Teachers Earn Extra Money By Selling Lesson Plans Online.
The New York Times (11/15, A1, Hu) reported on its front page, “Between Craigslist and eBay, the Internet is well established as a marketplace where one person’s trash is transformed into another’s treasure” However, thousands of teachers are now “cashing in on a commodity they used to give away, selling lesson plans online for exercises as simple as M&M sorting and as sophisticated as Shakespeare.” Though “some of this extra money is going to buy books and classroom supplies in a time of tight budgets, the new teacher-entrepreneurs are also spending it on dinners out, mortgage payments, credit card bills, vacation travel and even home renovation, leading some school officials to raise questions over who owns material developed for public school classrooms.”

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In the Classroom
High School Students In Wisconsin Learn About Forensic Accounting.
The Wisconsin State Journal (11/16, Cotant) reports that last week, 83 students from high schools in the Madison area attended a “seminar conducted by the IRS and staged at Madison Area Technical College” where they learned “about investigating fraud through forensic accounting — which uses accounting, auditing and investigative skills to look at a company’s financial statements.” They also “discovered the importance of taxes and what happens when people try to avoid paying them.” The program, called “Project Adrian Jr. because it was started at Adrian College in Adrian, Mich., is a high school forensic investigative simulation workshop” that “challenges students to solve a hypothetical financial crime involving a local business owner who is skimming money from his ice cream parlor.” Although “the workshop is aimed at forensic accounting, it also is designed to get students thinking about accounting careers in general.”

High School Engineering Expo Draws Recruiters From Universities, Companies.
The Dallas Morning News (11/16, Yoo) reports on the roughly “20 student engineering projects at [Coppell High School's] second engineering expo Sunday afternoon,” which “included robotics, steel bridges, solar cars and engines. Recruiters from 50 universities and more than 30 companies attended the event – a combination science-career-college fair” that drew “about 2,500 people” overall. Coppell’s School of Engineering “started out with 30 students in 2006″ and now “has more than 200 students and eight courses. At a time when the U.S. has fallen behind some other industrialized countries in producing high-quality engineers and scientists, Career and Technical Education coordinator Donna Carpenter thinks Coppell might’ve found the answer.” In addition to events such as the expo, “through interaction with professionals in the field, students are learning what opportunities a background in engineering can provide.”

Time Warner Effort Seeks To Raise STEM Interest Among School Children.
The Dayton (OH) Daily News (11/15, DeBrosse) reported on “the many dozens of hands-on science and technology activities awaiting Dayton area children in a free after-school program being launched this week by Time Warner Cable.” Elementary and middle schoolers “will be invited to attend programming provided by Time Warner’s partnering organizations, including Carillon Historical Park, Invention Convention, Boonshoft Museum of Discovery, Cox Arboretum and K12 Gallery for Young People in Dayton, as well as iSpace and the Fusion Center in Cincinnati,” as “part of a national effort by Time Warner to raise interest among young schoolchildren in STEM careers…before they reach high school. Time Warner divisions will air spots informing parents and children of the opportunities in their area.”

The Rochester (NY) Democrat & Chronicle (11/15, Morrell) reported on the venture’s impact on western New York, where students visited the University of Rochester “as part of a ‘progressive field trip’” that “gave kids hands-on experiences in science, technology, engineering and math.” The effort, “Connect a Million Minds,” is described by the company “as a way to inspire youths to solve the economic, environmental and community challenges of the future.”

“At-Promise” Label For Youth Analyzed.
Jay Mathews writes in a column for the Washington Post (11/16), “I sympathize with those who might not be comfortable with the latest plan to rid our schools of at-risk kids. Several educators across the country, including Alexandria [VA] Superintendent Morton Sherman, have decided not to call them that anymore.” At-risk youth will now “be known as ‘at-promise’ children. … I sought reaction from people I know who stay current on educational trends. They weren’t thrilled.” However, the “teachers I know who do the most for kids are positive thinkers, just like the at-promise people. Maybe we should be, too.”

On the Job
Proposal Would Allow Alternative Programs To Certify New York Teachers.
The New York Times (11/16, A19, Medina) reports that the New York State Board of Regents “will consider letting alternative teacher training programs certify teachers, expanding the role that for decades has been exclusively performed by education schools.” The proposal “is one of several recommendations to improve teacher quality and recruitment that the board will consider in Albany on Monday.” According to the Times, another proposal “would change the requirements for teacher certification, like having more difficult content exams and classroom demonstrations.” The Times notes though New York “has had some alternative certification programs in place for years, like Teach for America and New York City Teaching Fellows, students are still required to take classes at education schools…to earn a teaching certificate.”

School Officials Paying Close Attention To Attendance Rates.
The Oklahoman (11/16) editorialized, “Testing gets the lion’s share of attention when it comes to No Child Left Behind. But there’s another provision that has the special interest of school officials this year: attendance rates.” These rates help determine “whether elementary and middle schools make the adequate yearly progress benchmark under NCLB.” Furthermore, “low attendance means less money for districts, which are already facing state budget cuts.” School administrators have been paying close attention to absences that as they “pile up among students suffering from flu-like symptoms.” The Oklahoman points out that “federal education officials have said districts could apply for waivers” for “attendance rates related to NCLB ratings,” and concludes that “only time will tell whether absences will reach the point where school officials seek relief.”

Law & Policy
NYTimes Criticizes Stimulus Rules For Not Addressing Teacher Equity Issue.
The New York Times (11/13) editorialized that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan “has been widely held in high regard since he was appointed in January, but no honeymoon lasts forever.” Duncan’s honeymoon “came to an abrupt end earlier this week when he issued long-awaited rules that the states must follow to apply” for the Race to the Top Fund and the $49 billion state fiscal stabilization fund. According to the Times, some education advocates and congress members “were understandably disappointed to find the issue” of teacher qualification “couched, once again, in euphemistic language that asks the states to describe in vague terms whether the teacher corps is ‘highly qualified.’” The Times concludes, “Children in poor neighborhoods will continue to be poorly served at school until Congress pushes the states to provide them with better, more effective teachers.”

Alabama BOE Proposes Raising Amount Teachers Pay For Benefits.
The AP (11/13, Rawls) reported that teachers “and other education employees could have to pay more for their retirement and health insurance benefits under a financial plan proposed Thursday by the Alabama Board of Education. The board voted unanimously for what state Superintendent of Education Joe Morton called ‘a plan of survival’ after two years of budget cuts and what looks like more lean funding for the 2010-2011 school year.” The plan “would force the health insurance program to cut benefits or raise the amount that educators pay.”

Maryland District Hears Parent Comment On Sibling Admission Policy.
The Washington Post (11/13, Hernandez) reported that a “proposal to end the practice of allowing siblings to automatically enroll in specialty programs in Prince George’s County [MD] schools turned into a freewheeling debate over equity for students Thursday night as school officials grappled with a crowd of parents opposed to changing the policy.” The Post notes that by the conclusion of “a nearly six-hour meeting of the Prince George’s County Board of Education, 29 parents had testified on the policy.” The “programs, notably Montessori and French immersion, are academically strong and so popular that every year hundreds of parents seeking to enroll their children are turned away.”

Safety & Security
Chicago Public Schools Implementing New Initiative To Curb Violence.
The Chicago Tribune (11/16, Ahmed) reports that in September, Chicago Public Schools CEO Ron Huberman “announced an ambitious plan to combat youth street violence, in part by offering intensive mentoring and jobs for the high school kids most likely to fall victim.: CPS “has pinned its hopes for the most at-risk kids on Pennsylvania-based Youth Advocate Programs, Inc., and the $12-an-hour neighborhood workers the nonprofit has begun to hire.” The Tribune notes that pressure “to launch the program has mounted with the city’s grim death toll. Since the start of the school year, 10 students have been struck down in street violence.”

Security System Runs Brief Background Check On School Visitors.
The Chicago Tribune (11/13, Lafferty) reported that the New Lenox (IL) School District 122 has implemented a new security system that runs a quick check of visitors’ drivers licenses against the national Sex Offender Registry and Violent Offender Against Youth Database. Visitors “not flagged are issued a photo ID badge, good for only that day. The system stores the license information so returning volunteers only have to provide their name – which is rerun through the database – to get a new ID badge.” District communications coordinator Jenny Zimmerman is quoted saying, “We have 5,700 students and 600 staff members. This is an added step to keep everyone safe.”

Also in the News
D.C. Schools Experiment With Classroom Breakfast Programs.
The Washington Post (11/16, Turque) reports that “a handful of D.C. schools” are attempting to boost the number of students that eat breakfast by “incorporating it into the first 15 minutes of the day.” Officials in Southeast D.C. say that “since launching classroom breakfasts two years ago, participation in the morning meal has dramatically increased.” The initiative is “part of a broader push to emphasize breakfast.” According to the Post, “some school districts are experimenting with ‘grab and go’ meals that allow students to pick up a boxed breakfast in the cafeteria and eat it in a classroom,” while older students are being offered “second-chance breakfasts,” during which “students are allowed time after their first-period classes to get food.”

NEA in the News
Michigan Education Association Would Be Open To Incentives For Teachers Working In Groups.
In a special report “highlighting ideas from various groups to promote discussion on” education reform, the Detroit News (11/13) reported, on switching to “incentive pay for teachers.” The benefits of incentive pay, the Detroit News noted is that “use of teacher salary incentives is associated with higher levels of student performance, all else equal,” according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. And, “a University of Arkansas study found that two schools in Little Rock using merit pay systems improved student performance on standardized tests.” The Detroit News added that “a merit pay plan may be based solely on student achievement or a combination of measurements, including supervisor evaluations and working in groups.” The Michigan Education Association generally “opposes rewarding individual teachers for their performance,” but would be “open to the idea if it” involved “rewarding teachers for working in groups.”

First Lady Speaks To High School Girls About Finding A Mentor.
The Denver Post (11/17, Crummy) reports that first lady Michelle Obama visited Denver Monday “to focus attention on a program that puts students in touch with women who can act as their mentors.” She spoke “at a luncheon at the governor’s mansion,” telling “80 high school girls that through ‘hard work and focus’ and perseverance when someone doubts them, they could be successful.”

The AP (11/17, Wyatt) reports that Mrs. Obama also mentioned that she “doesn’t put much stock in standardized tests.” She told a group of students, “Don’t let those tests defeat you. Don’t let those tests define you.” The AP adds that at the luncheon at the governor’s mansion, Michelle Obama was joined by “about 80 girls” and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “Other mentors were Latina astronaut Ellen Ochoa, and actresses Susan Sarandon, and Alfre Woodard.”

“East Wing aides said that Denver was chosen because it has such a diverse population of young women,” Politico (11/16, Henderson) reported. “According to US Census Bureau 2008 estimates, 34.4 percent of this city’s population is Hispanic, 10.1 percent is black or African-American, and 3.4 percent is Asian.” The Denver Business Journal (11/16, Harden) also covered the story.

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In the Classroom
Rubik’s Cube Math Curriculum Being Used In New York City Schools.
The New York Times (11/16, Lee) reports on a “child-friendly Rubik’s Cube-based math curriculum devised for students as young as 8″ being used in some dozen New York City schools, noting that “New York City’s Department of Parks and Recreation is planning to introduce Rubik’s Cube solving at its 32 after-school program sites citywide within the next few weeks. These actions are happening under a program conceived around two years ago by the company that owns the license to the Rubik’s Cube, Seven Towns, which is based in London. In an attempt to make the cube part of an educational curriculum, the company took the relatively cryptic problem-solving guides and made them more student-friendly by adding colorful illustrations and simplifying the instructions.” The Times notes that “Teachers are attracted to the puzzle-solving lesson because it helps with geometry, algebra, direction-following, memorization and perseverance” along with “a sense of accomplishment; they often give certificates as a reward to students who solve the cube.”

Educator Compares 21st Century Classrooms To Thriving Businesses.
Betty J. Sternberg writes in an opinion piece for Education Week (11/18), “Consider this description of the work environment of California-based Meebo, one of the Web’s fastest-growing messaging companies”: the environment is “open, collaborative. … We’re facing problems that are pretty unusual. … We take the smartest and most passionate team-oriented people we can find and put them in an environment where they can thrive. We value innovation, teamwork, and good clean fun.” According to Sternberg, who has “spent 37 years in education, teaching preschool through graduate students,” most classrooms have cultures that are “diametrically opposite to the description of this thriving company.” In order to “transform the culture of our classrooms to prepare students to enter the culture of thriving, cutting-edge business environments,” Sternberg says students must have “intrinsic motivation,” rather than tangible rewards.

Principals In South Carolina District Encouraged To Add Foreign Language Curriculum.
The Hilton Head (SC) Island Packet (11/16, Cerve) reported that last month, “the Beaufort County Board of Education voted…to encourage all elementary school principals” to add foreign language programs to their schools’ curriculum. But, the principals must do that “without adding staff or increasing the district’s budget, superintendent Valerie Truesdale said.” In December, “the district’s instructional services chief” plans to “meet with elementary school principals…to gauge interest in making room for foreign language instruction. In most cases, that would mean eliminating or cutting back another related arts class.”

Common Assessments Goal Leaves NAEP’s Role In Doubt.
Education Week (11/17, Cavanagh) reports that the National Assessment of Education Progress, which has provided “a clear-eyed measure of what students know in a range of subjects” for years now faces uncertainty in the future as “the country stands poised to enter a new testing era. All but two states have agreed to work toward creating common academic standards, with the eventual goal of establishing common assessments. Which leads to an obvious question: What will become of NAEP?” The piece adds that some observers think the program will not change, but others “say that until more is known about the structure and schedule of common state tests, it’s difficult to predict whether NAEP’s role will grow or shrink.”

On the Job
Paper Cites Deficiencies In School Food-Borne Illness Investigations.
In a feature article, USA Today (11/17, Morrison, Eisler) reports that students in Racine, Wisconsin, sickened by flour tortillas from Chicago’s Del Rey Tortilleria in 2007, would have been surprised to learn that the same product “caused similar outbreaks at more than a dozen schools in two other states — in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006.” Yet despite an FDA panel targeting the Del Rey manufacturer in a 2006 report, “the FDA never shared the panel’s warning with school officials anywhere.” It wasn’t until early 2009 that the government “temporarily shut down Del Rey to make the company fix its sanitation and safety problems.” During their investigation, USA Today “examined thousands of pages of records on companies that sell food to schools, including safety data and reports on scores of food-borne illness outbreaks.” According to the paper’s findings, “investigators failed to identify the cause in more than half of the food-borne illness outbreaks reported in schools,” and “even when companies with problems are identified, action sometimes comes too late.”

Law & Policy
Districts Receiving Stimulus Aid Will Be Required To Report Educator Salaries.
Education Week (11/18, Sawchuck) reports, “US Department of Education officials plan to require districts receiving economic-stimulus aid to report school-level salaries.” Some observers say the requirement signals “that the Obama administration might seek key changes to district accounting procedures for federal Title I funds.” The reports “could give a clearer picture about the extent to which district spending on salaries differs between schools that receive Title I dollars for disadvantaged students and those that do not,” according to Education Week. The Education Department wrote in its “documentation to the [White House Office of Management and Budget] …that the findings from the data collection could be used to help policymakers craft changes to the comparability provisions in the” Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Dave Murray writes in the Grand Rapids Press (11/17) Head of the Class column, “Stephen Sawchuk of Education Week reports the US Education Department is demanding districts taking economic stimulus aid report school-level salaries, and that might mean the feds are making changes to Title I funds.” The reports are due in December. Murray adds, “It’s unknown what, exactly, the US Education Department will do with the information. But when you take Uncle Sam’s money, you have to play by his rules.”

Hawaii Governor’s Proposal Would Restore 27 School Days.
The Honolulu Advertiser (11/16) reported that Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle (R) on Monday “called for an end to teacher furloughs starting in January by tapping the state’s rainy day fund and converting non-instructional days to classroom time.” The proposed legislations “would cancel 27 furlough days between January and June 2011.” However, “the seven furlough days that started in October and run until the end of the year would remain.” Meanwhile, “Lingle’s call to use the rainy day fund requires approval by the state Legislature.” Furthermore, her “recommendation to convert non-instructional days to classroom time requires reopening contract talks with the Hawaii State Teachers Association,” an NEA affiliate.

Hawaii State Superintendent Says Governor’s Proposal May Not Have Adequate Funding. KITV-TV Honolulu (11/17) reports that Gov. Lingle’s “plan to restore school classroom days may not provide enough cash to eliminate all 27 furlough days she wants, Hawaii Schools Superintendent Pat Hamamoto said.” Although the $50 million taken “from the rainy day fund [would] cover basic school salaries,” according to Hamamoto, more money may be needed “to cover expenses of opening schools. The superintendent also said that because many of the waiver days have already been used, it will not be possible to simply replace them with instructional days in the last six months of the school year.”

Minnesota District Considers Banning School Pets.
Minnesota’s East Otter Tail Focus (11/17, Hoglund) reports, “Critters and kids are the focus of a new policy that is expected to be approved by the Perham-Dent School Board this month.” The board will decide whether to ban “animals as ‘classroom pets’” in order to control students’ “exposure to animal allergens in schools,” according to the proposed policy. Superintendent Tamara Uselman pointed out that “allergies and asthma cases are on the increase. … She said there are a number of staff and students who have allergies to pets.” The East Otter Tail Focus adds that “the situation…raises the question of the small animal class, which is offered through vocational-agriculture program at the school.” However, “the small animals are not kept in the mainstream of the high school building –and they do not roam freely…noted Uselman.” The policy would also ban pets on school buses.

School Finance

Education Department Announces New Rules For State Fiscal Stabilization Fund Grants.
Education Week (11/17, Klein) reports that the Education Department “issued a detailed list of data and information that states will need to submit if they want to get a piece of the second and final round of State Fiscal Stabilization Fund money — $11.5 billion this time — under the federal economic-stimulus program. The last round of funding is part of the nearly $48.6 billion fund created under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to help state budgets weather the economic downturn.” States “will need to meet a total of 35 reporting requirements, according to the applications released Nov. 12.”

Virginia Foreign Language Curriculum Stymied By Budget Shortfalls.
The Washington Post (11/17, Chandler) reports that the school board in Fairfax County, Virginia, “adopted an ambitious goal in 2006 that language instruction should start early and graduates should be able to speak two languages.” However, “Lean budget years have tested that resolve. In tough times, parents and board members are debating whether foreign language instruction, particularly in early years, is fundamental or a frill.” The piece notes that some parents question the program’s intrinsic value and its implementation, adding that the controversy “shows how deep the linguistic gulf remains between the United States, where fewer than half of middle and high school students are enrolled in a foreign language course, and many parts of Europe and East Asia, where foreign language instruction is a given.”

Also in the News
Florida Virtual Schools Growing In Popularity.
The Orlando Sentinel (11/17, Weber) reports that a “new public-education option” in Florida in which students study online for free has attracted some 2,100 students and is expected to continue to grow. The Sentinel notes that “the state Legislature ordered every school district in Florida” to make such programs available to K-12 students, noting that books, materials, and even computers are provided for free. “Some districts see the virtual classroom as an opportunity to attract new students and counter declining enrollment. Many families are leaving Florida because of the poor economy and others are considering alternatives to the regular classroom, including home schooling.” However, some “educators are leery. … Evelyn Chandler, director of school choice for Orange schools, said time will tell whether kids get adequate social skills by sitting in front of a computer at home rather than mixing with other students in a standard classroom.”

NEA in the News
NEA Free Online Resource Highlights Challenges For Native American Students, Educators.
New York’s Indian Country Today (11/17) reports, “November is National American Indian Heritage Month,” and in order to “help address the challenges facing American Indian and Alaska Native students and educators, the” NEA “has released a new resource called Focus on What Works.” The resource “provides background on America’s original citizens and details programs throughout the US that have helped boost student achievement, test scores and graduation rates for American Indian and Alaska Native students.” Focus on What Works “is available at no charge on NEA’s Website. In honor of National American Indian Heritage Month, NEA is also offering recommended reading lists to introduce students to Native American history and culture.”

