richard Allington). The things that teachers say (and don’t say) have important consequences for the literate lives of their students. Choice Words uses dozens of examples of words and phrases to show how “instructional talk” shapes intellectual development. $12 Click here to order!
In the Classroom
President Obama Seeks To Lengthen Time In Class, School Year.
The AP (9/27) reported, “Students beware: The summer vacation you just enjoyed could be sharply curtailed if President Barack Obama gets his way.” Obama “says American kids spend too little time in school, putting them at a disadvantage with other students around the globe.” As such, he “wants schools to add time to classes, to stay open late, and to let kids in on weekends so they have a safe place to go.” The AP points out, however, that “while it is true that kids in many other countries have more school days, it’s not true they all spend more time in school.” In the US, children “spend more hours in school (1,146 instructional hours per year) than do kids in the Asian countries that persistently outscore the U.S. on math and science tests — Singapore (903), Taiwan (1,050), Japan (1,005) and Hong Kong (1,013).”
“Executive Function” Seen As Strong Predictor Of Academic Success For Preschoolers.
The New York Times Magazine (9/27, MM31, Tough) reported that in recent years, executive function is “a new buzz phrase” that “has emerged among scholars and scientists who study early-childhood development.” Though executive function was “originally a neuroscience term, it refers to the ability to think straight: to order your thoughts, to process information in a coherent way, to hold relevant details in your short-term memory, to avoid distractions and mental traps and focus on the task in front of you.” According to the Times, recently, cognitive psychologists “have come to believe that executive function, and specifically the skill of self-regulation, might hold the answers to some of the most vexing questions in education today. The ability of young children to control their emotional and cognitive impulses, it turns out, is a remarkably strong indicator of both short-term and long-term success, academic and otherwise.”
On the Job
Georgia Cuts Bonuses For National Board Certified Teachers.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (9/28, Salzer, Badertscher) reports, “More than 2,000 of Georgia’s most highly certified teachers are getting hit with the biggest pay cuts in the profession this fall as the state trims spending.” The state has decided “to slash the 10 percent bonuses they have received for earning national board certification.” As a result, “many teachers who hold the certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards will likely see their pay drop a minimum of $3,000 to $4,000 this year. And for some, that’s on top of local salary cuts or furloughs.” And, some Georgia districts “have been slow to pass on even the smaller bonuses, fearing the state will not reimburse them next spring because of continued spending cuts.”
Florida District Revamps Incentive Pay At Low-Income Schools To Retain Certified Teachers.
The St. Petersburg Times (9/27, Marshall) reported that “money really does draw qualified teachers to high-poverty schools where they’re needed the most.” A “new evaluation of an incentive pay program in Hillsborough schools” shows that “twice as many teachers have applied to teach in the district’s low-income Renaissance schools since 2003, when Hillsborough began offering a 5 to 10 percent bonus.” When it first began, “the Renaissance program made a difference in recruiting good teachers, but they weren’t always staying long-term and making a clear difference in their schools.” This year, “experienced teachers who are certified in their subject areas will qualify for a 5 percent bonus to teach in a Renaissance school.” The “teachers will have to stay at their schools or transfer to another Renaissance school the following year to qualify for an additional bonus of 5 percent or more, which is tied in most cases to schoolwide performance gains.”
Teaching Profession Seen As Difficult To Improve.
NPR (9/26, Abramson) reported, “Everyone from President Obama on down seems to agree: a good teacher can make a huge difference in the life of a child.” However, “teaching performance is difficult to improve in part because the profession is so large.” Some blame the teacher “certification process,” saying that state requirements help “create a hiring market that is very localized.” And although “alternative routes to certification” aim “to make it easier for mid-career professionals to jump into teaching,” many such programs “are run by teacher colleges and tend to require unnecessary coursework that discourages career changers from making the switch.” NPR points to “teaching fellowships and…Teach for America” as programs that “are helping to raise the standard for all teachers.”
Special Needs
Group Says Gifted And Talented Education Takes Money Away From Disabled Students.