Schools In Pennsylvania Hold Special Events For American Education Week.
Pennsylvania’s Bucks County Courier Times (11/16, Hellyer) reported that schools in Lower Bucks County, PA, “are inviting parents to see what their children are learning as part of the 88th Annual American Education Week.” The “schools are combining special events with regular classroom visits to show how students are learning.” Furthermore, “several area schools participating in the celebration will stage book fairs or other fundraisers.” American Education Week is “sponsored by the NEA “to show ‘the importance of providing every child in America with a quality public education.’” This year’s “theme is ‘Great Public Schools: A Basic Right and Our Responsibility.’”

Los Angeles Mayor, Teachers Union Vie For Control Of Troubled High School.
The Los Angeles Times (11/17, Blume) reports on a pair of “dueling news conferences” yesterday in which Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and United Teachers Los Angeles, an NEA affiliate, both announced that they will “compete for control of Jefferson High School under one of the nation’s most closely watched school-improvement initiatives. Today marks the first key deadline — the final day for groups inside or outside the Los Angeles Unified School District to turn in ‘letters of intent’ for reform plans.” Meanwhile, “The staff at Jefferson has been organizing its own reform plan — involving parents, students and administrators.”

Some Educators Using Digital Games To Teach Financial Literacy.
Education Week (11/18) reports, “Although a majority of states do not require financial-literacy classes in K-12 schools, the nation’s recent economic struggles have spurred growing interest in the subject by educators — many of whom are turning to digital-game-based approaches to teach students about personal finance and investing.” George Mason University psychology professor Jack A. Naglieri, who has conducted research on the effectiveness of digital games for learning, said, “Kids today thrive in digital environments, and they learn so much from there.” According to data collected by Naglieri, “students who had participated in a game-based personal-finance program called MoneyU performed much higher on financial-literacy tests than those who had not.” MoneyU “consists of 120 lessons, each of which takes three to five minutes to complete. It incorporates videos, cartoons, and simulations to cover personal-finance topics.”

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In the Classroom
Virginia DOE To Examine Low Minority Enrollment In Gifted Classes.
The Washington Post (11/18, Chandler) reports that Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) “announced Tuesday that the Virginia Education Department has launched a study of minority students’ low participation in gifted education programs statewide.”

The Richmond Times-Dispatch (11/18, Meola) reports that the disparity was brought to Kaine’s attention by the NAACP. In Virginia, “African-Americans make up 26 percent of the statewide student population,” but only “12 percent of students identified as gifted are black, according to Education Department statistics.” Meanwhile, “Hispanics make up 9 percent of the student population and 5 percent of students identified as gifted,” and “Asians make up 5.5 percent of the statewide student population and 11 percent of students identified as gifted.” Kaine is currently “reviewing changes to regulations governing gifted education in public schools.” Kaine has asked the Virginia Education Department, “to analyze disproportionately low representation of minority students in gifted education. The study is to be done by spring 2010.”

Elementary Students Learn About Milking Cows.
California’s North County Times (11/18, Brandt) reports, “Nearly 300 students at an Oceanside school got a lesson Tuesday about where milk comes from with the help of a 900-pound Jersey cow named Jasmine and little calf named Jerry.” Steve Miller of the California Dairy Council taught students “about cows’ eating habits, anatomy, and the process of getting milk from them.” The North County Times notes that “Miller is one of five full-time instructors working for” the California Dairy Council, and “he said he teaches at a different school nearly every day, hitting about 165 campuses a year in San Diego, Riverside, Orange and San Bernardino counties.”

On the Job

Miami-Dade Superintendent Mandates Ethics Training For All District Employees.
The Miami Herald (11/18, McGrory) reports that on Tuesday, Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho “announced mandatory ethics training for all district employees, beginning with those in the construction and maintenance management departments.” The Miami Herald lists several recent ethics scandals that led to the requirement. “Carvalho said the new measures at the school system were designed to strengthen business practices and increase transparency.” In addition to the training, Miami Dade will initiate other efforts to discourage ethics violations including “establishing tougher standards to prevent conflicts of interests” and “launching a districtwide ethics awareness campaign.”

New York City School Grades Show Race Disparity.
The New York Times (11/18, A31, Medina, Gebeloff) reports that in New York City over the last three years, high schools “that received the lowest marks from the city have been the ones with the highest percentages of poor, black and Hispanic students, despite an evaluation system that was meant to equalize differences among student bodies, according to an analysis by The New York Times of school grades released this week.” The Times notes that several of the city’s “largest high schools that have struggled for years received low grades on the progress reports, and those schools have a high population of black and Latino students, as well as special education students and English language learners.”

Law & Policy
Reversing Hawaii Teacher Furloughs May Require Change In Law.
The Honolulu Advertiser (11/17, DePledge, Moreno) reported that the Hawaii state House and Senate “may have to amend the law to use the ‘rainy day’ fund to reduce teacher furloughs because money from the fund cannot cover wages for state workers.” The law “says the rainy day fund can be used to maintain programs essential to public health, safety, welfare and education, but the law specifically prohibits using the money to pay for cost items in any collective bargaining contract.” Gov. Linda Lingle (R) “proposed on Sunday using a combination of the rainy day fund and converting teacher planning days to classroom time to eliminate teacher furloughs starting in January.”

Political Leaders Applaud Hawaii Governor’s Plan To End Teacher Furloughs. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin (11/17, Borreca) reported that political leaders “are supporting Gov. Linda Lingle’s [R] proposal to end Furlough Fridays next year by changing the public school teachers’ labor contract and raiding the state rainy day fund.” Lingle “has said she is willing to call the Legislature into a special session as soon as House and Senate leaders can agree to a plan that would use the rainy day fund to pay teachers.” The Star-Bulletin added that Hawaii “has received international bad press for having the least number of teaching school days of any state,” and Hawaii House Speaker Calvin Say “noted that it attracted the attention of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Say speculated that the black eye was part of the reason for Lingle moving, although in a weekend news conference Lingle said she thought Duncan was meddling in local politics.”

Loss Of Instructional Days Likely, Despite Furlough Plan. The AP (11/17) reported that Hawaii’s leaders “are finally agreeing on a way to end the state’s cut in school days to the lowest in the nation, but it probably won’t happen before students lose several more instructional days.” According to the AP, putting the plan “into action may come slowly while schools are scheduled to close four more days before the end of the year, in addition to the three days already lost. … Hawaii’s labor contract with unionized teachers calls for 17 days off this school year and next, reducing the state’s number of annual instructional days to the lowest in the nation at 163.”

Special Needs
Tennessee Education Officials Revamp Standardized Tests For ELL Students.
The Knoxville (TN) News Sentinel (11/17, Alapo) reported that Tennessee education officials “want to remove the language barrier for English Language Learners on achievement assessments, and have modified the exams for the students, reducing wordiness and complexity of sentence structure and removing words with multiple meanings.” According to the News Sentinel, “Beginning in spring 2010, the English Linguistically Simplified Assessment, or ELSA, will be administered to English Language Learners during the same week the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, or TCAP, is given to regular students in grades three through eight. … The changes come as part of tougher and more rigorous curriculum standards implemented statewide this year.”

Safety & Security
High School Principal Injured While Tying To Break Up Fight In School.
The Sacramento Bee (11/17, B2, Sangree) reported that Stuart MacKay, “the principal of West Sacramento’s River City High School is recovering at home from serious injuries he suffered while trying to break up a fight involving a number of students outside the cafeteria Oct. 28.” MacKay told the Bee on Monday that he suffered “a concussion and neck injuries” that left him unable to “remember everything that occurred that Wednesday.” And, he is still unable “to return to work.” The students involved in the incident have “been disciplined based on school policies,” but “no criminal charges were filed based on the understanding that MacKay’s injuries were inadvertent.” However, “police investigators might revisit the case based on MacKay’s statements to The Bee on Monday.” Assistant principal Nicholas Richter said that “students have left cookies on the principal’s desk” with notes saying, “Get well, Dr. MacKay.”

Vilsack Pledges USDA Will Improve School Lunch Contamination Alerts.
USA Today (11/18, Eisler, Morrison, 2.11M) reports that Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack “pledged Tuesday that the government will do a better job alerting schools across the nation when it suspects that food for school lunches might be contaminated. ‘We understand and appreciate that there has been a … gap in communication, which results in school districts not getting information on a timely basis,’ Vilsack told lawmakers during a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing on child nutrition programs.”

School Finance

Baltimore School Officials, Community Members Grow Beards To Raise Money For Classrooms.
Liz Bowie wrote in the Baltimore Sun (11/17) InsideEd blog, that Baltimore city schools chief Andres Alonso and Teach for America Director Omari Todd “are dueling it out for the Mustaches for Kids program.” On Tuesday night, they shaved “their chins and upper lips…so that everyone has a fair start in the race to grow a mustache. So will other men around Baltimore who are participating in the program.” The “Growers” are asking “friends and family to donate money to buy needed supplies for classrooms around the area. Teachers will post their needs on the DonorsChoose.org Website.”

Virginia District Officials Propose Trimming Bus Service Amid Budget Crunch.
The Washington Post (11/18, Kunkle) reports that with “nothing but grim budgets ahead, some members of the Fairfax [VA] Board of Supervisors want the county’s schools to save money on buses by encouraging more kids to walk to school, perhaps by moving back the boundaries for bus-riding eligibility.” According to the Post, “It’s an idea that has” gained popularity nationwide as state and local “governments struggle through the worst recession in generations.”

Also in the News
Texas Students Set Record For World’s Largest CPR Class.
The Dallas Morning News (11/18, Mosier) reports that 4,626 eighth-graders assembled at Texas’ Cowboys Stadium “for the largest-ever CPR training class” on Tuesday. A Guinness World Records official “reviewed sign-in sheets and turnstile counts and observed how the CPR class was taught.” Later in the day, he announced that the effort was record-setting. “Arlington Mayor Robert Cluck, who helped organize the CPaRlington program in 2006, said the record is good, but he hopes the seriousness of the effort isn’t lost.”

NASA Launches “Be A Martian” Website.
BBC News (11/18) reports, “A Nasa website called ‘Be A Martian’ allows users to play games while at the same time sorting through hundreds of thousands of images of the Red Planet.” Microsoft was a “major contributor:” to the program, which is developed out of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “The number of pictures returned by spacecraft since the 1960s is now so big that scientists cannot hope to study them all by themselves,” so NASA “believes that by engaging the public in the analysis as well, many more discoveries will be made.” According to the BBC, NASA also “hopes the mix of real data and fun will also inspire the planetary scientists of tomorrow.”

As an example of what is offered, AFP (11/18) reports users can “count craters on Mars, a task NASA said had posed a challenge in the past because of the vast numbers involved.” The program also “features a ‘virtual town hall’ where users can have questions answered by Mars experts and offers prizes to software developers who create tools that provide access to Mars images for online, classroom and Mars mission team use.”

NEA in the News
Senate Healthcare Bill Contains Provision That May Increase Educators’ Insurance Costs.
Education Week (11/18) reports, “The national teachers’ unions are nervously eyeing a provision in a Senate version of the healthcare overhaul now working its way through Congress that they say could ultimately squeeze medical benefits for educators.” The proposal “would tax insurance companies and plan administrators that offer what the measure defines as high-cost health coverage…to help pay for the broader effort to expand access to health insurance while better controlling costs.” However, according to “many officials in organized labor, including teacher representatives…a tax imposed on companies would likely be passed along to workers in the form of higher premiums or less comprehensive benefits.” Joel Solomon, a policy analyst for the NEA, said, “Our members have sacrificed salaries to maintain decent healthcare benefits for a long time.” He also said that “it’s tough to gauge just how many teachers’ plans would be hit by such a tax, since benefits are often offered by individual school districts and tend to vary widely.”

Subscriber Tools

“Above The Line” Program Allows Students To Choose Consequences Of Breaking Rules.
Wisconsin’s Sauk Prairie Eagle (11/19, Tucker) reports on a “new school-wide discipline program called ‘Above the Line’ that Grand Avenue Elementary School implemented this year,” under which, students are allowed to choose their own punishment for infractions committed in school. “Grand Avenue Principal Craig Trautsch said the goal of the Above the Line program is to make students responsible for their actions. When a student misbehaves — or in the new parlance, exhibits behavior that is ‘below the line’ — a teacher or administrator offers the student a choice” to either fix the problem or receive a consequence. Students who chose to fix the problem “are asked to decide what the ‘fix it’ would be.” An acceptable solution “normally involves losing a recess performing a task related to the offense.” Simply saying “I’m sorry and I’ll never do it again,” however, is not acceptable, because it does not “solve the…behavior problem.”

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In the Classroom
Former Inmate Speaks To Florida Middle School Students About Making Choices.
The St. Petersburg Times (11/19, Zayas, Broadwater, Sokol) reports on the Great American Teach-In, “that one day a year when kids across the Tampa Bay area are exposed to things they would never otherwise experience, by the people who live the lessons every day.” In a separate story, the St. Petersburg Times (11/19, Jenkins) reports that former prison inmate William Thornton spoke to students at Osceola Middle School in Florida about the actions that led to his imprisonment. “One night when he was 17, he drove without a license” and two people ended up dead after his car crashed into theirs. “He got a 30-year sentence” and spent over three years in jail. Now on probation, “part of his revised sentence” is to “speak at schools.” This week, Thornton reminded students at Osceola Middle that they make decisions each day that have consequences. The message “seemed to get some kids’ attention,” the Times adds. “But this being a middle school, they had more pressing questions” such as, “Did Thornton ever get in fights?” and “Did he get free food?”

South Carolina Middle School Covers Walls With Students’ Written Work.
The Anderson (SC) Independent-Mail (11/19, Carey) reports that students’ written works cover the walls of Starr Iva Middle School in South Carolina. “The pieces were done as part of the National Day on Writing” in October. However, “the project will continue throughout the year as Starr Iva works to become an ‘Exemplary Writing’ school.” The sixth through eighth graders’ writings include poetry, fiction, and nonfiction works. “The writing not only allows the students to perfect their writing skills, said Principal Mike Ruthsatz, but to express themselves.” And, he added, “The students love to see their work up on the walls.”

Principal Fills In For Teachers Each Month To Reinforce Social Skills With Students.
Illinois’ Pantagraph (11/19, Coulter) reports that Scott Myers, principal of Hudson Elementary School in Illinois wanted to “give teachers more time to plan lessons,” so is taking over each teacher’s class for 40 minutes each month. During that time, Myers “uses innovation to reinforce good social skills with students.” Meanwhile, “teachers get time to plan specifically for individual students, gifted or struggling, and to organize events for all students. If a grade level has two teachers, they work together.” This month, Myers’ sessions focused on being kind and not using foul language.

New Coalition To Tackle Achievement Gap In Connecticut.
The Stamford (CT) Times (11/18, Mylo) reports that a new initiative “will focus on eliminating Connecticut’s achievement gap between white and minority students in a state where the problem is the largest in the nation. A coalition of state legislators, education advocates and equal rights organizations…announced Campaign LEARN (the Campaign for Leadership in Education, Achievement and Reform Now) on Tuesday at a press conference in Hartford.” The new organization “will sponsor a series of education town hall meetings across the state to discuss how to close” the achievement gap.

Facilities
Alabama District Seeks Teacher Input For Planning New High School.
The Hartselle (AL) Enquirer (11/19, Gore) reports that the Hartselle, AL, City Council is seeking teacher input for the planning of a new high school that “will cost $41 million and house 990 students.” School and city leaders “will be meeting to discuss the school’s location.” Then, they will decide “what the high school will look like and the amenities it will include.” Superintendent Dr. Mike Reed said, “We’re going to talk to the teachers and see what they want in a classroom as we begin to plan for the high school. … It will be a process to make sure we’re providing what the students need.” Current plans for the school include “a Community Education Center, auditorium and gymnasium…and expanded science labs.”

Fugate Says Agreement Near On 2005 Hurricane Funding For Recovery Schools.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune (11/18, Tilove) reported that FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate, speaking to reporters at the agency’s headquarters on Wednesday, “said…that his agency is getting close to an agreement with state officials on a lump-sum payment to the Recovery School District for damage caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. But he said, because they are treading into new territory, FEMA wants to be very careful that the settlement will not run afoul of any future scrutiny by the inspector general.” Fugate cautioned that rushing through the process could result in the money being “deobligated” upon further review. Meanwhile, Fugate also indicated during the meeting that he would prefer FEMA to remain under the Department of Homeland Security, rather than become an independent agency, as has been proposed in Congress. “Asked why, Fugate replied, ‘OPM – other people’s money.’ What he meant by that is that he thinks FEMA’s berth in Homeland Security guarantees it adequate funding and ancillary help that the Department of Homeland Security can provide that it might not have on its own.”

School Finance
Florida May Seek $1 Billion Race To The Top Grant.
The Miami Herald (11/19, Sampson) reports that Florida Education Commissioner Eric Smith “on Wednesday said it looks like the state could end up asking the federal government for $1 billion in grant money earmarked for education. … That amount would be nearly a quarter of the entire budget for Race to the Top, a $4.35 billion initiative that seeks to solve some of the most persistent problems in education by pouring money into innovative reforms.” Florida “is in a category with three others, based on size, that are eligible to receive a sum between $350 million to $700 million. But federal officials have acknowledged those are just guidelines and states can ask for different amounts.”

Next Texas Governor Expected To Inherit Host Of School Finance Challenges.
The AP (11/18, Castro) reported that with “budget problems mounting for many Texas school districts, the next governor is likely to inherit a funding system that experts say has become a legal and financial quagmire.” According to the AP, the Texas governor “will guide the $35 billion public school system and its 4.4 million students, which experts say needs a major overhaul to make sure schools are getting enough money to keep pace with costs and to avoid another lawsuit. … It’s been just a few years since Texas lawmakers, facing a court order, undertook a massive overhaul of the school funding system.” However, “booming enrollment,” higher overhead costs “and a public reluctance to pay higher taxes have left many districts in a fix.”

Tennessee District To Sign $90 Million Pact With Gates Foundation.
The Memphis (TN) Commercial Appeal (11/18, Roberts) reported that the Memphis School Board “is expected to sign an agreement today with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that will funnel more than $90 million to Memphis for a plan to change how teachers are hired, placed, evaluated and retained.” The Gates Foundation “will confirm the winners of its education grants in a teleconference Thursday morning. The Memphis school district is one of the school systems in four cities expecting approval.” According to the Commercial Appeal, boards of education “in Hillsborough County, Fla. (Tampa); Pittsburgh; and a consortium of charter schools in Los Angeles signed agreements with the foundation this week.”

Also in the News
First Lady Applauds Students, Teachers For Healthy Habits.
The Washington Post (11/19, Chandler) reports that First Lady Michelle Obama visited Hollin Meadows Elementary School in Fairfax County, VA to “commend” students and teachers “for their healthy habits. Hollin Meadows is one of hundreds of schools throughout the country to be recognized by the U.S. Agriculture Department for its emphasis on nutrition and fitness.” The First Lady “hopes to make it the first of many stops on a tour of schools that are combating childhood obesity and creating healthy environments for students. … The aging brick school is surrounded by more than 14,000 square feet of gardens, and teachers often bring their lessons outside.”

NEA in the News
Schools Celebrate American Education Week.
The Crookston (MN) Daily Times (11/19) reports, “Crookston Public Schools are celebrating American Education Week Nov. 15-21. This year’s theme is “Great Public Schools: A Basic Right and Our Responsibility,” in order to draw attention to “the importance of providing every child in America with a quality public education from kindergarten through college, and the need for everyone to do his or her part in making public schools great.” The Crookston Daily Times published 11 essays written by fifth graders “about what their school means to them.” The Selma (AL) Times Journal (11/19, Fenton) reports that the NEA “sponsors the event each year in hopes that it will inform people about the Association’s dedication to providing students with quality public schools to help students reach full potential.”

Contract Negotiations For Teachers In Dodge City, Kansas Stalled Due To Scheduling.
The Dodge City (KS) Daily Globe (11/19, Globe) reports, “Members of the Dodge City chapter of the Kansas National Education Association are some of the last teachers in the state still working without a contract,’ but according to “the union’s chief negotiator…it’s not accurate to characterize the negotiations as bogged down, because it’s still too soon to tell if there are even going to be any substantive problems.” Teacher Eldon Brandenburg said that “the reason for the delay has been more of a scheduling problem than anything else.”

Number Of Schools Closing Due To Swine Flu Continues To Decline.
USA Today (11/20, Toppo, Marcus) reports, “Over the past month or so, the number of schools that have been forced to close because of swine flu has dropped precipitously,” and as of Thursday, “new school closings fell to three.” Still, “health officials warn that circumstances could change and that the drop doesn’t mean families should let down their guard.” Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the CDC, also noted that the downturn in school closures is a reflection of fewer kids getting sick and schools “doing everything they can to keep their schools open.” CDC also “expects to release data on H1N1 vaccination rates today.” CDC also “expects to release data on H1N1 vaccination rates today.”

Swine Flu Vaccine Distribution Effort Fraught With Problems. Mike Stobbe wrote in a news analysis for the AP (11/19), “When the nation’s swine flu vaccination program began in early October, health officials predicted it was going to be ‘messy.’ They were right.” The inoculation program “has been plagued with problems and information gaps. … To be fair, health officials say, the government deserves credit for a herculean effort to develop and distribute a safe and effective vaccine against a deadly virus that was first identified only seven months ago.” However, “complaints have been mounting, with lawmakers this week holding hearings in Washington and elsewhere, pressing for explanations.

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In the Classroom
Inquiry-Based Science Curriculum Teaches Students To Ask Investigative Questions.
New Jersey’s Shore News Today (11/20, Smith) reports that students in the Somers Point School District “are taking a hands-on approach to science as they use an inquiry-based program that makes them scientists and their lessons experiments.” According to the district’s director of curriculum, Jennifer Luff, traditional science curriculum is based on a “cookbook method” that has students “investigate a question they didn’t ask using directions they didn’t think of themselves.” She explains, “In inquiry-based science, students are involved in learning the most important thing a scientist can do, which is to ask a good question — one that can be answered through investigation.” For inquiry-based science lessons, “students are given material to explore from a grade-level specific…science kit, and the teachers and students work together to come up with questions that can be answered through investigation.”

Community Members Teach Elementary Students About Native American Culture.
North Carolina’s Daily Herald (11/20, Bell) reports that in observance of American Indian Heritage Month, “members of the area Native American community are teaching” students at Manning Elementary School in Roanoke Rapids, NC, about native dance, music, crafts, and “weaponry this week” in order to “showcase the music and history of the Native Americans.” Musician Arnold Richardson, who has “played flute for the movies ‘Pocahontas’ and ‘A Man Called Horse,’” played “various wind instruments [for] the children, including tiny ocarina and the large didgeridoo. He also played ‘the courting flute,’ an instrument used by young Native American men to woo young women in the past.” Richardson says that he “hopes such demonstrations lead the students to ‘more extensive knowledge of the American Indian they don’t get in the history books.’”

More Educators Creating Homework Assignments Tailored For Individual Students.
Canada’s Globe and Mail (11/20, Anderssen) reports that educators are increasingly adjusting their approach to homework to allow for “longer deadlines and assignments tailored to needs of the students.” For example Cathy Reimer, “an award-winning Grade 3 teacher at Aldershot Elementary School in Kentville, Nova Scotia,” bases homework assignments on individual students’ trouble spots. “For English homework,” she “goes through each child’s writing, finds the words they are consistently spelling wrong and uses that list to design a unique assignment, such as using the words in a story.” In Ms. Reimer’s class, “Nobody gets the same homework,” she says. Don Lauzon, the principal at Calgary’s Good Shepherd School, said that the trend in flexible homework assignments has come about because “educators understand more today about the different ways students” learn.

Educator Uses Magic Tricks To Teach Science.
The San Diego Union-Tribune (11/19, Tash) reported on San Diego State University professor Alan McCormack’s “Science of the Magic from Hogwart’s Academy” show for elementary students. The program is “based on the popular Harry Potter books.” McCormack “performs at schools, education conferences, and science fairs…around the country” with the goal of stimulating “students’ interest in science and” unleashing their creativity. “Several decades ago, he tried magic as a tool to make science lessons more interesting, and he’s been honing his sleight-of-hand ever since.” McCormack creates “many of his own props, such as a teapot that seems to magically spurt water over his audience and a book so hot that flames shoot from its pages.” The Union Tribune added that “based on the La Jolla students’ rapt attention at the magic show, the technique of combining magic with science lessons on convection currents, static electricity, basic chemistry and engineering seems to work.” And “educators said McCormack’s techniques enhance the joy of scientific exploration both for students and teachers.”

On the Job
California District Omits Parent/Teacher Conferences From Schedule Due To Budget Cuts.
The Oakland (CA) Tribune (11/20, Tat) reports that “because of budget cuts, no formal parent conference days were scheduled in” California’s Freemont school district this year. However, “school district officials and the teachers union maintain that parents whose kids are struggling will continue to hear from teachers — by phone or e-mail, at the very least, if not in person.” But according to the Oakland Tribune, while many “parents reported that their children’s teachers were willing to meet with them upon request, a greater number of parents who contacted Bay Area News Group said they were denied conferences when they requested in-person meetings because their children aren’t exhibiting problems in school.”

Teachers At Some Low-Performing New York City Schools Awarded Bonuses.
The New York Times (11/20, Otterman) reports that teachers at W.H. Maxwell Career and Technical Education High School in Brooklyn, NY, “were among those at 23 high schools citywide awarded a total of $3.5 million in performance bonuses on Thursday, even though the school received a D on its progress report earlier this week.” The “reason for the discrepancy between the two measures of progress, school officials said, is that the teacher bonuses…are determined by individual targets set for each school, and the bonus-eligible schools serve students starting from a very low threshold.” The Times adds that under the bonus program, “each school meeting 100 percent of its academic goals receives an amount equal to $3,000 for each member of the teachers’ union. At schools reaching 75 percent of their goals,” the “rate is $1,500 per union member.”

Law & Policy
Changes Urged In Rules For Federal Innovation Aid.
Education Week (11/19) reported that as the US Department of Education “prepares final rules for the $650 million Investing in Innovation Fund, officials face strong concerns from school districts and philanthropies that requiring matching funds from the private sector is unworkable and would turn foundations into the gatekeepers for these federal grants.” According to Education Week, concern “about the proposed matching-funds requirement for the so-called ‘i3′ grants, which will be given out next year to districts through the economic-stimulus program, was a common thread among the 346 responses the department received during a 30-day public comment period that ended Nov. 9.” In addition, “many school districts objected to the requirement in the proposed rules that applicants show strong evidence of past success in order to justify funding for an innovative strategy.”

Some High Schools Restricting Size Of Purses Students Can Bring On Campus.
Illinois’ State Journal Register (11/20, Beck) reports that “in October, a rash of violence among” students at Lanphier High School in Illinois “spurred the school to re-evaluate its security measures, including its policy on book bags and purses.” School officials “decided to ask female students to keep their purses small.” According to the State Journal Register, many area school administrators have imposed similar rules. “Most schools in the area instituted similar restrictions on purses before Lanphier” for varying reasons. For instance, about three years ago, Pawnee High School faculty and administrators discovered that “large purses were carrying too many distractions for high school students.” Now, the school does not allow purses that are “larger than students’ notebooks, and they must be kept in lockers during the school day.”

Special Needs

Self-Contained High School Class Teaches Special Needs Students Life Skills.
New Jersey’s Asbury Park Press (11/20, Colavito, et al.) reports that Middletown High School South’s Self-Contained class gives mentally disabled students the opportunity “to learn the skills they need to become largely independent at home, such as filing, organization and cleaning,” and “offers the students many social opportunities. For instance, students go to holiday parties sponsored by the South club, Eagles Helping the Community.” Special needs students also “take electives such as cooking and music,” and “a physical-education course called the Challenger Program,” which is “facilitated by the nondisabled teens, who play with the special-education students.”

Facilities
Chesapeake, Virginia, School, City Leaders At Odds About Financing Construction Projects.
The Virginian-Pilot (11/20) reports, “Last week, the” Chesapeake School Board “was tossing around some [questions] about the best way to expand Indian River High School. … Meanwhile, the discussions taking place just down the road at City Hall could mean those questions have just one answer: No.” Chesapeake “city administrators said this week they don’t want City Council to approve any extra construction money for schools.” This year, “the money that’s been set aside to pay for school construction is running low.” But school administrators are looking ahead to fiscal year 2014-15, when “the city pays off a major school construction debt. At that point, the city could start directing the $16.5 million it was using to make debt payments toward more new school construction, if council members agreed to it.” City administrators contend that “revenue reductions” are still being considered because of the down economy, and that making a commitment to school construction at this time “would not be a good idea.”

School Finance
Gates Foundation Awards $335 Million In Grants To Raise Teacher Effectiveness.
The Washington Post (11/20, Anderson) reports that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation “announced Thursday a $335 million investment in teacher effectiveness, funding experiments in tenure, evaluation, compensation, training and mentoring in three large school systems and a cluster of charter schools.” Through the grants, the foundation “aims to push policymakers to put more weight on teacher performance than qualifications. Hillsborough County schools, in the Tampa area, will receive $100 million; Memphis schools, $90 million; Pittsburgh schools, $40 million; and five charter networks in Los Angeles, $60 million.” The “initiative, including $45 million to study how to measure teacher effectiveness, is of the same magnitude as Obama administration reform efforts.”

Hillsborough County, Florida, Schools Awarded $100 Million Gates Foundation Grant. The St. Petersburg Times (11/20, Marshall) reports, “Hillsborough County [FL] schools took a bow on the national stage Thursday, officially winning a $100 million teacher effectiveness grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.” The district is among only “a handful” nationwide to receive a portion of the foundation’s $335 investment into finding solutions for “America’s stickiest education challenges.” Hillsborough Superintendent MaryEllen Elia noted, “The ultimate goal of the whole thing is higher student performance. We will have 90 percent of our students college and career ready by the time we finish this grant work.” Thursday afternoon, Elia met with “prepare principals and senior staffers” in a closed door meeting to prepare for “ambitious changes” that will “transform the way [Hillsborough] recruits, trains and retains high-quality teachers.” The school system “will have to match the Gates funds with $102 million, and at least $30 million a year after the grant runs out. Officials hope to raise that money through other grants, and by redirecting money now used for teacher development.”

Also in the News
Hawaii Teacher Selected For Teaching Exchange In Ghana.
The Honolulu (HI) Advertiser (11/19) reported that John Wolfe, an English teacher at Punahou School in Honolulu, HI, “is one of 40 exceptional teachers from around the United States who has been selected by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State and IREX (International Research and Exchanges Board) to participate” in a two-way international exchange program. Wolfe “will be traveling to Ghana for two weeks in April, 2010. … During his two-week trip, Wolfe and his international counterpart will discuss best teaching practices and related educational issues in Ghana with the host school teachers and with the wider community of educators.”

White House To Launch Campaign Promoting Math, Science Education.
The New York Times (11/23, A13, Chang) reports that President Obama “will announce a campaign Monday to enlist companies and nonprofit groups to spend money, time and volunteer effort to encourage students, especially in middle and high school, to pursue science, technology, engineering and math, officials say.” The initiative, “called Educate to Innovate, will focus mainly on activities outside the classroom. … The other parts of the campaign include a two-year focus on science on ‘Sesame Street,’ the venerable public television children’s show, and a Web site, connectamillionminds.com, set up by Time Warner Cable, that provides a searchable directory of local science activities.” Also, the White House “has also recruited Sally K. Ride, the first American woman in space, and corporate executives like Craig R. Barrett, a former chairman of Intel, and Ursula M. Burns, chief executive of Xerox, to champion the cause of science and math education to corporations and philanthropists.”

Time Warner Grants $3.5 Million To Wisconsin For STEM Education. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (11/21, Miller) reported, “Time Warner recently revealed details on a five-year effort to encourage children to learn more about science, technology, engineering and math, and Wisconsin is among the first to get in on the action.” The state “will get $3.5 million in cash and other resources to support and promote local programs.” In addition, the firm “launched a Web site last week at Connectamillionminds.com to help link parents and children with local events and activities run by schools, nonprofit groups and professional organizations.” Time Warner’s Bev Greenberg said that “parents and children need to know about all of the chances to learn about science and math in Milwaukee and Wisconsin, and Time Warner can help.”

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In the Classroom
Electronic White Boards Seen As Aiding Study Of Geography.
The Chicago Tribune (11/23, Malone) reports on the use of electronic white boards for geography lessons. The boards are a means of using up to date maps that can be manipulated in various ways and are said to be more interesting to students and eliminate the costs of acquiring new maps regularly. “Researchers say the shift represents a larger effort to make the subject relevant to students growing up in a technological world.” The board, because it is linked to a computer, can display online maps for examination of recent events or local maps. The Tribune adds, “next year students across the country will be tested on their understanding of the world in the geography section of the National Assessment of Educational Progress for the first time in nine years.”

Preschool Playtime Seen As Having Developmental Benefit.
The Washington Post (11/21, Brown) reported to the “untrained eye,” playtime in preschool “appears to be nothing more than a distraction from the real letters-and-numbers work of school. But research shows that it might be an essential part in determining these children’s social and emotional makeup as adults.” The “debate among early childhood educators over whether precious school hours should be spent on play has simmered for years. But it is intensifying as preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds, once the province of child-care centers, is increasingly embraced by public school systems to teach students the skills they need to be successful in kindergarten.”

Wichita Area District To Be First With Grade School Aerospace Program.
The Wichita Eagle (11/23, Yount) reports, “The Derby school district is leading the Wichita area in providing state-of-the-art engineering classes in middle and high schools, and it will lead the nation by being the first to offer the engineering classes at an elementary school.” The programs were developed by Project Lead the Way and “by offering the engineering classes, Derby school leaders said they hope to spark students’ interest in math and science by providing hands-on and computer-based activities.” The article describes the programs and quotes teachers and students about their positive reactions. The Derby district has “almost 700…enrolled in one of the Project Lead the Way classes” out of a total enrollment of “about 6,500 students.” This year, aided by a $318,000 Department of Defense grant, “Wineteer Elementary School teachers are starting training to be the first to teach Project Lead the Way’s aerospace engineering lessons in grades three to five.”

Fossum Coordinating Local NASA Workers To Inspire Youth.
The Brownsville (TX) Herald (11/23, Pipitone) reports astronaut Mike Fossum “is hoping stories…from about two dozen” Rio Grande Valley “natives working for NASA can be used to inspire school kids in the Valley that aren’t aware of the myriad job opportunities within the space agency.” Fossum has been working with Janet Morris, a space shuttle schedules analyst with United Space Alliance, to compile a list of “Valley Rats” over the past year. “The list contains engineers, technicians, analysts, administrative assistants and other positions with NASA and several other different companies. The list also continues to grow as Fossum and Morris get the word out.” Local officials “praised Fossum’s idea and welcomed the prospect of more NASA employees coming to speak in school auditoriums and classrooms.”

California School’s Success At Bridging Achievement Gap Analyzed.
The New York Times (11/20, A29A, Yost) reports that Kathleen Martin “teaches first grade at Leroy Anderson Elementary School in San Jose, a regular public school. Of its 430 students, 90 percent receive subsidized lunches. For 70 percent, English is a second language and 70 percent are Hispanic.” According to the Times, “Those can be the demographic ingredients for a watered-down curriculum and the excuses for academic failure. .. What is turbo-charging academics at this school? It is never easy to prove a cause-and-effect relationship in education, but three ingredients associated with success in other schools are at work: high expectations for everyone, constant assessment and family involvement.”

On the Job
DC Teacher’s Struggle With New Evaluation System Profiled.
In a column for the Washington Post (11/23), Jay Mathews recounts a D.C. high school history teacher’s negative experience with D.C.’s new IMPACT system for assessing teachers. Goldfarb “said he thinks the 68-page IMPACT plan that guides teachers and evaluators is written for elementary schools” and is too arbitrary is gauging teaching effectiveness. In response, Jason Kamras, the “former national teacher of the year who oversees the IMPACT program,” cited “experts who say making lesson objectives clear is very important, as is addressing different learning styles, such as augmenting the spoken lesson with a written text, which Goldfarb did not do.” Ultimately, “With help, we can improve what seems to me a well-meaning but perilous effort to find out how well our teachers are doing their jobs.”

Law & Policy
Duncan Visits Maryland School, Promotes Community School Model.
The Washington Post (11/22, Goodman) reported that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer and Maryland State Superintendent of Schools Nancy S. Grasmick “visited C. Paul Barnhart Elementary School in Waldorf [MD] recently to discuss the importance of early learning and full-service community schools.” Barnhart “is one of three elementary schools in Charles County with a Judy Center, which provides comprehensive services for at-risk schoolchildren from birth through kindergarten and their families. Hoyer, along with Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), recently introduced the Full-Service Community Schools Act of 2009, which would provide $200 million a year for five years to fund grants for partnerships between school districts and community-based organizations, which is the Judy Center model.”

Illinois To Change Rules To Ensure That All Students Are Tested.
The Chicago Tribune (11/20, Malone, Banchero) reported, “Taking aim at a loophole used to exclude academically weak 11th-graders from state testing, Illinois education officials said this week they want to create a single standard to determine when students are counted as juniors and therefore must take the exam.” And “officials with the Illinois State Board of Education said the new direction is needed to end a mounting pattern of abuses,” as “nearly 10,000 students now in their final year of high school…skipped the two-day Prairie State Achievement Exam last spring for no apparent reason, according to a new state analysis.” That is because they “didn’t qualify as juniors in May … but months later in October they were listed as 12th graders — seemingly skipping 11th grade.”

Vermont Education Commissioner Continues Call For Consolidating Districts.
The Burlington (VT) Free Press (11/22, Walsh) reported, “Vermont Education Commissioner Armando Vilaseca is calling for more frugal school budgeting and a renewed look at school-district consolidation as the state faces what he calls the perfect storm of budget woes. In a memo issued earlier this month and co-written by Vermont Commissioner of Finance and Management Jim Reardon, Vilaseca proposed a number of cost-cutting measures and urged boards to level-fund or reduce spending.” The previous commissioner, “Richard Cate, convened meetings around the state to marshal support for a proposal to shrink the number of Vermont school districts from 280 to 58,” but that “plan found a place on the shelf already groaning under the weight of failed consolidation plans dating back more than 40 years.”

Special Needs
Study Finds Disparities Among Programs For Gifted Students.
The AP (11/23) reports, “A new report says gifted children are being ignored in the U.S., as most federal education funding goes to help struggling students learn the basics.” The report by the National Association for Gifted Children “says there are disparities across the U.S. Some areas may have an abundance of classes and schools for gifted children, while rural and urban districts with less money have none to offer. Just six states pick up the whole tab for gifted programs, and 13 don’t put a single dollar toward such curriculum, according to the study.”

Safety & Security
DC Charter Schools May Push For Police Protection Like That In Other Public Schools.
The Washington Post (11/22, Birnbaum) reports that charter schools in Washington, D.C. have been wondering “why charter schools, which enroll more than 38 percent of public school students in the city, don’t get regular protection like that at traditional public schools, where about 100 officers walk the halls full time.” Councilman Phil Mendelson (D-At Large) is urging that the officers be used in charter schools. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said that “there aren’t enough police officers to permanently staff every school.” The Post details some of the allegations regarding gang activity in the area and views on whether police in the schools would be helpful.