Louisiana’s Times-Picayune (9/27, Bronston) reported that “the Louisiana Association of Special Education Administrators has recommended that gifted and talented education no longer be part of special education.” The organization is “concerned that money dedicated for disabled children is being used for gifted and talented services.” In a letter to the Louisiana Department of Education dated March 4, Susan Vaugn, then president of the organization, wrote, “We question the ability of anyone to prove that a student with a 4.0 GPA needs special education services because his educational performance is significantly affected.” This month, “the issue appeared on the agenda of a state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education committee,” but was deferred, “and a task force was appointed to discuss ways of keeping the gifted and talented program in special education without affecting services for disabled children.”
Facilities
New Jersey Districts Seek More Than $157 Million In Energy-Saving School Renovations.
New Jersey’s Star-Ledger (9/28, McCarron) reports, “School districts across New Jersey will ask residents on Tuesday to spend $440 million on construction projects, many them energy-saving initiatives.” Of those projects, “more than $157 million would qualify for state aid, either through one-time grants, annual ‘debt service aid’ payments or rebates through the state’s Clean Energy Program.” They include “the addition of solar panels” at six schools in Rahway, “a state-of-the-art building that includes a geothermal well and energy-saving materials” in East Brunswick, “ten referendums specifically citing new windows, doors, boilers or HVAC systems, and another eight including solar panels projects,”
Insurance Dispute Delaying Rebuilding Of Fire-Damaged Los Angeles High School.
The Los Angeles Times (9/28, Rivera) reports that Garfield High School in Los Angeles “has not hosted a play, a musical performance or an assembly in its historic auditorium since an arson fire gutted it nearly 2 1/2 years ago. … After pledges to rebuild the facility, a benefit concert by Los Lobos and donations from boxer Oscar De La Hoya, among others,” the Los Angeles district “is mired in an insurance dispute that could create additional delays and leave the school system footing more of the bill.” According to the Times, community members and alumni, “who long relied on the auditorium for neighborhood meetings and events, are frustrated — as are school administrators and students.”
Also in the News
PTA Membership On The Decline Across The US.
The Washington Post (9/28, Chandler) reports, “From a high mark of 12 million in the 1960s, national PTA membership has dropped to a little more than 5 million.” Though school enrollments “have ballooned, the PTA lost a million members in the past decade alone. Through the years, Washington’s inner suburbs have been high-profile exceptions to the general decline.” However, more than 90 percent of the schools in some districts in the D.C. metropolitan region “have PTAs, for instance, compared with about 25 percent nationally.” Yet, some signs point to a future decline in PTA membership in the D.C. area.
WPost Says Teachers Unions Blocking Successful Charter Schools.
The Washington Post (9/27) editorialized, “Opponents of charter schools are going to have to come up with a new excuse: They can’t claim any longer that these non-traditional public schools don’t succeed. A rigorous new study of charter schools in New York City demolishes the argument that charter schools outperform traditional public schools only because they get the ‘best students.’” The Post adds that this “evidence should spur states to change policies that inhibit charter-school growth.” Also, when teachers unions score “another lobbying success” to “hold charters back, more poor children will pay a price.”
NEA in the News
Nebraska State Education Association Recommends Teachers Seek $1,000 Salary Increase.
The AP (9/28, Beck) reports, “With an infusion of $234 million in federal stimulus dollars headed to Nebraska’s public schools and words of support from the governor, state teachers might finally realize their long-running push to raise their pay rank from among the lowest in the country.” According to the Nebraska State Education Association (NSEA), which “represents the state’s nearly 23,000 public school teachers…148 of the state’s 250-plus school districts have settled negotiations for teachers’ pay, with all of them seeing a raise in base pay despite the nation’s troubled economy.” NSEA “has been recommending teachers seek a $1,000 increase in base salary.” So far, according to Larry Scherer, director of bargaining and research with the NSEA, “teachers in more than four dozen districts have done…that,” with teachers in Giltner Public Schools managing “to secure a $2,000 raise this year and another $1,500 next year.”
List Of Suggested Common Math, English Standards Is Extensive.
U.S. News and World Report (9/25) notes that “in recent months, an alliance of the nation’s governors and state education officials has led an initiative to develop common academic standards to which all public K-12 students would be held.” Although “feedback from national organizations representing teachers, such as the National Education Association Last… has been part of the standards development process,” officials from various standardized testing agencies and Achieve Inc., “a standards reform group,” have done the “the actual writing and determination of what goes into” the standards. Last week, the officials “released a set of math and English skills they say students should master before high school graduation.” The standards “range from core practices such as constructing viable arguments…to modeling quantitative relationships and mastering probability and statistics” in math. In English, they incorporate “reading and writing skills as well as speaking and listening proficiencies, including…responding constructively to advance a discussion.”
School Of The Future Seen As Falling Short Of Goals.
Education Week (9/25, Manzo) reports, “The promise of technology and change, so far, has fallen short at Philadelphia’s School of the Future.” The school “opened in 2006 with a relatively small student population, a computer-based curriculum delivered with the latest technology tools, and a unique partnership with corporate giant Microsoft.” Its aim was “to upend a secondary school model that had changed little since the industrial era.” However, the school has had to contend with “leadership instability, wavering commitment from the central office to its mission, swings in curricular approaches, technological glitches, and challenges in meeting the academic needs of a disadvantaged student population.” And, in its fourth year, Education Week points out that “a visitor would be hard-pressed to decipher how the school is fundamentally different from a typical high school, aside from the superiority of the facility.”
Advertisement
Janet Allen’s Inside Words: Tools for Teaching Academic Vocabulary, Grades 4-12 helps teachers make content vocabulary accessible and meaningful to their students. Classroom examples and graphic organizers support over 20 instructional strategies. Click here to preview the entire book online!
In the Classroom
Critics Question Validity Of New York City Public School Grades.
Education Week (9/23, Robelen) reported, “The recent news that 97 percent of New York City public schools got an A or B under the district’s grading system might be seen as reason for celebration, but critics suggest the grades hold little value and highlight the need to rethink the state assessment system.” In 2008, 38 percent “of the city’s 1,058 public elementary and middle schools received an A on the city’s report cards.” This year, however, 84 percent earned an A, “while 13 percent received a B, city officials announced this month.” Aaron M. Pallas, “a professor of sociology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University,” said the grades tell “virtually nothing about the actual performance of schools.” Meanwhile, New York University education historian, Diane Ravitch, called the grades “bogus.” Education Week explains that the main factors affecting school grades are “results from statewide assessments in reading and mathematics, which themselves have encountered considerable skepticism lately.”
Arts Education Seen As Key To Providing A “Complete” Education.
Arts Education Partnership Director Sandra S. Ruppert wrote in an op-ed for Education Week (9/23) that “arts learning experiences play a vital role in developing students’ capacities for critical thinking, creativity, imagination, and innovation.” Increasingly, “these capacities are” being “recognized as core skills and competencies all students need as part of a high-quality and complete 21st-century education,” Ruppert added. She lists “five strategies, drawn from” the National Assessment of Educational Progress’ arts assessment, released in June 2009, “that can help arts education leaders, policymakers, and educators improve performance in the arts and narrow achievement gaps.”
On the Job
School Administrators Nationwide Increasingly Seeking Out Male Teachers.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (9/25, Staples) reports that at Martin Luther King Elementary School in Clayton County, GA, “female teachers outnumber males by almost three to one.” However, “Principal Machelle Matthews has made a conscious effort to recruit and retain black male teachers.” Currently, 14 of the school’s 60 teachers are male. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution points out that “although the percentage of male teachers across the state is growing — from 17.9 percent in 2002 to 19.3 percent in 2008 — officials say there is no concerted effort to increase the number of men — black or white — in classrooms.” Nationwide, however, “efforts to increase the presence of male teachers, and black men in particular, are growing.” Programs such as “MenTeach and Clemson University’s Call Me MISTER” are encouraging “males to consider education as early as middle school.”
DC Teachers Hold Rally To Protest Pending Layoffs.
The Washington Post (9/25, Turque) reports that a “small but vocal band” of about 60 D.C. teachers, “angry about impending layoffs, rallied against Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee and their own union president in front of the school system’s central offices early Thursday evening.” Washington Teachers Union President George Parker “did not attend the rally, which was organized in part by two of his most outspoken critics, union board of trustees member Candi Peterson and its general vice president, Nathan Saunders.” Teachers “protested Rhee’s Sept. 16 announcement of a still-unspecified number of layoffs,” following the D.C. Council’s decision to cut $20.7 million from the 2010 D.C. Public Schools budget.