Facilities
Indiana Districts Having More Difficulty Getting Approval For Building Products.
The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette (11/23, Kelly) reports, “Gov. Mitch Daniels recently declared the new referendum process is ‘working pretty darn well’ in Indiana. Capital construction projects and operational increases for schools have failed more often than not since November 2008 – a 58 percent failure rate overall and 65 percent when considering just capital-project votes,” up from “a 50-50 history of passing” under the previous law. Dennis Costerison, executive director of the Indiana Association of School Business Officials, said, “It’s about the economy more than it is an anti-public school issue. The bottom line is people are looking at their pocket books and they are empty.” Overall, “referendums seeking additional money for a school district’s operational expenses are more likely to succeed,” while “construction projects are a harder sell.”

Indiana District Considers Options After Referendum Defeated. The Gary (IN) Post-Tribune (11/22, Wolf) reported, “After last summer’s defeat of a construction referendum to improve all four schools, the Porter Township School Corp. is looking at improvements again.” The district was presented with a 27-option list for improvements from which the board may “pick what it can afford and what it needs immediately.” Proposals include additions and renovations for each of the district’s schools.

Virginia Beach Succeeds By Adapting Middle School Plans After Objections By Neighbors.
The Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot (11/23) reports, “The new Virginia Beach Middle School on 25th Street resembles a community center, country club or mansion. It’s actually a school that has been designed with the latest technology and a facade that fits into the surrounding Old Beach neighborhood. The $51 million price tag includes $3 million in improvements to nearby Beach Garden Park,” and “eco-friendly touches, such as the wooden gym floor made of pressed bamboo boards.” The district had originally planned “to take nine nearby houses and build a larger facility that could also include the gifted middle school,” but after protests by neighbors and parents of gifted middle schoolers, the district developed the present three story school on a smaller site. “Relations are more peaceful now.”

School Finance
Michigan To Consider District Consolidation If Savings Can Be Shown.
The Lansing (MI) State Journal (11/22, Miller) reported that consolidation “is now among the options being examined in the face of financial crisis for most state school districts.” That option was recommended by the Legislative Commission on Government Efficiency “if at least 5 percent savings can be shown.” The recommendation was in response to recent audits showing “wide variations in per-pupil spending for instruction and instructional support, and even wider variations in administration and business management.” But “the most efficient school districts ranged in size from Potterville’s 986 students to Lansing’s 15,452.” The Charlotte schools “spent $411 per pupil less than the state average for business and administrative services.” The district spokesman said the district had been working on reducing administrative costs for years.

New Mexico Auditors Say Districts Need To Improve Financial Oversight.
The AP (11/20, Massey) reported from New Mexico, “Auditors for the Legislative Finance Committee examined five of the state’s 89 districts, concluding that local school boards and district administrators need better oversight of school finances. The auditors also questioned whether some districts were taking unfair advantage of a provision that provides them with hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra state aid for small schools.” The report “criticized lax credit card policies by districts.”

New York District Says Audit Shows Need For Better Controls.
The Syracuse (NY) Post-Standard (11/21, Rubado) reported, “A troubling state audit of the Syracuse City School District shows a need for better controls and consolidation of city and school district functions, common councilors said Friday.” Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli released the audit, which “showed problems in accounting for money owed to the district, among other issues.” District CFO Suzanne Slack said that “the problems found in the audit occurred as a result of clerical errors, outdated computer systems and lack of controls in certain areas,” but “procedural problems have been fixed or will be fixed with the installation of new software.”

White House Science, Math Education Campaign To Include National Science Fair.
The New York Times (11/24, Chang) reports that President Obama “announced on Monday a campaign to enlist companies and nonprofit groups to spend money, time and volunteer effort to encourage students, especially in middle and high school, to pursue science, technology, engineering and math.” The President also “announced an annual science fair at the White House.” Moreover, Sally K. Ride, “the first American woman in space, and corporate executives” have been recruited to identify effective local math and science programs and “then connecting financing sources to spread the successes nationally.”

Sunlen Miller wrote in a Political Punch blog for ABC News (11/23), that the President “will convene an annual science fair starting next year. The winners of national competitions in science and technology will be annually invited to the White House as a congratulatory event equal to those, the president said, that are normally reserved for sports stars.” The announcement “came hand-in-hand with the ‘Educate to Innovate’ campaign launched by the White House to increase the importance of math and science education in the classroom: with an initial commitment by the private sector of more than $260 million.”

Bloomberg News (11/24, Brower, Runningen) reports, “‘The hard truth is that, for decades, we’ve been losing ground’ in drawing students into science and mathematics, Obama said at the White House. ‘Scientists and engineers ought to stand side by side with athletes and entertainers as role models.’” Organizations backing the Educate to Innovate program are the Carnegie Corp. of New York and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as the MacArthur Foundation, which “is teaming up with the technology industry to hand out prizes in a contest to create video games with math- and science-related themes.” Discovery Communications, meanwhile, “is launching a five-year programming block dedicated to promoting science education,” and “public television staple “Sesame Street” is backing the campaign and will have a two-year focus on science and math.”

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In the Classroom
Popular Songs Help Fourth-Grade Class Remember Grammar, Math Concepts.
Missouri’s News Tribune (11/24, Hutschreider) reports that over the past year, Joni Henderson a fourth-grade teacher at Moreau Heights Elementary School, “has been incorporating” popular songs “into her lessons on possessive nouns, verbs and the mathematical order of operations.” Henderson was inspired after seeing a video of students at the Ron Clark Academy performing ‘Vote However You Like’ to the same beat and melody of ‘Whatever You Like’ by T.I.’ That video explained the Democratic and Republican issues in an understandable way for elementary school students.” The video had been “posted on the Internet and drew national attention.” Hutchinson posts videos of her students’ performances on “TeacherTube, a Website much like YouTube.”

Alabama Elementary Celebrates Green Week With Planting Party.
The Huntsville (AL) Times (11/24, Ammons) reports that students at Monrovia Elementary School in Alabama “recycled juice pouches, created green-themed artwork, or planted flowers during the school’s Green Week.” The school was divided “into different sections and assigned projects.” Students in Junior National Honor Society and Student Government Association “planted shrubs and bulbs in a new flower bed at the front of the school,” and “teachers did environmental education lessons in their classes” throughout the week. “One of the biggest and most visible parts of the week were the planting parties around the campus.” In preparation “for the planting parties, students and their parents collected money for plants and begged for donations of sod and mulch.” Monrovia PTA President Quintessa Thomas said that “the idea for Green Week began when a group of parents got together to upgrade the playground at Monrovia.”

Children Draw, Share Feelings To Make Sense Of Fort Hood Tragedy.
The Dallas Morning News (11/23, Kovach) reported that Clear Creek Elementary School “is on military property across the highway from Fort Hood,” the site of a recent deadly shooting rampage. Students there “had spent the last week making a similar care package of cards and drawings to distribute on post. But they had been through their own ordeal: On Nov. 5, after an Army psychiatrist allegedly shot 13 people to death and wounded dozens of others, Clear Creek’s teachers, students and parents were locked inside the school for hours.” Clear Creek’s principal then received a letter “filled with drawings and letters of support from North Texas schoolchildren. … Clear Creek principal Maryann F. Ramos felt grateful that students halfway across Texas cared enough to write.”

On the Job
Regional Education Service Centers Help Smaller Districts Enhance Staff Development.
The Longview (TX) News-Journal (11/23, Lane) reported, “Local school officials say they continually look for ways to improve staff development and offer additional training.” Though “some larger school districts have in-house personnel to offer programs, smaller school districts turn to resources such as the Region 7 Education Service Center for support. … The Region 7 Education Service Center, based in Kilgore, serves 106 school districts in 17 East Texas counties. Nationwide, there are 620 regional education service centers in 42 states, according to the Association of Educational Service Agencies.”

Report Finds Large Racial Gap In Illinois School Suspension, Expulsion Rate.
WGN-TV Chicago (11/23) reported that an AP report finds that “minority students in Illinois public schools are far more likely than white students to be suspended or expelled.” The AP “studied state records, and found a startling racial gap. Between 1999 and last year, expulsions of white students rose 16 percent; but expulsions of black students jumped 56 percent, and there was an 81 percent increase in expulsions of Hispanic students.”

Law & Policy
Final Race To The Top Rules Give States, Districts More School Turnaround Flexibility.
Education Week (11/23, Maxwell) reported “final rules for the $4 billion Race to the Top competition give states and districts” more flexibility “in how they intervene in chronically underperforming schools.” The change, however, “raises new questions about whether the push to turn around struggling campuses will succeed in rehabilitating large numbers of schools.” According to Education Week, the US Department of Education guidelines released this month permitted “states and districts using the federal grant money” to “opt, as a first resort, to use a turnaround approach that many educators favor: providing professional development and coaching for a school’s current staff, and making changes to curriculum and instruction.” Originally, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan “had sought to make that ‘transformation’ model a last resort for school turnarounds if three other, more aggressive methods — replacing the principal and at least half its teachers; reopening the school under a charter operator or other outside manager; or shutting the school down-were not feasible.”

Special Needs
Minority, Low-Income Students In Oregon Often Overlooked For Gifted Programs.
The Oregonian (11/24, Owen) reports that throughout the state of Oregon, “minorities and children from low-income families are under-represented in talented and gifted (TAG) programs.” In 2007-08, “about 69 percent of all students in Oregon were listed as white and 31 percent minorities.” In that year, however, “about 80 percent of all TAG students were white” and minorities “accounted for 19 percent, according to the Oregon Department of Education.” Hispanic students made up “17 percent of the total student population,” but accounted for only five percent of TAG students. Educators say that “ideally, the percentage of gifted students would reflect the demographics of the total population.” Oregon law requires schools to “identify their talented and gifted students and educate them at their level and rate, or pace, of learning. Identification is determined by testing.” Teachers recommend students who they identify as “exceptional” for testing. But, the Oregonian adds that educators sometimes overlook “low-income students and those whose second language is English.”

Virginia Governor Orders State Officials To Analyze Gifted Education Racial Disparities. The Richmond Times-Dispatch (11/23, Prestidge, Meola) reported that in Henrico County, VA “schools last year, African-American students made up 36 percent of the enrollment and 7 percent of the children who received gifted education. Chesterfield and Hanover counties saw similar patterns the last school year.” According to the Times-Dispatch, “Area school officials who provided the numbers acknowledge the disparities and say they’ve dug in with task forces, targeted programs and studies. But last week, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine put the issue in the spotlight with an order to analyze disproportionately low representation of minority students in gifted education.” The Times-Dispatch added, “At Kaine’s request, the Virginia Department of Education, with assistance from the Regional Educational Laboratory Appalachia, will analyze the disproportionately low representation.”

Facilities
Stimulus Funding Construction Projects In Kentucky Districts.
The Louisville Courier-Journal (11/23, Konz) reported that Jefferson County (KY) Public Schools Superintendent Sheldon Berman “will ask the Jefferson County school board Monday to approve spending $3.6 million on a new performing-arts pavilion” at Lincoln Elementary School, “complete with a 300-seat theater space; a piano lab; vocal, instrumental, music, dance and drama studios; and a community-arts rehearsal hall. … The arts pavilion is the most recent in a series of district construction projects this year totaling approximately $52 million — half of it courtesy of the federal government’s stimulus funding.”

NEA in the News

NEA Tops List Of Largest Contributors To State, Federal Elections.
The Washington Times (11/24, McElhatton) reported that the Center for Responsive Politics and the Institute on Money in State Politics “ranked special-interest groups by how much money they spent in state and federal elections combined.” The NEA topped the list “at $56.3 million, with the pro-gambling groups Pechanga Band of Mission Indians at $43.9 million and Penn National at $40.5 million ranking second and third, respectively.”

NEA Honors Substitute Teachers During American Education Week.
All Headline News (11/23, Lu) reported that singer “Bono has topped the Favorite Celebrity Substitute Educator survey” in the NEA’s “third annual Substitute Educator’s Day poll. According to the new poll, 26 percent of the thousands of voters would like to see the Irish rocker rule the classroom.” Last Friday, “substitute educators were honored” at the end of American Education Week, “which was celebrated from November 15 to 21.” NEA President Dennis Van Roekel stressed the importance of having “a well qualified, well respected substitute to cover lessons. That’s why it’s so important to pay tribute to substitute educators who step in at a moment’s notice to carry on lessons in the classroom when teachers are absent,” he said.

Teachers In Rhode Island Sue School Board For Unfair Labor Practices.
The Providence Journal (11/24) reports that “beginning in July 2011, the School Committee says East Providence teachers will be paid, in part, by how well they do in the classroom, not just how long they have been there.” The East Providence Education Association has responded to the new rule by filing an “unfair labor practice complaint against the school board,” saying that “the School Committee has implemented the plan unilaterally and ‘circumvented the Union by soliciting and dealing directly with [union] members in the creation of its pay for performance plan.’” The Providence Journal notes that “the union has filed similar charges against the committee since negotiations for a new contract broke down during the summer of 2008.”

Texas To Hold Public Hearings On Changes To K-12 Social Studies Curriculum.
The San Antonio Express News (11/25, Scharrer) reports that “Texans soon will get their say” about what should be included in the “next generation of public school textbooks.” Many are expected “to sign up for the first public hearing Jan. 13 when the State Board of Education” begins putting together the “new social studies standards, which will influence curriculum and new textbooks covering history, US government, geography and economics for 4.7 million students for a decade.” The two major topics of debate are whether to include more mention of minorities and whether to include information about the religious faith of the US founding fathers. Currently, “Of more than 160 historic figures required for study in textbooks under the proposed standards, only 16 are Hispanic” and even fewer are African-American. Board Member Mavis Knight said that the coverage of minorities in “schools has ‘rendered a whole population of people invisible.’” Meanwhile, “some board members want students to learn more about the religious influences of the Founding Fathers.”

Governor Reiterates Opposition To National Education Standards. Terrence Stutz wrote in a “The Education Front” blog for the Dallas Morning News (11/24) that Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) “still wants no part of a move to establish national standards for English and math instruction in public schools. Texas education officials — with Perry’s backing — told [ED] in June that Texas would not participate with most other states in developing the standards, spelling out what students at all grade levels should be taught in those subjects.” According to Stutz, though “it is now apparent that Texas has severely hurt its chances of getting a piece of the $4.35 billion Race to the Top federal grant program for schools, Perry said in a letter to state Education Commissioner Robert Scott Tuesday that he remains opposed to inclusion of Texas in the national standards.”

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In the Classroom
Ninth-Graders At Georgia School Pledge To Graduate.
The Rome (GA) News-Tribune (11/25, Bell) reports that this week, “the freshmen of Pepperell High School pledged to finish their high school education and graduate in 2013 while standing in front of a giant banner featuring each of their handprints during what has become an annual ceremony for ninth-graders at the school.” The ceremony was held for students in the ninth-grade academy. “The program, now in its fourth year, has already shown measurable results,” according to Principal Phil Ray. “More students fail and drop out between ninth and 10th grade than at any other point, he said, and at Pepperell 35 percent failed to make that transition in 2002.” However, “by 2008 that number had dropped to five percent.”

Louisiana’s New “Career Diploma” Intended To Reduce Dropout Rate, Proponents Say.
The Education Week (11/24, Robelen) reports, “At a time when many states are ratcheting up their high school graduation requirements, critics say Louisiana’s new ‘career diploma’ appears to represent a lowering of standards and expectations for students who aren’t headed to a four-year college.” However, “some state education leaders who had misgivings with the legislative effort this year to mandate the new diploma say they’ve been working hard to make sure…it holds real value for graduates.” According to Education Week, those who support the legislation, “which won unanimous backing in the state Senate and a large majority in the House, say the new diploma is intended to stem the state’s dropout rate.” This fall, “about a dozen school districts began to implement the new diploma route.” The remaining districts “were granted waivers until next school year.”

Twelve DC Schools Asked To Investigate Testing “Irregularities.”
Bill Turque wrote in a D.C. Wire blog for the Washington Post (11/24) that in a joint statement, DC Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) and State Superintendent of Education Kerri Briggs “have asked 12 public and public charter schools with irregularities in their 2009 DC-CAS standardized test results to conduct internal investigations.” In 2008, Briggs’ predecessor, Deborah Gist “commissioned an investigation into the 2008 DC-CAS results at 26 public and public charter schools where reading and math proficiency increased markedly. That inquiry was based on ‘anomalies’ discovered during an analysis of incorrect student answers that were erased and changed to correct answers.” Meanwhile, CTB-McGraw-Hill, “the firm that published the test and also conducted the erasure analysis, characterized the results of the analysis as ‘inconclusive.’”

On the Job

Sale Of Teacher Lesson Plans Raises Questions Of Ownership.
Maureen Downey wrote in a Get Schooled blog for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (11/24) that a recent New York Times article reports that there “is a growing market for class lesson plans, and teachers are earning extra cash by selling their plans online on such sites as Teachers Pay Teachers and We are Teachers.” Downey noted some of the responses to the story. “A first-year teacher wrote” that she was told by her department head that “teachers own their plans.” Another teacher pointed out, “The fact that we are willing to pay for lessons superior to the curriculums bought by our school districts doesn’t cheapen what we do; it raises it to a new level of commitment.” Downey asks, “If teachers are buying lesson plans, why should it come out of their pockets? Shouldn’t the schools pay?”

More Than 1,500 Students In Georgia District Disciplined Over Protest Against School Uniforms.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (11/25, Matteucci) reports that “more than 1,500 Clayton County high school students came to school on Friday in what school officials called ‘non-appropriate dress’” as part of “an organized protest.” The students were all disciplined, but “that discipline varied from school to school,” according to district spokesman Charles White. According to White, “the students at the county’s nine high schools organized online by sending messages urging their friends to ‘buck the system’” in protest for having to wear uniforms to school. The “boycott, called ‘Protest As One,’ was also discussed among 782 members of a public Facebook group called ‘Clayton County high school students against required uniforms.’” In a statement, Superintendent Edmond Heatley said, “It should be noted that disciplinary actions were based on students’ failure to follow instructions and disrupting the school and not on being out of uniform dress.”

Law & Policy
Judge Upholds DC Schools Chief’s Layoffs.
The Washington Post (11/25, Turque) reports that D.C. Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff “on Tuesday upheld Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee’s decision to lay off 266 public school teachers and other educators to close a budget gap, flatly rejecting union arguments that she contrived financial problems to rid the system of older instructors.” Bartnoff said that the teachers’ Union “failed to prove any of its core contentions in challenging the Oct. 2 job cuts that triggered the most turbulent month of Rhee’s 29-month tenure.” The union “filed suit five days after the layoffs, branding them an illegal mass firing and calling for the teachers to be reinstated while the matter was turned over to an arbitrator. But Bartnoff said that given the school system’s fiscal condition after the council cut $21 million from the school budget July 31, a reversal of the layoffs would only force Rhee and Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) to make other cuts.”

Bill Bans Consent Defense For Teachers Accused Of Having Improper Contact With Students.
ABC News (11/24, Friedman) reports on its website that “lawmakers in Georgia are working to close what they say is a loophole in the state law that has already freed at least two teachers who were jailed for having sex with their students.” In the case of Georgia teacher Melissa Lee Chase, “who had been convicted of assault against her 16-year-old female student,” the state Supreme Court said that the state law of consent “specifies that only certain relationships between people in authority and their subordinates…were not allowed to use consent in their defense.” The age of consent in Georgia is 16. However, “no mention of using consent as a defense in a teacher-student relationship was noted in the statute.” Furthermore, the court said that “not allowing consent as a defense could result in ‘absurd results.’” But state Rep. Kevin Levitas (D), “says that the state Supreme Court misinterpreted the law and is now introducing a House bill” that would block consent from being “used as a defense between individuals in a supervisory relationship.”

Facilities
Missouri Leaders Meet To Discuss “Race To The Top” Strategy.
The Jefferson City (MO) News Tribune (11/24, Watson) reported that “about 250 Missouri education, political and business leaders spent nearly six hours Monday discussing ways the Show Me State can compete and win in the ‘Race to the Top’ challenge.” The AP (11/24, Blank) reported that Missouri “must be willing to overhaul its education system and develop new teaching methods to compete for more than $4 billion” in Race to the Top funds, the “state’s top education and political leaders said” in a daylong planning meeting “designed to help Missouri prepare its application for the federal money.” Missouri Education Commissioner Chris Nicastro “challenged several hundred education, business and political leaders to discount what they believe is true but actually is inaccurate and have the flexibility to figure out how to apply new methods that can work better.”