Rhee Intends To Target Underperforming Teachers In Layoffs. The Washington Post (9/23) reports in its D.C. Wire blog that Washington Teachers’ Union President George Parker, “among others, has wondered out loud why Rhee waited three weeks into the school year — and nearly seven weeks after the D.C. Council sliced $20.7 million from the 2010 DCPS budget — to announce the still-unspecified number of job cuts.” Parker “called it mismanagement at best, and at worst a cynical backdoor effort to replace established teachers with freshly-minted young graduates of Teach For America and other increasingly popular alternative training programs.” Though Rhee said the budget cuts were unexpected, she “acknowledges that she also intends to use the cuts as an added opportunity to weed out” teachers “she regards as under-performers.”
Law & Policy
Education Secretary Discusses Reform Vision.
The Christian Science Monitor (9/25, Kehe) reports that in an interview following a forum on President Obama’s Fatherhood Initiative in New Hampshire on Wednesday, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan “talked about plans for reform of America’s education system. One thing he stressed: The leadership may come from Washington, but the best ideas on which steps to take will probably be found somewhere else.” Concerning NCLB, Duncan “was generous in his assessment of what the Bush administration did well when it crafted the legislation,” applauding the decision to disaggregate data to clearly show achievement gaps when present. Duncan “did not have many other kind words about NCLB, however, saying that he hopes to essentially turn the law on its head. The Bush administration’s legislation, he says, kept the ‘goals loose but the steps tight.’” Duncan “hopes instead to see a law that keeps the ‘goals tight but the steps loose.’”
Duncan Outlines NCLB Reauthorization Views. Education Week (9/25, Klein) reports that Secretary of Education Arne “signaled this week” that the Department of Education “is poised to launch reauthorization efforts” for NCLB and he outlined his views of how NCLB should be changed during a “packed” meeting in Washington with over 200 education stakeholders. Duncan “said the new version of the law will need to ensure effective teachers and principals for underperforming schools, expand learning time, and devise an accountability system that measures individual student progress and uses data to inform instruction and teacher evaluation.” Duncan said DOE officials “will convene a series of meetings” to solicit recommendations from education stakeholders on how NCLB should be adjusted.
School Finance
Education Department Identifies States At “High Risk” For Stimulus Spending Problems.
The Education Week (9/24, McNeil) reported that ED “has identified four states that are at ‘high risk’ for economic-stimulus spending problems, according to a Sept. 23 report by the Government Accountability Office.” California, Illinois, Michigan, and Texas “have been singled out for intensive technical assistance by [ED] to help them implement good practices in using the federal money.” D.C. and Puerto Rico “also made the department’s list.” The latest report from the GAO “offers insight” into how ED and other federal agencies are “trying to minimize the potential for misuse of the approximately $100 billion in such aid it oversees.”
Parents In Some Arizona Districts Leading Efforts To Raise Money For Schools.
Arizona’s East Valley Tribune (9/25, Reese) reports, “With Arizona school districts cutting back on supplies, staffing and budgets, parents at Chandler High School” in Chandler, AZ, “are stepping up to fill in the gaps.” For example, “parents of marching band members” started a “penny war,” in which “the different band instrument groups — winds, brass, percussion — try to outdo each other by collecting pennies.” The East Valley Tribune counts that effort among a growing number of others “in school districts around the East Valley” since January, when “declines in general fund coffers resulted in $133 million cut from school districts. … As a result, at least one school is asking parents or guardians to spend two hours a semester helping on campus. Others are asking parents to buy reams of paper to offset supply cuts.”
Also in the News
Federal Regulators To Consider Banning Cell Phone Use By Bus Drivers While On The Road.
The AP (9/24, Lowy) reported that safety investigators “told federal regulators three years ago that it was dangerous for bus drivers to talk on cell phones while driving, and recommended a ban.” However, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration “has done little more than study the issue. Now, after several high-profile accidents that focused public attention on using cell phones on the road, the Obama administration has decided to act on the issue.” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood “will convene a two-day summit next week on distracted driving and plans to announce actions to address cell phone use by bus and truck drivers, said spokeswoman Jill Zuckman.”