Also in the News

TV Chef Partners With New York City Schools To Develop Healthier Meals.
The ABC News (11/24, McFadden, Sherwood) reported on its Website that TV chef Rachael Ray is “directing her down-home cooking skills and her enormous star power toward a topic she cares deeply about: kids and food. Her new outlet: New York City’s public schools.” Yum-o, Ray’s foundation, “has partnered with the New York Department of Education to provide healthy, delicious and appealing meals to kids in more than 1,600 public schools in New York City.” The effort is “part of a movement to help reduce the rate of childhood obesity in New York City schools.”

New Jersey Rescinds Rule Requiring H1N1 Vaccinations For Preschoolers.
The New Jersey Star Ledger (11/25) reports that New Jersey has suspended a rule requiring H1N1 inoculations for children entering preschool and day care in January. “Pediatricians, health officers and parents have complained the seasonal flu shot is as elusive as the H1N1, or swine flu, vaccine, Health and Senior Services Commissioner Heather Howard said.” The state’s decision “gives panicky parents a break should they be unable to comply with the year-old state law that requires children ages 6 months to just under 5 years old to get vaccinated by Dec. 1 if they plan to attend preschool or day care.”

NEA in the News
NEA Affiliate In Wisconsin Joins With AFL-CIO To Enhance Political Power.
The Janesville (WI) Gazette (11/25, Schultz) reports that the Janesville Education Association (JEA) “is joining forces with the state AFL-CIO in hopes of increasing the political power of both groups.” JEA President Dave Parr said that “The affiliation will not influence how the local union decides internal matters, nor will it change the JEA’s relationship with the statewide teachers union, the Wisconsin Education Association Council, or the national group, the National Education Association.” The JEA, “the fourth teachers union in the state to affiliate with the AFL-CIO,” will work with the AFL-CIO “on key legislative issues and…on political campaigns, on rallies and other solidarity actions.”

Arizona Seen As Having Race To The Top Advantages.
The Arizona Republic (11/30, Kossan, Bloom) reports that Arizona “has some advantages” in the competition for a portion of $4 billion in federal Race to the Top grants. One advantage is that the state received this summer “a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant to hire a consulting firm to help develop its proposal.” Moreover, while some states are scrambling to change “laws and policies to make sure they would be eligible to apply for the money,” Arizona “already allows” for the opening of charter schools and merit pay, which falls in line with grant guidelines. The Arizona Republic points out one glitch that may affect Arizona’s chances: “Race to the Top requires states to get community buy-in” on their grant proposal’s, but the Arizona Education Association (AEA) “filed a lawsuit last Monday against the latest changes to state laws.” AEA President John Wright said, “The whole process is becoming a little too politicized, and some of us within the teaching ranks are having to push back on that.”

Arizona Lawmakers Applauded For Tackling Teacher Quality Issue. The Arizona Republic (12/1) editorializes that the Arizona Education Association “is plenty justified in filing suit against the state for burying beneath budget bills some substantial changes in the state’s treatment of its teachers, particularly regarding seniority.” The changes called for removing certain seniority, salary, and contract guarantees,” but the bill “slipped through the special legislative session in September, largely unnoticed under the budget reconciliation package.” Still, the Arizona Republic asserts, the legislation moves the state to being more in line with “the president’s stated goal of valuing teacher quality over quantity of years in the classroom,” concluding, “We may not like the manner in which it was passed, but HB 2011 constitutes the sort of quality-first innovation that helps put Arizona in line for a share of the $4 billion in Race to the Top funds.”

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In the Classroom
Program Aims To Encourage Low-Income Middle Schoolers Toward Academic Success.
The Baltimore Sun (12/1, Bowie) reports on Higher Achievement, “a four-year program” currently “in two locations in Baltimore” that is “designed to support students through the difficult middle school years, when students are most vulnerable to peer pressure and…most likely to fall behind academically.” The program is geared toward students “in the academic middle who live in poor or struggling communities and are motivated to learn more.” During the summer “scholars” attend a six-week camp that includes academic classes and field trips. “After school from September through May, they have tutors to help with homework, dinner, activity time, and more academic work with their mentors until 8 p.m.” The mentors give students “personal attention” and “are trained to ask the students about their day and to share their experiences as well.”

Pilot Program Helps Ease Students’ Transition To Middle School.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (12/1, Torres) reports that while the Atlanta public school system “and its supporters point to the city’s much-touted effort to turn around its high schools by making them smaller, officials this year have quietly begun a program they hope creates a similar experience for middle-schoolers.” According to the Journal-Constitution, four Atlanta middle schools “are piloting the program” for sixth-graders” that allows them to report to two teachers “for regular academic subjects like science and social studies,” instead of reporting to four different teachers. The aim “is to ease the passage as students go from being” the oldest students on campus at the elementary level, to being the youngest students on a new campus “that also has higher academic expectations.”

Class Sizes Increase In Schools Throughout New York City.
The New York Times (12/1, A30, Otterman) reports that class sizes in the New York City public school system rose this year” — particularly at the high school and kindergarten level — due to budget cuts and enrollment increases. “High school English classes now have an average of 26.4 students, up from 24.7 in 2008,” and “science classes now have an average of 27.4 students, up from 26.1,” according to data from the New York City Education Department. Kindergarten class sizes have increased “by about 5 percent, according to the city data.”

Law & Policy
Michigan Lawmakers Facing Deadline On School Budget Cuts.
The AP (12/1, Martin) reported, “Time is running out for state lawmakers to soften the latest round of funding cuts to Michigan schools. Legislators have been studying what they could do to help offset a $127 per student funding cut — about $212 million statewide — ordered by” Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D). The budget cuts “will be reflected in checks sent to schools Dec. 21 unless lawmakers agree in the next week or so on a way to raise enough cash to eliminate the reduction.” According to the AP, “It appears more likely that lawmakers will try and restore the cuts in early 2010, after the reductions have taken effect.”

Special Needs
School Helps Hearing-Impaired Students Develop Speaking Skills.
The Canton (MA) Journal (11/30, Reardon) reported that Clarke School East in Canton, MA, “is one of four schools on the East Coast affiliated with the Northampton-based Clarke School for the Deaf and Center for Oral Education, founded in 1867. The satellite campuses…offer early intervention, preschool and kindergarten programs that focus on developing oral communication skills, as opposed to sign language.” According to the Journal, students at the Clarke School “have been diagnosed with moderate to severe hearing loss. … In the words of Cara Jordan, director of Clarke School East, the children first learn how to listen, then how to listen to learn.”

Safety & Security
Students In California Arrested Over “Kick a Ginger Day” Antics.
The AP (12/1) reported that three boys “were booked on suspicion of bullying or kicking red-haired students” at A.E. Wright Middle School in Calabasas, CA “when a ‘Kick a Ginger Day’ prank inspired by a ‘South Park’ episode got out of hand, authorities said Monday. A 13-year-old boy was detained last week for investigation of threatening to inflict injury by means of electronic communication — essentially, cyberbullying.” Also, two 12-year-olds “were booked for battery on school property, Los Angeles County sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore said.”

Victoria Kim, Andrew Blankstein and Richard Winton wrote in a L.A. Now blog posting for the Los Angeles Times (11/30) that three boys “have been arrested in connection with the so-called ‘ginger attacks,’ instigated by a Facebook message, in which at least seven red-haired children were beaten up at” A.E. Wright Middle School in Calabasas, CA, according to a sheriff’s spokesman. Detectives “are continuing to investigate the assaults and have identified eight boys at the school as subjects of the investigation. Authorities believe the attacks were spurred by a Facebook message about ‘Kick a Ginger Day,’ inspired by the television show ‘South Park.’”

Oregon School’s “Persistently Dangerous” Label Lifted.
The Salem (OR) Statesman Journal (11/30, Lynn) reported that when McKay High School in Salem, OR “was removed from the ‘persistently dangerous’ list, there was no pep assembly, no celebration of any kind in the classrooms or hallways. Sure, administrators and teachers were thrilled, and most of all relieved.” The Journal adds, “Being removed from the ‘persistently dangerous’ list doesn’t really change anything at McKay. As drama teacher Tiffany Carstensen said, McKay is the same school today as it was two months ago or two years ago.” Ultimately, teachers and administrators “will continue to be diligent about creating a safe learning environment for their students.”

Also in the News
Middle School Students In Massachusetts Suspended For Attempting To Poison Teacher.
Massachusetts’ Daily News Tribune (12/1, Kelly) reports that “police have issued summonses for three John W. McDevitt Middle School students they say attempted to poison a teacher with a cleaning solution.” The teacher had “reported her water bottle had been tampered with.” After investigating, police “concluded [that] the students — two 13-year-olds and a 12-year-old — put a cleaning solvent…into the teacher’s water bottle.” The teacher, according to Waltham Public Schools Superintendent Peter Azar, “never drank the tainted water, because she could smell some kind of chemical in it.” The students involved in the incident have been suspended indefinitely.

New Teacher Evaluation Plan Focuses On Student Achievement, School Participation.
Illinois’ News-Gazette (12/1, Heckel) reports that “the Champaign [IL] school district is piloting a new teacher evaluation plan this year in three schools.” The evaluations will focus “more on…students — how effectively the teacher is helping his or her students learn, rather than how the teacher presents the lessons.” In addition, the plan “takes into account not just what a teacher is doing in the classroom, but how he or she is contributing to the school, including working with colleagues to help students who are struggling or who have serious attendance problems.” The school district “and the teachers’ union have been working for two years to come up with a new evaluation plan.” At the end of each quarter, “teachers and administrators are meeting…to talk about the evaluation process and make any necessary changes.”

NEA in the News
NEA Rhode Island’s Gingerbread Express Provides Christmas Presents For Struggling Families.
WJAR-TV Providence, RI, (11/30, Taricani) reported that “students and faculty members at South Kingstown High School are making sure that kids from less-fortunate families have something under the Christmas tree this year.” The Gingerbread Express program, sponsored annually by the National Education Association Rhode Island “identifies families throughout the state who feel they cannot get their kids Christmas presents.” The families request gifts, which are donated by members of the community. NEA received over 1,300 requests this year, and the students and faculty at South Kingstown High School are filling 50 of those requests.

NEA Vermont Chapter Wants More Active Role In Discussing Pension Plan Changes.
Vermont Public Radio (12/1) reports that “Vermont’s two largest unions say they’re concerned they haven’t been asked to take a more active role in talks about proposed changes to pension plans.” Neither the Vermont chapter of the National Education Association nor the Vermont State Employees Association has “received a seat at the table to add to the discussions. Vermont-NEA was invited during a November 19th meeting, but union representatives say that was a little late.” But State Treasurer Jeb Spaulding said that both “unions have been asked repeatedly for input on alternatives, but haven’t made any recommendations.”
Middle School Principal Uses Kicking Incident As Teachable Moment.
The Los Angeles Times (12/2, Kim, Winton) reports that “the Calabasas middle school that was shaken this month by attacks on redheads was jolted again Monday when news spread that two 12-year-olds and a 13-year-old had been arrested in the bizarre incident” that was “inspired by the animated ‘South Park’ television show.” In addition to the arrests, the students were “given five-day suspensions — the maximum allowed under state education rules — and had already written letters of apology to the victims.” On Monday, A.E. Wright Middle School Principal Kimmarie Taylor told students via the school’s “public address system to be mindful of their responses to reporters and news crews who had gathered on campus.” The school also held an assembly, during which Taylor “attempted to demonstrate the irreversible consequences of ill-thought-out actions by having students try to put toothpaste back into a tube using toothpicks. Later, they wrote essays about making the school a better place.”

Superintendent Of Florida District Defends Suspensions For Students Involved In Kicking Prank. Florida’s Daily News (12/2) reports, “Students at Naples Middle School who took part in ‘kick a Jew day’” earlier this month “were copying a prank they saw on the animated television show ‘South Park,’” Collier School District Superintendent Dennis Thompson said Tuesday. Thompson wanted to clarify that “the incident, which sparked national attention…was not spawned by religious intolerance.” Thompson defended the suspensions given to the students who kicked their fellow classmates on that day, saying that “some of the responses adults have sent him about punishing the students have been out of control.” He argued, “What is the real crime here? These kids kicked a bunch of kids.” The Daily News notes that “after one student reported being kicked to a dean on Nov. 19,” Naples Principal Margaret Jackson addressed the entire student body on the morning news regarding the incident, reviewing the code of student conduct, explaining why what happened was wrong, the need to respect one another and possible consequences.”

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In the Classroom
Demonstration Classes Aim To Make Instruction More Boy-Friendly.
The Toronto Star (12/1, Brown) reported on the new “demonstration classes” that are taking place throughout the Toronto, Ontario school district. In these, teachers keep “students moving around the room” instead of sitting stationary. In one math exercise called “Think, Pair, Share,” students stand up to “think quietly for 30 seconds about how to attack a math problem, talk in pairs about it for another minute, then finally share with the whole class.” In another “‘inner-outer circle’ exercise, students team up with whoever they face when the teacher calls Stop, then brainstorm the answer to questions she calls out.” The demonstration method of learning aims to make classes “more ‘boy-friendly,’ one of the goals of the” Toronto school board’s new education director, Chris Spence.

California Students Show Improvement On Fitness Tests.
The San Francisco Chronicle (12/1, Tucker) reported that based on California’s “Fitnessgram test results released Monday,” students in the state “scored better…than in recent years.” The test results also show that “the vast majority of students still need to be faster, leaner, stronger and more limber — not only to meet state fitness standards, but to combat an ongoing national obesity epidemic.” The Fitnessgram test “was administered from Feb. 1 through May 31″ to “nearly 1.4 million students in grades five, seven and nine.” Students in “suburban and wealthier communities…generally posted higher fitness scores than those in urban areas with a greater percentage of low-income students,” the Chronicle adds.

California Districts Seen As Needing To Better Track Student Attendance Patterns.
Hedy N. Chang, director of the Chronic Absence Project, and Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education member Yolie Flores write in an opinion piece for the Los Angeles Times (12/2) that “as California strives to hold its public schools accountable for teaching all children, the state is missing a crucial piece of data: a snapshot of how many children chronically miss class.” Teachers do take attendance and schools are “tracking down truants.” But what the state does not “do in a systematic way,” the authors assert, “is pay attention when students miss extended periods of school because of excused, as well as unexcused, absences.” They point out that “analyzing attendance patterns can give clues not just about individual students but about how schools and neighborhoods are functioning. And analysis also can point to solutions.” For example, if “many absentee students come from a single neighborhood,” it may indicate that “students from the area” do not “have reliable transportation or safe walking routes.”

On the Job
Most Michigan Residents Against Teacher Lay-Offs, Poll Shows.
WOOD-TV Grand Rapids (12/1) reported that a new poll “conducted for WOOD TV” indicates that “a solid majority of Michigan residents believe their local public school district has too little state and local funding to provide a quality education.” Six hundred residents were polled “between November 22-24, 2009.” Sixty percent of those polled “said there is too little funding for their local schools, 36 percent said ‘much too little,’ while only 5 percent said there was too much funding for education.” Furthermore, “79 percent said education funding should not be cut.” However, “if more budget cuts are needed, 79 percent said teachers should not be laid off,” and “68 percent said bus service should not be eliminated.”

Law & Policy
New Jersey Will Not Apply For First Round Of Race To The Top Grants.
The Record (NJ) (12/2, Brody) reports that New Jersey “will sit out the first round of competition for $4.35 billion” in federal “Race to the Top” stimulus funds. The first round of Race to the Top applications “is due Jan. 19 – the same day that Governor-elect Chris Christie [R] will take office. Due to its population, New Jersey would be eligible for $200 to $400 million if it applied and won.” However, New Jersey education department officials “said Tuesday they didn’t want to commit the incoming administration to their proposals for long-term change. The Christie transition team said they told the Corzine staff to apply but had to give up on that goal.”

Officials In Texas District Say Caesar Chavez Holiday Could Help Raise Graduation Rate.
WFAA-TV Dallas (12/2, Douglas) reports that school officials in Arlington, TX, “could create a Cesar Chavez holiday this week.” With a student population that is 39 percent Hispanic, “many school officials and students say” the move would be appropriate. Hispanic students in the district “have the highest drop out rate” of all ethnic groups, and “some district officials think a Cesar Chavez holiday might” encourage students to stay in school. If the proposal passes, the Arlington district would be Texas’ first to honor Cesar Chavez that way.

New Mexico Governor To Back Passage Of Hispanic Education Act.
The New Mexico Business Weekly (12/2) reports that New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) “said Tuesday that he will work with state legislators to develop and pass a Hispanic Education Act in the 2010 session of the New Mexico Legislature.” According to a news release, the bill “will include language, culture, unity, community and parental involvement, accountability, and student outcomes or impact on students,” and “would be modeled after the state’s Indian Education Act.” The purpose of the Hispanic Education Act, Richardson said, is to “close the achievement gap for…Hispanic students.”

PTA Launches Campaign To Back National Common Standards Effort.
Education Week (12/1, Cavanagh) reported that the National Parent Teacher Association “has received a $1 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to begin organizing parental support for setting more uniform academic expectations in four states: Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, and North Carolina.” The PTA’s campaign is aimed at persuading “boards of education — the decision-making body on standards in most states — to adopt the” national standards. Members will also be urged “to make a broader case for standards among parents and school communities, at public events and through word of mouth,” and “ask state, district, and school officials to take steps to ensure that the standards are used to improve instruction, by supporting teachers through professional development and other means,” according to he national PTA’s director of strategic alliances, Erin Hart.

School Finance

Kentucky Department Of Education Plans $20 Million In Spending Cuts.
The Lexington (KY) Herald-Leader (12/2, Warren) reports, “The Kentucky Department of Education plans to cut its spending by about $20 million over the rest of this fiscal year, which could affect many programs in local school districts around the state,” among them “dropout prevention, community education, and gifted and talented programs,” officials said. “The reductions would come from the state pre-school through 12th-grade education budget, including operations of the state Education Department.” However, “where and when the cuts would be made hasn’t been determined, state education officials said Tuesday.”

The Louisville Courier-Journal (12/2, Steitzer) reports that although he warned state public school superintendents “to brace themselves for $20 million in cuts this year,” Education Commissioner Terry Holliday “assured them that the state’s main school funding formula and employee health insurance would be spared.” He also noted “that cuts to 32 programs and the Department of Education’s operating budget are still being reviewed.” Gov. Steve Beshear “has cut spending repeatedly since he took office in 2007. The $161 million shortfall for this fiscal year, which ends June 30, is on top of a shortfall that totaled nearly $1 billion.” While “the main school funding formula has been spared from cuts, money for school safety, professional development and after-school programs has already been pared back significantly. Those areas would be spared this time, Holliday said.”

Florida District’s Budget Derailed By Rapidly Increasing Unemployment Insurance Costs.
The St. Petersburg Times (12/2, Solochek) reports that Pasco County’s “rapidly rising unemployment rate” has “wreaked havoc on the [school] district’s 2009-10 spending plan, in the form of skyrocketing unemployment insurance costs that officials didn’t expect.” According to Chief financial officer Olga Swinson, “the district…paid out $250,000 in unemployment insurance during the first quarter of the fiscal year, compared with $100,000 for all of fiscal 2009.” She also said that “if the trend continues…the district could fall $700,000 short on this line item, which would have to be supplemented from some other part of the general operating funds.”

Also in the News
Kindergartner Mistakenly Picked Up From Ohio School By Child Protective Services.
The Griot (12/1) reported that earlier this month, Savannah Williams, a kindergartner from Duxberry Park Elementary in the Columbus City Ohio School District, “was picked up from school by a” social worker on accident and taken to the Franklin County Children Services headquarters last week. “FCCS had the wrong girl, and the girl’s mother spent the afternoon trying to figure out what happened to her daughter.” Savannah “was given to a social worker with FCCS who came to the school to pick up another kindergarten girl also named Savannah but with a different last name.” Savannah Williams’ mother Ebony Williams said that the school should be more careful about checking identities of students and the adults who pick them up. “Columbus City Ohio School District spokeswoman Kim Norris said that the district is “examining exactly what took place and will take appropriate actions to prevent this from happening again.”

Minnesota Districts Seeking More Locally Grown Food.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune (12/2, Lemagie) reports, “Even in farm country, getting local foods on the menu can be surprisingly complicated for school districts that serve thousands of hot lunches every day. That isn’t stopping the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan district, which has joined schools across” Minnesota “in a push to serve more food from Minnesota growers.” The goal is “to support local farmers, teach kids where their food comes from and get them to try healthful new recipes.” Some food distributors “say they’ve been working with Minnesota farmers for years, but are getting more pressure from schools to provide locally produced food.”

California Lawmakers, Education Officials At Odds Over Race To The Top Reforms.
Education Week (12/3, Maxwell) reports that “leaders in California are still at odds over what new policies and school improvement efforts they must embrace to make the state a strong contender for some of the $4 billion being offered in federal Race to the Top Fund grants as the deadline to apply closes in.” While Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) “and a bipartisan group of state lawmakers” push “to lift California’s cap on charter schools and to make it easier for parents to move their children out of low-performing schools,” several “Democratic lawmakers in the Assembly…along with the two state teachers’ unions and organizations that represent school board members and administrators, have so far declined to support the governor’s legislation.” Education Committee chairwoman Julia Brownley, meanwhile, “has pledged to write legislation that would not only make California competitive for the federal grant funds, but that would also garner support from the state’s ‘education coalition,’ which includes the 340,000-member California Teachers Association, an NEA affiliate.”

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In the Classroom
Students In Florida Learn Science Concepts Through Hands-On Outdoor Lab.
The Naples (FL) Daily News (12/3) reports that “hundreds of Collier County middle school students got the chance to experience the outdoors up close and personal, thanks to” the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Learning in Florida’s Environment program, a collaboration with Collier County public schools, the Florida Panther Refuge (US Fish and Wildlife Service), and several other organizations. Roughly 500 middle school students “recently learned science concepts, methods and skills through hands-on labs at the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge and two other sites in Collier County in October and November” through the LIFE program. For the lessons, “students used Global Positioning Systems to participate in a scavenger hunt where they learned more about the Florida panther in its natural habitat.” The labs also required that students “explore a service learning topic that is related to a local environmental issue impacting their school.”

California School To Launch Japanese Language Immersion Program.
The Glendale (CA) News Press (12/3, Zimbert) reports that officials in the Glendale, CA school district “have approved expanding the district’s popular foreign language immersion program to include Japanese at Verdugo Woodlands Elementary School.” The classes will begin next fall as part of the school district’s Foreign Language Academy, “a duel language elementary and middle school program in which students are exposed to instruction in one of now six foreign languages and English throughout the year.”

Ohio High School Student Helps School Win Bus Emissions-Control Grant.
The News-Herald (OH) (12/2, Klepach) reported that Clay McMullen, a sophomore at West Geauga High School in Chesterland, Ohio “spent time this year writing a lengthy grant application on behalf of the school district to reduce school bus pollution. His writing also was part of his work studying air particulates during his summertime internship through the Army Educational Outreach Program.” McMullen’s “hard work paid off this week, as the district learned it would receive a hefty $64,274.64 to equip its buses with parts making them more environmentally friendly. This fall, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency awarded 31 grants to school districts, also including Perry and Willoughby-Eastlake.”

On the Job
Texas Program Aims To Reduce Teacher Turnover Rate.
The Dallas Morning News (12/3, Hundley) reports, that Nationally and across Texas, “up to 50 percent of teachers will leave the profession in their first five years, said Glendelia Zavala, a manager with the Texas Education Agency’s Beginning Teacher Induction and Mentoring program. The program, authorized by the state Legislature in 2007, is designed to cut the teacher dropout rate.” According to the Morning News, “A total of $15 million in state grants are awarded each year to school districts to create programs to support new teachers and increase retention rates, Zavala said. A total of 51 Texas school districts have received grants this year.”

Law & Policy
Duncan Discusses Race To The Top, Other ED Initiatives.
Education Week (12/2) ran an edited transcript of an interview with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Assistant Secretary of Education for Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development Carmel Martin. In the interview, Duncan outlined the goals and criteria for “Race to the Top” and other Department of Education initiatives. Duncan is quoted saying that Race to the Top “is not about the money. This is really about transformational change. While it is obviously a huge amount of money, this money is going to be gone in the next two, three, four years. The question is: can we use this money to leverage change for the next two, three, four decades?” Regarding NCLB, Duncan is quoted saying, “Everybody should be improving each year. A child comes to you at 6th grade, two grade levels behind, and leaves a grade level behind, that child’s improved. … That teacher is a superstar. Under the current system there’s no recognition, no reward, no anything. … [We're] really trying to look at how much students learn.”

Texas Education Commissioner Drafts Letter Opposing National Standards Effort.
Terrence Stutz wrote in an “Education Font” blog for the Dallas Morning News (12/2) that Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott “has sent a letter to the Texas congressional delegation objecting to efforts by [ED] to develop national curriculum standards and a national achievement test. Earlier this year, Texas was one of the few states to decide not to participate in drafting a national curriculum for core subjects.” The “letter seems to indicate that Texas has just about given up on getting a piece of the $4.35 billion Race to the Top federal grant program for schools because of its stance against national standards.”

Special Needs
Schools Creating Social Skills Programs To Help Children With Mild Autism.
The Washington Post (12/3, Brown) reports, “As the number of children with autism has ballooned nationwide, so has the population of children who…are capable of grade-level academics,” but who lack “social and emotional skills they need to negotiate school on their own.” Many of these youngsters “spend the bulk of their day in mainstream classes supported with a suite of special education services.” Now, “many parents of this growing group worry that including children in the mainstream this way fails to teach them what they need to navigate the world independently and instead imbues them with a sense that they’re unacceptably weird.” The article goes on to describe alternative programs offered by Washington, DC-area schools to help children with mild autism acquire social skills.

Researchers Link Poor Nevada Economy, Lower Academic Achievement.
The Las Vegas Sun (12/2, Coolican, Richmond) reported that the Clark County (NV) School District “has always struggled with its sky-high population of poor children. The number of homeless students is expected to reach 8,000 by the end of the academic year, a 30 percent increase.” Also, family poverty “is correlated with lagging student achievement. Now, the deep recession threatens to make this problem worse, and do so for years to come. According to a study from two economists at the University of California, Davis, a parent’s job loss can increase by 15 percent the likelihood that a student will repeat a grade.” According to the Sun, this “short-term damage, which is particularly acute in families where the breadwinner has just a high school degree, matches up with other data showing the negative long-term effects of poverty on student achievement.”

School Finance

Maryland Superintendents Say School Administrators Are Not Dispensable.
The Baltimore Sun (12/3, Gencer) reports, “Baltimore-area school superintendents called into question Wednesday a suggestion by Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller (D) that they cut administrators and public relations staffs to help ease the state’s budget woes.” Referring to the “more than $1.5 billion budget deficit anticipated next year,” Miller said, “We don’t want to cut public education, so we’re going to have to go to superintendents of schools and say: ‘Listen, you’ve got to find us some administrators, some bureaucrats, some public relations people that we can cut, because we’re not going to furlough teachers.” But many “area superintendents contend that those employees are essential to running their districts.” Superintendent Charles I. Ecker of the Carroll school district said, “There’s a common misperception that you don’t need some central office positions. … We need administrators in schools and countywide, too. … You need some coordination, and to provide staff development and work on curriculum.”

Also in the News
Software Download Said To Have Raked Up $1 Million Debt For Arizona District.
The AP (12/3) reports that Brad Niesluchowski, former information technology director for Arizona’s Higley Unified School District, “is accused of using school computers in an experiment to find space aliens, costing the worker his job and the district more than $1 million.” According to school officials, Niesluchowski downloaded the SETI(at)home software, which “uses Internet-connected computers worldwide to analyze radio telescope data in an experiment to find extraterrestrial intelligence,” onto school computers in 2000. Superintendent Denise Birdwell said “that the program also bogged down the district’s system and interfered with technology use in classrooms.” Police are currently investigating the matter.

NEA in the News
Official Says Michigan Education Association Debt Likely To Decrease With Market Fluctuations.
The Jackson (MI) Citizen Patriot (12/3, Cummings) reports that the Michigan Education Association “last week reported it had $124 million in debt as of Aug. 31, according to its annual financial report to the US Department of Labor.” According to MEA Vice President Steve Cook, “the majority of that debt is pension liabilities for the next 70 years.” He added that the figure “is based on a formula that includes how much pension funds earn in a given year and the age of employees,” and does not include next year’s payout. Cook also said that the MEA “was able to make its minimum contribution of $8 million to the pension fund” and “has no plans to restructure because it does not expect the debt to remain that high as markets fluctuate.”

Indiana State Secretary Sues Teachers Association For Offering Health Care Plan.
The AP (12/3) reports that “Indiana’s secretary of state filed a civil complaint Wednesday against the” Indiana State Teachers Association (ISTA), Indiana’s “largest teachers union, saying the group violated the Indiana Securities Act when it offered a healthcare plan for school districts.” According to Secretary of State Todd Rokita, the ISTA “ran a trust that was to be used for health claims and told school districts that they would earn returns on any reserves.” However, the trust “was mixed with other funds, and…the teachers’ association cannot properly account for $23 million intended for schools,” Rokita added. When the National Education Association “took over the state’s 50,000-member teachers’ association earlier this year,” the trust “had a net worth of negative $67 million,” according to the state education department.

Higher Education Unions Increasing Push For Job Security, Compensation Improvements.
Inside Higher Ed (12/3) reports that “four years ago, part-time faculty members at the New School negotiated a contract with then-rare measures of job security for those off the tenure track.” This week, that union — “an affiliate of the United Auto Workers — announced another contract deal” which includes “family leaves for those who don’t work enough hours to qualify for federally assured leaves, differential titles reflecting levels of experience, and a written-in-the-contract pledge for part-time representation on committees that discuss curricular matters.” Inside Higher Ed points out that “the New School contract reflects growing activity by higher education unions to organize part-time faculty members and to use a union base to push for improvements in job security and compensation.” For instance, the American Association of University Professors, an NEA affiliate, sued Massachusetts “on behalf of adjuncts at community colleges, who don’t receive health insurance.”

NEA Official To Serve As Chief Of Staff For Washington Rep.
Joel Connelly wrote in the Seattle Post Intelligencer (12/2, Connelly) Seattle Politics blog that “US Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) has hired two new top aides”: Chief of Staff Diane Shust, “recently director of government relations for the National Education Association, and Communications Director Ed Shelleby, “previously press secretary for the Children’s Defense Fund.”

More Districts Delaying Class Start Times For High School Students.
The Boston Globe (12/4, Bolton) reports, “Studies show that the teenage body ticks to its own clock, making it hard to go to sleep and then wake up at the time required for school or a job.” In an effort to “work with nature, instead of against it, a number of school districts south of Boston are delaying start times, or thinking about doing so, to help students stay awake in class.” Nationwide, “at least 80 school districts…have pushed high school start times to later in the morning, banking on National Sleep Foundation data that students who sleep more learn better.” However, “not everyone is pleased with every change.” In some districts, parents have complained that the later start times disrupt their families’ day-to-day lives. Meanwhile, some “parents of younger students say the earlier start times [create] a child-care nightmare.” The Boston Globe adds that “transportation is a major sticking point in any district’s consideration of a later day for students.”

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In the Classroom
Urban Teaching Academy Opens Path To Teaching For High School Students In Florida District.
The St. Petersburg Times (12/4) reports that “on Thursday, students from Hillsborough High School’s Urban Teaching Academy took command of their first classrooms, teaching kindergartners and first graders at Lockhart Elementary”" as part of a “four year program [that] began last year with the goal of stimulat[ing] student interest in teaching as a career.” Hillsborough High Students “who complete the program will receive a college scholarship to a participating four year university, and the promise of a teaching position at an urban school in Hillsborough County.” The four year program began last year with the goal of stimulate student interest in teaching as a career.” Currently, there are about 100 students participating I the academy, including students from two other area high schools.

On the Job
Technology Gives Teachers More Control Over Students’ Computer Screens.
T.H.E. Journal (12/3, McCrea) reports that the Lake Washington School District in Redmond, WA, “has found a way to minimize classroom disruption and keep everyone focused and working toward the same goal.” The district is using “a new classroom management system” called LanSchool v7.4 to tap “into technology as a way to keep students productive.” The system allows teachers to display their computer screens on students’ monitors; “shutdown, logoff, or restart of student computers;” and freeze students’ “keyboards and mice,” among other features.

Virginia District Unveils Teacher Incentive Pay Program.
The Washington Post (12/4, Chandler) reports that school officials in Prince William County, VA “unveiled a plan Wednesday to offer bonuses to teachers and administrators in high-performing schools that serve poor or challenging students. The plan, if approved by the School Board this month, will be submitted to the federal government for possible funding and could begin next school year.” Prince William is one of numerous districts “across the country that are developing pay proposals tied to student performance thanks to new federal money and fresh interest from the nation’s top education officials.” Secretary of Education Arne Duncan “is offering $4.35 billion in federal ‘Race to the Top’ grants to states that adopt innovative changes, including pay-for-performance plans.”

Teachers Strike In Suburban Chicago District.
The AP (12/3) reported that in Illinois, more than 3,000 students “won’t be in class after teachers with Prairie Hills District 144 voted to strike. The teachers in the suburban Chicago district went on strike Wednesday night after negotiators couldn’t reach a deal on salary issues.” School officials “say classes and extracurricular activities have been canceled until further notice. … The district says negotiators had made progress on insurance and retirement issues but remain far apart on salary.”

Chicago Public Schools Chief Says Fewer Teachers Should Be Given Tenure. Eric Zorn wrote in the Chicago Tribune (12/3) Change of Subject column that “Chicago Public Schools chief Ron Huberman is floating a few ideas for how to improve teacher quality. He says fewer third year teachers should be granted tenure,” according to WBEZ-FM. Zorn says that he understands “the need for tenure at colleges and universities where it serves as bulwark for intellectual freedom.” But, he asks, “what’s the justification for giving tenure — lifetime job security — to public school teachers?”

Law & Policy
Michigan Senate Passes Bill Affecting Teacher Tenure.
The AP (12/3) reported that the Michigan state Senate “has passed a bill making it easier to dismiss or discipline ineffective teachers. The state superintendent would develop or approve standards for teacher effectiveness under the measure passed” on Thursday. “Earlier this week, the Senate passed bills that would allow charter schools to expand in Michigan; create faster, alternative routes to teacher certification; and give the state superintendent more power to take over failing schools.”

States Have Embraced Modest Education Reforms, Stimulus Survey Finds.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (12/2, Hetzner) reported, “A national survey of how stimulus dollars are prompting school reform found that most states have embraced modest approaches, such as professional development, likely based on concerns about the future expenses of more dramatic changes.” The Center on Education Policy survey “focused on state efforts so far to comply with educational reform promises made to receive $48.3 billion from the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund and expected proposals for the $4.35 billion Race to the Top competitive grant program.” So far, CEP “found states have not embraced dramatic reforms, favoring approaches such as professional development to improve teacher quality and turn around low-performing schools.”

Official Sees Lack Of Urgency In Closing Hispanic Achievement Gap.
The Hispanic Business Journal (12/3, Rodriguez) reported that Juan Sepulveda, director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans, said that Hispanics “aren’t being aggressive enough about closing the academic achievement gap.” Sepulveda “said he has visited 18 states discussing the Hispanic achievement gap. While he has been encouraged by interest in the problem, he has noticed a disturbing trend. ‘The most surprising thing … in our conversations is what I didn’t hear, and that was a sense of urgency,’ Sepulveda said at a summit in Albuquerque.” Sepulveda “complimented New Mexico on being ahead of other states in addressing the problem. Sepulveda and Gov. Bill Richardson (D) spoke at the last of three ‘Achievement Gap Solutions Summits’ aimed at the educational problems facing African-American, Native-American and Hispanic youths.”

Special Needs
College Fair In Georgia To Detail Support Options For Special Needs Students.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (12/4, Dodd) reports that Georgia’s “largest school system is paving the way to help more metro Atlanta students with physical, emotional and learning needs continue their education in college. Gwinnett County Public Schools will host a college fair Saturday to help inform disabled students about opportunities and support available.” According to the Journal-Constitution, “Representatives from 30 colleges and universities will talk about making the transition to post-secondary education. Students will learn how to access services they may need to participate in lectures, complete assignments and survive on a college campus.”

Maine DOE Introduces Revised Special Ed Guidelines.
The Bangor (ME) Daily News (12/4, Russell) reports that the Maine Department of Education “has introduced a set of proposed rule changes designed to bring Maine’s special education guidelines in line with federal standards, ensure more statewide uniformity and perhaps save money in the process.” Education Commissioner Susan Gendron said though the “changes are expected to reduce costs, the bigger goal is to bring uniformity to both the process of identifying students for special education and to providing needed services. … Other changes seek to bring certain timing elements in line with federal standards.”

Safety & Security
Pennsylvania Schools Have Failed To Make Safety Gains, State Officials Say.
The Philadelphia Inquirer (12/3, Graham) reported, “Though Pennsylvania students have made academic progress over the past five years, their schools are no safer, state education officials announced” on Thursday. According to the Inquirer, “Roughly 68,000 incidents were reported for the 2008-09 school year statewide, about the same as five years ago.” Gerald Zahorchak, Pennsylvania’s secretary of education, said “there will be a push for school districts to better report violence and better tools for monitoring school safety. The state Board of Education, board president Joseph Torsella said, will act quickly to define school climate requirements and make them formal expectations of all districts, much like the board’s academic standards.”

Background Check Part Of New Security System For Illinois District.
The Chicago Tribune (12/4, Ruzich) reports that New Lenox (IL) School District 122 implemented a new “background check policy and security system, called Hall Pass, at all 12 of its kindergarten centers and elementary and junior high schools this fall. The district, which has 5,700 students and about 600 staff members, is one of the first” in the south Chicago suburbs “to install the system, along with Joliet Public Schools District 86 and Homewood-Flossmoor Community High School District 233 in Flossmoor.”

Also in the News
Bush Foundation Grant To Change Teacher Training In Minnesota.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune (12/4, Hopfensperger) reports, “Minnesota’s teacher training is about to undergo its most significant overhaul in decades, fueled by a $40 million Bush Foundation grant announced Thursday.” And “under the plan, 14 universities in Minnesota, North and South Dakota will guarantee that the 3,500 teachers they graduate each year will be able to lift student test scores in their classrooms in one year, every year.” And “instead of simply waiting to see who applies, schools of education at colleges will begin recruiting people with specific skills or backgrounds. That could include mid-career professionals working in math or science, and individuals with cultural and racial backgrounds that reflect Minnesota’s growing student population.”

School Bullies Likely To Bully Younger Siblings At Home, Survey Shows.
Health Day News (12/4) reports that according to a study published online Nov. 30 in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology, “school bullies are also likely to bully their brothers and sisters at home.” The “Italian study…included 195 children between the ages of 10 and 12″ who had at least one “sibling no more than four years older or younger than them.” Participants “were asked whether they bullied or were bullied at school or at home.” Results of the survey show that “children with older male siblings were the most victimized group,” said study author Ersilia Menesini. Researchers also found that “children who bullied siblings were likely to bully schoolmates, while children bullied at home were likely to be bullied at school.”