NEA in the News
NEA Calls Race To The Top An “Intrusion.”
The Washington Post (9/25, Anderson) reports, “To the surprise of many educators who campaigned last year for change in the White House, the Obama administration’s first recipe for school reform relies heavily on Bush-era ingredients and adds others that make unions gag.” For instance, “standardized testing, school accountability, performance pay, charter schools” are all significant parts of “President Obama’s $4.35 billion ‘Race to the Top’ grant competition to spur innovation.” The NEA called the proposal “‘disturbing’ federal intrusion.” In a written statement, the NEA said it “cannot support yet another layer of federal mandates that have little or no research base of success and that usurp state and local government’s responsibilities for public education.”
NEA-Alaska Shows Support For Hotel Employees Union Members.
Barb Angaiak, President of NEA-Alaska, writes in the Alaska Dispatch (9/25, Angaiak), “The Alaska chapter of the National Education Association has been monitoring the lack of progress in contract negotiations between the Anchorage Hilton Hotel and its bellmen, housekeepers, food servers, and other employee groups for some months.” For over a year, the local Unite HERE members “have been attempting to bargain a new contract,” but “hotel management shows no signs that it is willing to settle.” According to Angaiak, “This is part of a national pattern of union-breaking tactics and unfair treatment of employees by the Columbia Sussex Corporation.” Consequently, NEA-Alaska has decided “to cancel its multi-year contract with the Hilton,” severing “all business ties with the hotel.” This included canceling “six conferences, all scheduled outside the tourist season” and asking NEA-Alaska “members not to eat, sleep, or meet at the Hilton until the hotel settles a fair contract.”
California Teachers Unions File Complaints Over Increased Class Sizes.
California’s Union-Tribune (9/24, Writer) reports that the Sweetwater Union High School District’s union and the San Diego Education Association “have filed unfair-labor-practice complaints with the state, insisting that class-size changes must be negotiated.” In October, “a state panel will hear both sides in the South County dispute in October and will issue a nonbinding opinion.” One complaint by the Sweetwater union is that “the school board failed to negotiate with educators as required before changing last year’s 28-to-1 student-teacher ratio to 30-to-1 this year.” Other teachers’ unions are also filing complaints over class size. According to the California Teachers Association, “the teachers union for the Travis Unified School District in Fairfield filed an unfair-labor-practice complaint over increased class sizes.” Still, “in most other districts that moved toward bigger classes this year…there has been no legal action.”
Some Students In Chicago Afraid To Return To School After Classmate’s Violent Death.
Following a story that has made national and international headlines this week, the Chicago Tribune (9/30, Mack, Banchero, Sweeney) reports that days after the beating death of sixteen-year-old Chicago high school student Derrion Albert, “the leisurely walk to school — once a tradition in American education — took on an air of fear and anxiety Monday as some Christian Fenger High School students returned to campus for the first time since” their classmate’s death. Other students, however, “were so afraid, they simply stayed home.” This week, police officers were stationed throughout the Fenger campus as “squad cars positioned in the neighborhood” announced, “by their mere presence, that they would guarantee safe passage to and from school.” Still, many “students and residents” say that Chicago Public Schools officials and police should have acted sooner, “especially in the hours before Albert died when someone fired a gun outside Fenger.”
CNN (9/30) reports that the fighting that led to Albert’s death started after “school let out at 2:50 p.m. [last] Thursday,” when “two groups of students converged on the street” and “began fighting.” Albert was first attacked by members of one group. Then, “after being knocked unconscious briefly, Albert regained consciousness and tried to move from the fight but was…attacked by” members of the opposing group. CBS News (9/30) reports on its website that “authorities in Chicago are offering $6,000 for information that leads to more arrests in the fatal beating.”
In a separate story, CNN (9/30, Fantz) reports that four boys between the ages of 16 and 19 “have been charged” in the murder. CNN also notes that according to mediator Ameena Matthews, who “works with Cease Fire, a Chicago, Illinois, grassroots organization” that seeks to “curb gang violence,” Albert told her last year “that some boys were threatening him and that his leather jacket and shoes had been stolen from his locker.” Matthews also said that “Albert, like many kids, hung out with some of the same boys who were known to menace other children in the neighborhood.” She pointed out that generally, children “want to be friends with the kid who lives next door or in their project,” even if that person is involved with a gang. The UK’s Guardian (9/30, Camera) also covers the story.