NEA in the News
Union Workers In Vermont Face Three Percent Pay Cut, Two-Year Pay Freeze.
The AP (12/4, Gram) reports that “state union workers will see a temporary three percent pay cut and two-year pay freeze as part of a tentative two-year contract deal reached Thursday as Vermont continues to grapple with a budget deficit that could top $150 million this year.” Secretary of Administration Neale Lunderville called the agreement “a commonsense approach that…can serve as a blueprint for teachers.” But Vermont NEA spokesman Darren Allen said the union does not “believe that it is fair to ask any working person, union or not, public or private, to earn less next year than they earn this year.” Furthermore, Allen said that “teachers’ salaries are set in talks with local school boards, and that process should not get interference from the governor.”

Editor’s Note
In a summary titled, “California School To Launch Japanese Language Immersion Program,” there was a typo in the original story that unfortunately appeared in our summary. The sentence should have said, “a dual language elementary and middle school program in which students are exposed to instruction in one of now six foreign languages and English throughout the year.”

Teachers Initiate Service Projects During Holiday Season.
New Jersey’s Press of Atlantic City (12/7, D’AMICO) reported that “Cynthia Dykhouse’s fifth grade special education class at Middle Township Elementary School” organized “a holiday food drive” at the school. “For three weeks, they canvassed each class every day, using their math and graphing skills to track on big charts how many items each class gave.” Then, “they sorted, counted, and packed the food, and collected almost 1,500 items for the Coast Guard and local church food pantries.” The Press of Atlantic City noted that the holiday season provides many opportunities for teachers to “integrate class lessons into real life activities” with “service projects that teach students about contributing to their community, and provide help for struggling families.” One other example of this is the Mainland Regional High School Work Readiness Class’ care package project to benefit troops overseas. The class started the project “last year, sending items to the son of a teacher in the Army, and this year will send to the unit of a former student serving in Afghanistan.”

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In the Classroom
Drowning Prompts School District To Pay For Students’ Swimming Lessons.
Iowa’s Quad-City Times (12/8, Luna) reports that “in response to the drowning of a Rock Island school girl on a field trip this spring, the Rock Island School District has partnered with the Rock Island Fitness and Activities Center to offer free swimming lessons to first and second graders.” School officials “thought it was especially important for the children and their parents to feel comfortable about swimming again, district spokesperson Holly Sparkman said.” So, they started the program, offering “free swimming lessons to children 6-9 years old who attend Frances Willard Elementary School, the school the drowning victim had attended.”

Illinois Schools Launch Programs To Help Boys Close Reading Gap.
The Courier News (IL) (12/7, McFarlan) reported that teachers at Liberty Elementary School in Carpentersville, IL “launched a boys-only book club in late October to bridge the national gap in reading skills between boys and girls. … Not only are the boys learning what men read, but also teachers are learning what their male students are interested in reading, according to” Liberty Principal Kristin Corriveau. Also, Lincoln Prairie Elementary School in Lake in the Hills, IL “is pushing technology in reading classes across all grade levels, such as Webcasting book reviews in fifth grade. And first-grade teachers are exploring the idea of having students’ out-of-state relatives read to the class via Webcast.”

iRobot Launches New Education Initiative SPARK.
The Boston Globe (12/7, Denison) reported, “iRobot Corp. today announced that it has launched a new education initiative called SPARK (for ‘Starter Programs for the Advancement of Robotics Knowledge’),” which is designed “to help educators, parents and students use ‘the wonder and genius of robots’ to inspire students in K-12 schools.” Among the opportunities “iRobot is offering to schools as part of the program” is “the ability to sign up for live robot ‘Demo Days’ where iRobot engineers visit classrooms to showcase some of the latest innovations in robotic technology in a hands-on, interactive environment that exposes students to the many ways robots can act as a tool for learning.” The article includes more specific information about the programs, as well as a link to the company’s website.

On the Job
Editorial: Illinois Should Prohibit Teachers From Striking.
The Rockford (IL) Register Star (12/8) editorializes that no less than 37 states “have passed laws that ban teachers from striking; some of those states have penalties ranging from dismissal to imprisonment for teachers who refuse to work.” Though Illinois “already has laws to prohibit strikes by workers essential to public safety and security, including police and firefighters, teachers are not included. They should be. They are essential workers, too, and they should not be allowed to walk off the job.”

Law & Policy
Some California Districts Apprehensive About Committing To Race To The Top.
California’s Press Enterprise (12/7, Miller) reported that “Inland school officials are apprehensive about signing on to any state effort to get school grants from the federal government, with California lawmakers still divided on the issue as next month’s application deadline approaches.” California’s Assembly Education Committee on Wednesday “is scheduled to consider bills meant to improve the state’s chances at receiving money from the $4.3 billion Race to the Top program,” with the full Assembly expected to vote on Thursday. Still, “many school officials are uneasy about committing to the program while the state’s plan is still unsettled and with no assurance of money.” Riverside County Schools Superintendent Kenneth Young noted, “Sometimes those funds come with so many restrictions and requirements that it may not be worth the strings, wires and cables attached in order to receive what may be a fairly insignificant amount of funds.”

Early Childhood Advocates Seek Reauthorization Of Early Reading First.
Education Week (12/8, Zehr) reports that Early Reading First “never attracted the same attention as its cousin, Reading First, and proof of its effectiveness is elusive, but advocates of early-childhood education hope the federal government will continue to build on what participants in the grant program have learned.” According to Education Week, many components of Early Reading First “are included in a comprehensive literacy bill introduced in the Senate last month and also in a similar version in the House of Representatives. The proposed legislation could become a blueprint for reauthorization of reading programs — Early Reading First, Reading First, and Striving Readers, which targets adolescents — in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.”

Special Needs
Repeated Deployments Found Taking Toll On Children Of Military Families.
The New York Times (12/7, A16, Dao) reported that a new RAND Corporation study shows that after “eight years of war, children with parents in the military are reporting signs of emotional wear and tear from long and repeated deployments.” The study, published Monday by the journal Pediatrics, “found that children in military families were more likely to report anxiety than children in the general population. The researchers also found that the longer a parent had been deployed in the previous three years, the more likely their children were to have difficulties in school and at home.”

School Finance
Mississippi Governor’s Proposed Education Budget Cuts Spark Controversy.
Education Week (12/8, Klein) reports that Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s (R) “plan to help close a yawning state budget deficit by scaling back funding for K-12 schools, consolidating districts, merging historically black colleges, and making other major education cuts is getting considerable pushback from lawmakers and education organizations.” Barbour “seeks to cut K-12 education costs by 9.4 percent, in part by consolidating the state’s 152 school districts into 100. … The change would save about $65 million, which would help bridge a gap in funding after the state has used up its share of federal economic-stimulus money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the governor wrote in his budget proposal.”

Colorado’s Largest District Considers Closing 11 Schools.
The Denver Post (12/8, Meyer) reports that in order to save money, the Jefferson County School District is considering closing 11 schools. The proposal “has galvanized parents into action.” They “have been holding rallies, and parents of one elementary school started a blog to stave off possible closure.” Meanwhile, Jefferson County Schools, Colorado’s largest district, “is facing about $18 million in cuts next year and likely similar amounts for years to come.” School officials are looking at areas for possible cuts, “including facility use.” Currently, “a community-led committee” is “developing criteria and creating a list of options for the district’s facilities. Last week, the committee winnowed the list to 18 options.”

Also in the News
New Policy Allows Students To Choose Which SAT Scores To Send To Colleges.
The Hartford Courant (12/8, Megan) reports, “For years, high school seniors have had to send all their SAT scores to their targeted colleges.” Now, the College Board has “implemented a new policy this year: ‘score choice.’ The new policy allows students to pick the scores they want to send, and bury the bad ones.” However, “many colleges aren’t going along with the score choice program. Many schools want to see all test scores, while promising to consider only the applicants’ highest scores. Among these are Yale University, which requires that all scores be sent, and the University of Connecticut, Wesleyan and Trinity, which strongly encourage students to submit all scores.”

Education Secretary To Announce Board Certification Program For Principals.
Leslie Postal writes in the Orlando Sentinel (12/8) School Zone blog that “U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is set to announce tomorrow a new National Board certification program for school principals.” The program will be the first at the national level that aims “boost principal’s leadership skills,” according to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.

NEA in the News
National PTA Targeting States In Campaign To Promote Common Education Standards.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (12/8) reports that Georgia “is one of four states being targeted by the National PTA as it begins a campaign to build support among parents for common national academic standards.” Florida, New Jersey, and North Carolina are also being targeted for the campaign that begins in January. Other states will be added “by the middle of next year.” The push for common academic standards “is being led by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers” with support from several other education organizations, including the NEA.

Michigan Education Association, Lawmakers Clash Over Teacher Evaluation Standards.
The Grand Rapids (MI) Press (12/8, Murray) reports that leaders of the Michigan Education Association (NEA) “say they’re being unfairly painted as obstructing the state’s ability to compete for a slice of the billions of dollars that could be dispersed through the federal Race to the Top program.” In a letter sent to lawmakers on Monday, MEA President Iris Salters said that “she wants the state to get it’s share of the money,” but that the MEA does not agree with some proposed reforms. Particularly, the union opposes “using test scores as the sole basis of teacher evaluation, saying it would be ‘unfair, unethical, disingenuous and, most of all, contrary to the best interest of all students.’” In her letter, Salters said that “the state needs to look at other data, including ‘tracking and linking other student information.’”

NAEP Results Show Improvement For Students In Large Cities.
CNN International (12/9, Holland) reports, “Public school students in major metropolitan areas are showing improvement on test scores in mathematics compared with scores from previous years, according to” The Nation’s Report Card: Mathematics 2009 Trial Urban District Assessment released Tuesday by the Department of Education. Eighth-graders in “Austin, Texas, and San Diego, California” and fourth-graders in Boston and DC showed gains on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which “compared test scores from those two grades in 18 urban school districts.”

The Miami Herald (12/9, McGrory) reports that students in Miami-Dade County, FL, “outperformed their peers in most major U.S. cities, including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago on the national math exam.” Furthermore, “Miami-Dade’s Hispanic students had the highest scores of Hispanic students in any of the big cities.” Eighty percent of fourth-graders in Miami Dade schools “scored on grade level or above” and two-thirds of eighth-graders “tallied passing scores.” Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said the results “show that district teachers and administrators are focused on the needs of their students and are committed to improving academic achievement in their schools.”

“Charlotte-Mecklenburg students are better at math than counterparts at most urban districts, according to today’s release of test results from the nation’s report card, the Charlotte (NC) Observer (12/9, Helms) reports. “CMS fourth-graders were first among 18 districts scored on the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress, and eighth-graders were second only to those in Austin, Texas.”

The Detroit News (12/9, Lynch) reports that “Fourth- and eighth-graders in Detroit Public Schools (DPS) scored the worst in the nation in math” on the NAEP. Sixty-nine percent of fourth-graders and 77 percent of eighth-graders “scored below basic levels.” The Detroit News notes that the scores “were the lowest in [the test's] 40-year history.” At a press conference, DPS’s emergency financial manager, Robert Bobb, called the report an “indictment of the adult leadership” in the school system.

The Wall Street Journal (12/9, Hechinger) covers the story at the national level, while The New York Times (12/9, A33, Medina), Michigan’s MLive.com (12/9, Oosting), WABC-TV New York (12/9, McFarland), WDIV-TV Detroit (12/9), and the Boston Globe (12/9, Vaznis) also cover the story locally.

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In the Classroom
Holiday Writing Assignment Sparks Controversy In Nevada District.
The Las Vegas Sun (12/8, Richmond) reports that “When a fifth grade teacher” at William Wright Elementary School in Mountain’s Edge, NV, “instructed her students to write about any winter holiday tradition other than ones commonly practiced in the United States, she didn’t anticipate how the assignment might be perceived at home.” Holly Sweetin, the parent of one of the students in the class, wrote a letter regarding the assignment to “Paul Garbiso, academic manager of the Clark County School District service area that includes Wright.” Sweetin said that because “there are many English language learners in her son’s classes,” writing about an “American Christmas” may be beneficial for students. Allen Lichtenstein, attorney for the Nevada American Civil Liberties Union, said that “an easy way for schools to avoid similar standoffs” is to “give students the assignment of writing on any wintertime tradition that is not one they celebrate at home.”

Growing Number Of Teachers Using Sign Language To Manage Classrooms.
The Philadelphia Inquirer (12/9, Brown) reports that “a growing number of teachers are” using sign language to address students’ “urgent” concerns during class without interrupting their lessons. For instance second-grade teacher Fran Nadel has her “students sign the letter B for bathroom, W for water fountain, L for library.” The Inquirer notes that “Signing has long been a tool for teachers to help special-education students develop language skills, and for years it has been offered in area high schools as a second language. Now its use as a management tool appears to be on the rise.” It also points out that “going silent can also save a teacher’s voice and energy.”

On the Job

Rural Schools In Georgia Tend To Have High Student Poverty Rates, Report Says.
The Macon (GA) Telegraph (12/9) reports that “Georgia has the third-highest rural student population in the country,” with “more than 500,000 Georgia students” attending rural schools, “according to a report released by the Rural School and Community Trust in November.” The report said that “Georgia’s rural schools tend to have high poverty rates among students and low graduation rates.” This “affects the students in” several “ways, from reduced student concentration and parent involvement to transportation limitations.”

Law & Policy
EPA Promises To “Protect” Students From Toxic Water In Schools.
The AP (12/9, Freking) reports, “The Environmental Protection Agency unveiled a new national strategy to enforce safe drinking water laws in small, rural communities on Tuesday and pledged to redouble efforts to protect children from toxic water in schools.” The new policy will be to “pay particular attention to chronic violators” and to “ask small water systems to restructure or merge to improve their safety records.” Current federal law requires that “schools with their own wells – which represent about 10 percent of the nation’s schools and are often located in isolated, rural communities…test their water and report any problems to the state. In turn, the state is supposed to send all violations to the federal government.”

Study: Fast-Food Meat Safety Standards Exceed Those For School Lunches.
USA Today (12/9, Eisler) reports, “In the past three years, the government has provided the nation’s schools with millions of pounds of beef and chicken that wouldn’t meet the quality or safety standards of many fast-food restaurants,” a USA Today investigation found. The U.S. Department of Agriculture “says the meat it buys for the National School Lunch Program ‘meets or exceeds standards in commercial products.’” However, McDonald’s, Burger King and Costco “are far more rigorous in checking for bacteria and dangerous pathogens. They test the ground beef they buy five to 10 times more often than the USDA tests beef made for schools during a typical production day.”

Hawaii’s Teacher Furlough Crisis Can Be Opportunity, Official Says.
The Honolulu (HI) Advertiser (12/8, DePledge) reported that Assistant Secretary of Education Peter Cunningham “told parents yesterday to keep the pressure on for a solution to teacher furloughs, but also said the crisis could be used as an opportunity to improve quality at some of the state’s poorly performing public schools.” Cunningham “said the Obama administration is reluctant to tell Hawai’i or any state how to resolve local education issues. But he said teacher furloughs are the wrong approach and reflect poorly on the state. Cunningham, who has met with Gov. Linda Lingle [R] and state education officials, said he believes there is a solution.”

School Finance
Iowa Schools In Line For $60 Million From Microsoft.
The Des Moines (IA) Register (12/8, Hupp) reported, “It’s tough to tell what caused a bigger buzz at Capitol View Elementary School today: News that school would let out early because of snow or the giant check for $60 million in the school library.” The check unveiled by Gov. Chet Culver (D) “represented how much Iowa schools will get from software giant Microsoft’s payment to settle an antitrust lawsuit in Iowa. … Iowa schools will use the money for technology upgrades.” The Register added, “More than 1,000 Iowa schools will get a piece of the Microsoft money, or about 75 percent.”

“Hudson Miracle” Pilot Auctions Hat To Help California Schools.
The AP (12/8) reported that the “pilot who guided a disabled jetliner to an emergency landing in the Hudson River is offering his pilot’s hat to help two California schools. Capt. Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger’s hat is being offered on eBay.” According to the AP, Allie Herson, “a representative with a publicity firm working with Sullenberger, says the high bidder will get the hat and a personally written note from Sullenberger and his wife, Lorrie. … Sullenberger was not wearing the hat when he landed his disabled US Airways jet last January in the river.”

Some Ohio Districts Cannot Afford To Implement Full-Day Kindergarten Requirement.
The Plain Dealer (OH) (12/8, Starzyk) reported that full-day kindergarten “is supposed to be offered to every Ohio public school student starting next fall, making it one of the first initiatives in Gov. Ted Strickland’s education reform plan to reach classrooms. But the mandate may end up being marked tardy.” According to the Plain Dealer, “District officials across the state are saying they can’t afford to add the teachers and classrooms that a change from the traditional half-day schedule would require.”

Also in the News
California Students Arrested For Kicking Redheaded Peers May Be Sent To Diversion Program.
Richard Winton writes in the Los Angeles Times (12/9, Winton) LA Now blog that “the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office is reviewing whether to charge three Calabasas youths arrested in connection with recent attacks on redheaded students at a middle school.” According to a spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Department, “some of those accused of being involved in the assaults at A.E. Wright Middle School could be put in a diversion program rather than face a formal criminal complaint.” In the District Attorney’s Juvenile Offender Intervention Network “the juveniles and their parents” would have to “agree to the terms of a contract acknowledging responsibility for their acts, and they agree to pay restitution, have good school attendance and perform community service.” In addition, the parents would have to “attend parenting classes, and all families are referred to group counseling, with the case being monitored for a year.”

Accused Of Making Threats, Georgia Teacher Fights To Keep Job.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (12/9, Badertscher) reports that Randolph Forde, a teacher at Mundy Mill High School in Jonesboro, GA, “was arrested in October on charges of terrorist threats and placed on administrative leave with pay. On Tuesday, a three-member tribunal was asked to recommend that the county Board of Education fire Forde, 33, over a series of events that began when he asked an 11th-grade boy whether he was gay. A few days later, Forde allegedly told another student he wanted him to ‘put a hit’ on someone and then flashed a piece of paper with the 11th-grader’s name on it.” Clayton County School Superintendent Edmond T. Heatley “told the tribunal that he reviewed various staff reports and believes Forde should be fired, saying ‘educators have a higher responsibility than most.’”

Idaho Schools Chief Calls For College Credit In All High Schools.
The Rexburg (ID) Standard Journal (12/10) reports that on Wednesday, Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna “pushed the idea of students earning college credit while in high school and the use of educational technology during a forum held by Republican women from Madison, Fremont and Jefferson counties.” Luna “says when students earn college credits while in high school, it gives them confidence and the realization that they are ‘college material.’ According to Luna, one of the biggest challenges Idaho education faces is getting college credits and online technology to many rural and technologically inaccessible areas in Idaho.” The state Education Department’s “answer to this challenge is the Idaho Education Network, a high-speed intranet that will link all Idaho public schools to state universities and colleges.”

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In the Classroom
Atmospheric Adventures Program Teaches Basic Meteorology.
Ohio’s Chronicle-Telegram (12/10, Castelli) reports on the “Atmosphere Adventures” program, which “teaches students in various grades the basics of what weather is and how it works in preparation for the Ohio Achievement Test.” Television meteorologist Jon Loufman brought “simple demonstrations” to “about 60 fifth-graders at Durling Middle School” on Tuesday. For one activity, he held “water in a straw by putting his finger over the top of it to demonstrate air pressure.” In another he blew “up a balloon to show air has weight.” Loufman also passed “around a cold bottle of Gatorade to illustrate condensation made complex science concepts easy to understand.” Grants from “the Nordson Corporation Foundation, the Nord Family Foundation, and the Community Foundation of Lorain County,” make Atmospheric Adventures available to” districts that normally would not be able to pay for it.”