Dismissal Said To Be Most Dangerous Part Of School Day. Mark Brown writes in his column for the Chicago Sun-Times (9/30) that most people “who view the grisly video” of “Derrion Albert’s beating death near Fenger High School” are shocked. “But for anyone familiar with the after-school scene outside many of the city’s high schools, the fighting was” similar to “what they deal with on a regular basis.” According to Brown, “school dismissal is one of the most dangerous times of any day.” Brown recounts his experience observing the Bowen High School campus in South Chicago last spring “to see how students and staff were trying to maintain a safe setting following earlier incidents of violence in the neighborhood.” He notes that “as dismissal time approached, a large group of gang members emerged” from a park near the school and positioned themselves “outside the school.” Brown adds, “It was explained to me that they were mainly there to protect their own members who attend the school,” though the potential for conflict was evident.
Advertisement
Wondering how best to teach grammar? The practical book Grammarama! provides a wealth of fun and engaging activities, sentence-combining challenges, and examples from professional writing. Includes teacher guidelines and suggestions for group work and assessment. Click here for details!
In the Classroom
Maryland Districts’ AYP Results Mixed.
The Washington Post (9/30, Hernandez) reports that the Montgomery County and Prince George’s County districts “failed to meet Maryland’s standards for elementary, middle and high school students, according to state data on standardized tests taken in the past school year. The results amount to a warning for Montgomery, which will be designated a ‘system in improvement’ if it fails again next time.” In Prince George’s, educators “were set back two years in their quest to escape the state’s ‘corrective action’ watch list.” However, the Baltimore school system, “long considered the worst in Maryland, was removed from the watch list after showing two consecutive years” of AYP, leaving Prince George’s “as the state’s only system in corrective action.”
California Schools See Test Improvements After Using Interactive Math Software.
California’s Mercury News (9/30, Fernandez) reports that in 2007, “nine percent [of] fourth graders at LeRoy Anderson Elementary School in San Jose “scored ‘proficient’ in math in 2007.” But after students at the school began using a software program called JiJi, proficiency “jumped to 39 percent in 2008, and 70 percent in 2009.” JiJi was developed by “three University of California scientists came up with a visual math program to teach complicated ‘spacial temporal’ concepts.” The program is interactive, thus students are able to find out immediately if they choose the correct answer. Currently, “30 schools in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties are using” Jiji.
Astronaut Shares Hubble Telescope Repair Mission Experience With Elementary Students.
The Seattle Post Intelligencer (9/30, Stevick) reports that NASA astronaut Greg Johnson spoke with “hundreds [of] students from Horizon Elementary School in south Everett during a visit to the Mukilteo School District campus last week.” Johnson also answered students’ questions and “shared a computer slide show with family photos of his childhood and aviation and aerospace career that literally reached new heights last spring when he piloted a NASA shuttle mission to make repairs to the Hubble Space Telescope.” And he “showed video footage of the mission.”
On the Job
Middle School’s Zero-Tolerance Policy Results In Improved Discipline, Test Scores.
The Sacramento Bee (9/30, B1, Lambert, Reese) reports on the front of its regional section that “Samuel Jackman Middle School in south Sacramento had 507 suspensions last year for drugs and violence — more than any other school in Northern California.” The school, however, is not “a typically troubled school.” Its “high suspension rate is due to a zero-tolerance policy designed to put an early lid on trouble, according to school officials.” The majority “of the school’s violent offenses last year” were “pre-fighting” incidents such as a student “taking a fighting stance or threatening to fight.” The zero-tolerance policy was enacted after Principal William Del Bonta “counted 35 fights in his first 10 days on the job in 2004.” Each year since the policy began, discipline at Jackman Middle has improved, Del Bonta said. “There were 64 percent fewer fights last year than in 2004″ and “the school also has increased its API score 64 points and its graduation rate by 34 percent.”
Seattle Area Schools Use Federal Grant To Develop Distance Learning.
The Seattle Times (9/30, Thompson) reports that “while many private schools in the” Seattle, WA, “region have been practicing distance learning in the event of a natural disaster or pandemic for several years, many public schools are only now beginning to ask how they might continue their students’ education during an extended school closure.” According to many public school officials, “they face challenges that their private counterparts don’t: Some students may not have computers at home or Internet access. Not all students or their families speak English. And public-school teachers may have limited tech support.” Meanwhile, Seattle Public Schools “received a federal grant last year that included money to develop an emergency distance-learning plan.” The district wants “to provide classroom teachers with two weeks’ worth of lessons that could be delivered through a variety of means, including paper packets and Web-based technologies.” It “is now tackling how to translate those materials into nine languages so parents can help their children at home.”
Law and Policy
Finance committee approves measure restoring abstinence-only education funding.
The AP (9/30) reports that the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday voted 12-11 to “restore $50 million a year in federal funding for abstinence-only education that President Barack Obama has pushed to eliminate.” The amendment, proposed by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), “would still have to pass the full House and Senate.”
Facilities
LAUSD Chief Urged To Maintain High Efficiency Standards In Construction Efforts.
The Los Angeles Times (9/30) editorializes, “The Los Angeles Unified School District does few things efficiently and competently. The big exception has been its construction effort of the last several years, guided by Guy Mehula.” However, Mehula’s “resignation on Monday, and the loss of a measure of that independence, are discouraging signs not only for the future of school construction but for the district as a whole.” Schools Superintendent Ramon C. Cortines “may have felt compelled to act after a 2008 audit revealed that many of the consultants working for the facilities division were paid much more than district staff. … But Cortines must make sure that he isn’t being penny-wise and pound-foolish if he restricts consultant pay and moves more of that work under the district, as he reportedly intends to do.” LAUSD “is seldom at its best when it micromanages — a lesson worth remembering.”
Also in the News
Few New York City Schools Serve Freshly-Cooked Meals.
The New York Times (9/30, D1, Severson) reports on the front of its Style section that many advocates for healthier school food “have begun to believe that the only way to improve what students eat is to stop reheating processed food and start cooking real, fresh food.” However, “little actual cooking goes on in the nation’s largest public school system, largely because little of it can,” as only about “half of New York’s 1,385 school kitchens have enough cooking and fire-suppression equipment so cooks” can prepare food over an open flame. New York “is not that unusual. More than 80 percent of the nation’s districts cook fewer than half their entrees from scratch, according to a 2009 survey by the School Nutrition Association.”
NEA in the News
NEA Supports Local, State-Established Learning Schedules.
FOX News (9/30, Starr) reports that “the Obama administration wants to extend classroom time to boost retention rates and test scores, but the president will have to convince teachers to give up their vacations to do it.” According to Aaron M. Pallas of Columbia University’s Teachers College, “it’s hard to isolate the effect of year-round schooling.” He added that it is “important” to clarify “whether year-round schooling means more schooling, or simply redistributing the traditional 180 days in a different way.” Under Obama’s plan, which calls “for a longer school year as well as a shortened summer…the length of the school year may in fact be more important.” In a statement, NEA President Dennis Van Roekel said, “NEA believes that the learning schedule should be decided at the local and state levels, but will work with the Obama administration to help set guidelines that ensure each of our students gets the quality education he or she deserves.”
Critics Say Year-Round Schooling Would Be Detrimental To Economy. In a separate story, FOX News (9/29, Corbin) reports that “while Obama’s proposal is meant to improve education, critics say a curtailed summer vacation will have a dire economic impact on school systems, which could be forced to retrofit their schools for air conditioning, pay overtime to teachers, and incur higher utility costs.” Furthermore, they warn that “the leisure industry, which relies on family vacation travel, could take a major hit.”
Lawmaker Resigns To Become Utah Education Association Government Relations Director.
The Salt Lake Tribune (9/30, Gehrke) reports, “Kory Holdaway, a moderate Republican legislator” in Utah since 1999, “is resigning his seat in the Legislature to become government relations director of the Utah Education Association.” Holdaway is “a special education teacher at Taylorsville High School” and “has been a leading proponent for public and higher education, including serving most recently as co-chairman of the Higher Education Appropriations Committee.” In November, he will begin working with the UEA.