Minnesota School Broadcasts Daily News Segments Developed By Fifth-Graders.
Minnesota’s Oakdale Lake Elmo Review (12/10, Zillmer) reports that each week at Webster Elementary School in St. Paul, MN, “a different group of five fifth-grade students” works with Education Assistant Pam Tillges to “develop the daily” newscasts that are broadcast throughout the school. “The process takes place in the North St. Paul elementary school’s news studio, complete with a news desk to brainstorm ideas, a computer, lighting, camera, microphones, and props for the students’ creative and informative reports.” Throughout the week, “the selected students alternate tasks, such as news, sports, weather and camera work. They add their own ideas through costumes…voices, music and props to convey what they learned in class.” Principal Sara Palodichuk describes the activity as a “community building experience.”

On the Job

Oppenheimer Foundation Selects Chicago Teacher Initiative Grant Recipients.
The Chicago Tribune (12/10, Owen) reports that the Oppenheimer Family Foundation has been awarding Teacher Initiative Grants to teachers in Chicago “for more than 30 years to fund everything from literary journals to stained-glass projects.” This year’s grants will go toward the creation of “an Italian herb garden,” a “butterfly sanctuary, human-rights living wax museum…a science project that focuses on DNA crime scene investigation technology,” and murals. Foundation President Ted Oppenheimer said, “The projects had to be hands-on learning, using their hands and their minds so that it’s not just seatwork in the classroom.”

Sick Day Costs Teacher Her Job.
Pennsylvania’s Intelligencer Journal (12/10, Commero) reports that Lampeter-Strasburg (PA) school board members “voted 6-3 Monday night to accept the resignation of an elementary band instructor who says she was unfairly forced to resign because she called off sick to go to a music conference.” Jennifer Theilacker, “who was in her eighth year of teaching in the district,” was “the band instructor at Hans Herr Elementary School,” and “said she used a sick day to take a conducting class in New York. … After being called in to the district office, Theilacker said, she was asked to resign or be fired.” Theilacker “said she admits she was wrong, but feels the ultimatum was unjustified.”

Law & Policy
Lawmakers Highlight Need For Student Restraint, Seclusion Law.
Reps. George Miller (D-CA) and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) write in an op-ed for CNN (12/9, Miller, Rodgers), “According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, over the last 20 years there have been hundreds of allegations of school personnel using restraint and seclusion in abusive ways on children. It’s happening disproportionately to students with disabilities, often at the hands of untrained staff.” Miller and Rogers add, “It’s difficult to believe, but there are no federal laws to prevent this from happening. … The solution is a balanced approach to make classrooms safe for students and teachers. With that goal in mind, on Wednesday we are introducing legislation to finally ensure that schools in every state have the resources they need to prevent inappropriate restraint and seclusion.” NPR (12/9, Shapiro) reported that “two investigatory reports earlier this year told disturbing stories of the harsh, and on occasion fatal, methods sometimes used to discipline disabled children in school.”

Detroit Public Schools Leader Responds To NAEP Results With Curriculum, Training Plan.
The Detroit Free Press (12/9, Dawsey, Erb) reports that “Detroit school leaders declared the need for a crisis response Tuesday after revealing that fourth- and eighth-grade students in the district recorded the worst math results ever in the 40-year history of” the National Assessment for Educational Progress tests. “Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb has “outlined an action plan to boost after-school tutorials for students, toughen the curriculum and increase training for teachers and others.” In an interview with the Free Press this week, Bobb also cited a need for “cultural change” within the district. “He said a reasonable goal would be to get all third-graders reading at grade-level by 2015.” In addition, the reading program will be retooled, and “the current program — called Open Court” — will be augmented “with a new Harcourt program. Mandatory professional development for teachers, as well as extended school day programs proposed under the new teachers contract, will address the problems,” said Bobb.

California Urged To Do All It Can To “Successfully Compete” For Federal Grants.
The San Gabriel Valley (CA) Tribune (12/9) editorialized that California has “always had some issues with federal programs for schools that too tightly tie teacher performance defined strictly by their students’ standardized test scores” to district funding. This can create a problem, because some students struggle with tests, even if they have “the best teachers.” However, the state has “much bigger worries about a potentially catastrophic drop in funding for…schools in the next school year,” the San Gabriel Valley Tribune added, explainin, “That’s why California needs to do everything it can to successfully compete for the federal Race to the Top money, which will not be going to every state.” The state stands to gain up to $500 million “in funding if the application is viewed favorably.”

Center On Education Policy Questions Federal School Turnaround Strategy.
Education Week (12/9, Gewertz) reported that the Center on Education Policy “is raising questions about the wisdom of the Education Department’s favored strategies for turning around the lowest-performing schools with stimulus funding, saying that its research shows that similar federal school restructuring strategies have not been effective. The questions raised by the new study were on the agenda Monday” as the Center on Education Policy, “which issued the report, hosted a forum on its findings that included a top Education Department official. The exchange highlighted tensions in the debate over ‘turning around’ low-performing schools as federal officials prepare to hand out billions” of stimulus dollars for that purpose, “and as they gear up to advocate school improvement strategies for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.”

Obama Administration Criticized For Safe Schools Czar.
The Washington Times (12/9) editorialized, “It is curious why White House officials and Education Secretary Arne Duncan believe it’s worth it politically to continue taking arrows for defending Kevin Jennings, who is Mr. Obama’s controversial ‘safe schools czar.” According to the Times, “The evidence suggesting he is unfit to serve as a senior presidential appointee is startling and plentiful. It was revealed this week that Mr. Jennings was involved in promoting a reading list for children 13 years old or older that made the most explicit sex between children and adults seem normal and acceptable.” The Times adds, “At some point, Mr. Duncan, Mr. Jennings, Obama administration spokesmen and the president himself are going to have to start answering questions about all this.”

Special Needs
Nonprofit To Make Open Content Textbooks Available To Students With Disabilities.
T.H.E. Journal (12/9, Aronowitz) reported that “with the help of a $100,000 supplemental grant from the United States Department of Education Office of Special Education (OSEP),” the nonprofit organization Bookshare “will begin to make open content textbooks accessible to readers with print disabilities.” The effort will be launched “with 16 math and science textbooks approved for California high school students” under the nation’s first ever digital textbook initiative. The first “texts will be available in the standard DAISY format, which offers access to those with print disabilities via both multi-modal reading, combining highlighted on-screen text with high-quality computer-generated voice, and Braille Ready Format.”

New York District Launches New Teaching Model Aimed At Reducing Special Ed Classifications.
The Rochester City (NY) Newspaper (12/9, MaCaluso) reported that the Rochester City School District “has launched a new type of teaching model that officials hope will reduce the number of special-education students in the district. At 17 percent, Rochester City Schools have more special-ed students than any district in the state, and there is concern that some students — particular black and Hispanic boys — may be misclassified, though experts don’t agree on how often that happens or the reasons why.” Response-to-Intervention “is an approach to instruction that is gaining popularity among educators because it provides academic intervention at the first sign a student is struggling.”

Safety & Security
Small Fires, False Alarms Disrupt Classes At DC School.
The Washington Post (12/10, Turque) reports, “Many schools deal with the occasional small fire, but the volume of calls at” D.C.’s Ballou High School “is way beyond the norm, officials say. … School and fire officials said they have met to discuss the situation and are forming a fire prevention team that will be led by Ballou administrators and the D.C. police officer assigned to the school.” According to the Post, “there have been no injuries, but the fires, most of which happened after lunch, triggered evacuations that disrupted the school day, shortening instructional time at the school, where just 24 percent of sophomores read at proficiency levels, according to the 2009 DC-CAS standardized test results.”

Also in the News
Parents Threaten To Boycott Elementary School’s Production Of Hansel And Gretel.
The UK’s Daily Mail (12/10, Dolan) reports on the Keresley Newland Primary School’s production of Hansel and Gretel, which has been rewritten into “a depressing study of anti- social behavior.” In the Keresley Newland version of the story, Hansel and Gretel are “recast as present-day thugs who behave like stereotypical hoodie-wearing yobs and terrorize their neighborhood in search of a gingerbread house,” according to the Daily Mail. And, “instead of finding themselves imprisoned by a witch who plans to eat them, upon discovering the house the pair threaten to make the old lady owner homeless by devouring all her property.” Teachers at the school say that the play “teaches children to respect other people’s belongings.” But some parents have threatened “to boycott the play, saying it kills the spirit of Christmas.”

NEA in the News
Kansas NEA Urges Lawmakers To Reconsider Sales Tax Exemptions.
Kansas’ Capital-Journal (12/10, Hollingsworth) reports that leaders of the Kansas National Education Association (KNEA) are urging the state Legislature “to take a close look at tax exemptions.” Schools in Kansas have in recent years received “large increases in state funding prompted by a lawsuit that determined the state was underfunding public schools.” But “As the state pumped more money into public schools, it began dipping into reserves.” At the same time, the state has offered “sales tax exemptions” to consumers. KNEA Vice President Karen Godfrey said, “If the Legislature can say we’ve done everything we can, and this is where we are, OK, we can deal with that.” However, she added, “I don’t think anyone thinks they’ve done everything they can in terms of revenue. They just keep going to the cutting stage.”

Dodge City KNEA, District Reject One Another’s Contract Proposals. The Dodge City (KS) Daily Globe (12/10, O’Brien) reports that the Dodge City affiliate of the Kansas National Education Association “and USD 443′s bargaining team rejected one another’s most recent proposals at a contract negotiation meeting this week, but agreed to meet” again today for further negotiations. The district offered a one percent pay increase on Nov. 9. The union “countered with a proposed 2.41 percent increase,” which the “district’s bargaining team rejected…as beyond the scope of its authority to approve.”

Liaison Officers Help Military Families Transition Children Into School After Relocation.
The Chicago Tribune (12/10, Malone) reported that in order to “help military families ease into local schools” after a relocation, military branches including the Navy, Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps are recruiting liaison officers “to help parents learn the ins and outs of parent-teacher organizations, school boards, and classroom projects.” The liaison officers help families through challenges “as practical as transferring class credits or as emotional as coping with a parent’s deployment in a time of war.” Brett Clark, a spokesman for Illinois’ Glenview School District 34, “said it can be difficult to appreciate the upheaval and uncertainty that often confronts military families and their children,” pointing out, “Sometimes it’s a matter of just realizing what is going on.” In those situations, the liaison officer steps in to help.

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In the Classroom
Virginia Educators Question Need For High School Financial Literacy Class.
The Richmond (VA) Times-Dispatch (12/11, Lizama, Prestidge) reports that beginning next year, all “high school freshmen in Virginia will be required to take an economics and financial literacy course to graduate, but some educators worry that the new class will force students to drop electives such as art or band.” Although the state “already has some Standards of Learning for economics and finance, which are taught as part of civics, economics and math courses,” the new course “would go deeper into concepts such as supply and demand, the national deficit and consumer spending, as well as banking transactions, credit and loans, income taxes and personal budgeting.” Many “school officials say these skills are important ones to teach students, but they question the timing.”

California District Replaces Anti-Gay Bullying Curriculum.
The AP (12/10, Leff) reported that the Alameda, CA, Board of Education voted on Tuesday in favor of replacing “a curriculum against bullying gay people that had become a national centerpiece in the opposition to same-sex marriage” with lessons “supplemented by children’s books that explicitly address six specific forms of bias, including against gays.” School Trustee Trish Herrera Spencer said that the debate over the bullying curriculum has divided the community. The 45-minute anti-gay bullying lesson, “which was to be taught once a year in each grade starting with kindergarten, sparked a lawsuit, accusations that religious families were being discriminated against and threats of a recall election against the three board members who approved it,” the AP adds.

Social Media Helps Shed Light On Bullying Case. CNN (12/10, Zdanowicz) reported on its Website that in Newark, Ohio, a 15-year-old girl “voiced her dislike for a hip-hop music group and got punched in the face by a classmate. The whole thing was caught on tape and social media helped police in their investigation.” According to CNN, “While only six to 10 people witnessed the alleged assault, the video has received more than 1,000 views on CNN iReport to date. … The 15-year-old suspect, who CNN is not naming because she is a minor, was charged as a juvenile Tuesday with individual counts of assault, menacing and unlawful restraint, Licking County Prosecutor Ken Oswalt said.” Also, the “same day as the bullying incident, Chicago, Illinois, honors student Derrion Albert was beaten to death.”

On the Job
Several California Districts Require Staff Furloughs.
The Contra Costa Times (12/11, Trunnell) reports that several California school districts are cutting down on the number of days teachers, school staff, and administrators are required to word in order to save money. For instance, teachers “in the Adelanto School District…will most likely take furloughs as early as January,” bringing the number of instructional days down to 180 from 185. “In the San Bernardino City Unified School District, classified staff and managers are all taking five furlough days this year and during the 2010-11 school year.” Teachers, however, will not take furlough days “because students have to have a certain number of instructional days per school year,” said the district’s spokeswoman, Maria Garcia.

Law & Policy
USDA Will Host Food-Tasting To Garner Support For Child Nutrition Act.
The Washington Post (12/11, Black) reports that next week, “lawmakers and congressional staffers” will attend a food-tasting sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The purpose of the “tasting is to show lawmakers the improvements the department has made in the nutritional quality — and taste — of the $1.2 billion in school commodity foods and to win support to fund further improvements” through the “Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act next year.” The legislation could “allow the department to set strict standards for all food sold in schools.” In addition, the USDA aims to “rehabilitate the reputation of the commodity foods program, which provides 15 to 20 percent of the food served in U.S. school cafeterias.”

WPost Says Test Results Validate DC Schools Chancellor’s Reform Strategy.
The Washington Post (12/10) editorialized, “Only one conclusion can be drawn” from National Assessment of Educational Progress test results “showing D.C. public schools outpacing many of their big-city peers in bettering students’ math skills: The reforms being undertaken by Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee are working.” However, even as D.C. “celebrates the loss of its dubious status as one of the nation’s worst school systems, the sobering reality is there is still a long way to go before it can boast about its public education system.” The Post adds, “These test results are evidence that Ms. Rhee, with the important backing of Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D), is doing all the things she was asked to do when she was put in charge.”

Louisiana To Revamp Race To The Top Strategy.
The Times-Picayune (LA) (12/10, Carr) reported that Louisiana “has significantly revised its strategy for competing for a share of more than $4 billion in federal education money, telling school districts they must be willing to evaluate teachers based on their students’ test score growth to participate. The state’s initial strategy for the so-called ‘Race to the Top’ money called on districts throughout the state to voluntarily overhaul some of their lowest-performing schools by bringing in new leaders or staff or converting to charter school operations.” State Superintendent Paul Pastorek “told state lawmakers this week that the shift to focus more heavily on ‘building great (school) leaders and teachers’ stems from revised information released by [ED] which will dole out the unprecedented competitive grant money.”

Michigan Governor To Hold Off On Education Funding Cuts.
The Grand Rapids (MI) Press (12/11, Murray) reports that Michigan superintendents are encouraged that Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) “says there’s more money in state coffers than was projected — but don’t know for sure that the state cuts won’t go through later in the year. … Granholm said revenues from property taxes [were] about $100 million more than projected.” The surplus “means money that would have been sliced from Dec. 21 payments to school districts will be restored, at least until after a meeting Jan. 11 meeting when economists estimate how much money the state can expect to raise in 2010 and 2011.”

The AP (12/10, Hoffman) reported that Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) “said Thursday she won’t start imposing a $127-per-pupil spending cut this month, giving school districts a holiday gift that could carry over into January. Districts still will have to live with cuts put in place this fall that slashed state payments by the equivalent of $165 per student.” Education associations “reacted cautiously to Granholm’s announcement, fearful the good news could turn bad again after state economists forecast Jan. 11 how much money the state can expect to raise in 2010 and 2011.”

Safety & Security
Philadelphia Community Leaders Blame School Leadership For Students’ Misbehavior.
The Philadelphia Daily News (12/10, Russ) reported that according to “students, parents and community leaders,” South Philadelphia High School has “a long history of intolerance, assaults, and racial slurs targeting Asian students.” Responding to the complaints, Schools Superintendent Arlene Ackerman said during a meeting with students and parents that “the district has formed a ‘Task Force for Racial and Cultural Harmony.’” But she “angered some in the audience when she said” that an attack on Asian students that occurred last week “had been sparked by an incident the day before when two Asian students beat up an African-American student after school near a drugstore.” According to “Asian community leaders…the real problem is ‘not just a bunch of bad kids,’ but the school’s leadership.” As an example, Xu Lin of the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corp. noted that “during a meeting with school officials last Friday,” the principal of South Philadelphia played “with her cell phone when the students and their parents were giving statements about the violence that had occurred the day before.”

School Finance

New York City Schools Bracing For Budget Cuts.
The New York Times (12/11, A32, Otterman) reports that New York City “budget cuts are coming, even if it is too soon to say exactly when and how much. Most city agencies have been asked to submit plans for cost savings; the Department of Education has been asked to prepare for a 1.5 percent midyear cut and a 4 percent cut for next autumn’s entering class.” Though it “is not known how much individual schools will be asked to shave, principals” like the Bronx Center for Science and Mathematics’ Edward Tom “are preparing for the worst. It is part of their role, since 2007, of managing a large portion of their own operating budgets.” Tom’s description of the school’s budget challenges “underscores the vulnerability of years of progress to the budget ax, the uncertainty of much year-to-year financing, and growing frustration about a shared sense in many schools that hard-won gains could be lost.”

Also in the News
School Nutrition Director Says Chocolate Milk Should Not Be Served In Schools.
The AFP (12/11) reports that according to Ann Cooper, “director of nutrition services for schools in Boulder,” CO, said that “chocolate milk is ‘soda in drag’ and should be booted out of US school cafeterias.” Cooper explained to AFP on Wednesday, “If kids choose chocolate milk over white milk for an entire year they are liable to gain 2.5 to 3 pounds (1-1.5 kilograms) and over 10 years that’s 25 to 30 pounds.” But even as anti-chocolate milk activists campaign against chocolate milk in school lunchrooms, “the dairy industry is fighting back…with an online campaign called ‘Raise your hand for chocolate milk.’”

NEA in the News
Labor Union Leaders Urge Senators To Drop Insurance Tax From Health Care Bill.
The AP (12/11, Werner) reports that leaders of several labor unions, including “the AFL-CIO and the National Education Association,” on Thursday urged “Democratic senators…to drop a tax on high-value insurance plans to pay for remaking the nation’s system.” The proposed Senate health care bill would impose a “40 percent excise tax on insurance companies, keyed to premiums paid on health care plans costing more than $8,500 annually for individuals and $23,000 for families.” Lily Eskelsen, vice president of the National Education Association, said regarding the proposal, “We should tax the millionaires, not teachers and bus drivers.”

Louisiana Serves As Model In Teacher Assessment.
The Washington Post (12/13, Anderson) reported that “Louisiana has become the first state to tie student test scores into a chain of evaluation that reaches all the way to teacher colleges.” Under the new accountability standards, student advancement “will affect not only the students and their school, but also the” universities that train the teachers. E. Joseph Savoie, president of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, called the initiative “accountability on steroids.” According to experts, “such rapid-fire decisions based on classroom test results are rare.” However, other states are following Louisiana’s lead. According to reports, “Florida and Texas are moving toward linking test scores and teacher preparation,” and Maryland and Virginia “officials said they are studying Louisiana’s approach.”

New Teacher-Evaluation Systems Facing Numerous Obstacles. Education Week (12/11, Sawchuk) reported that, in response to “the promise of federal funding and a burgeoning dialogue about teacher effectiveness, districts are beginning to overhaul their evaluation systems to provide more finely grained information on teacher performance.” Yet, as some school districts “scale up their work, they face a phalanx of obstacles, the greatest of which is probably the paucity of highly regarded models to draw on.” Furthermore, few districts “have ever attempted to go beyond the typical function of evaluations — ensuring teachers meet a basic level of competence — to connect their systems to professional development, teacher promotion, and compensation. Yet that is the ultimate goal of the evaluation language in the $4 billion federal Race to the Top program.”

Since House Hearing, States Take Little Action On Restraint In Schools.
USA Today (12/14, Toppo) reports that few “states have moved to restrict or regulate school staff members who restrain or seclude hard-to-handle children against their will in the wake of abuses exposed by congressional investigators seven months ago.” According to USA Today, in May, the Government Accountability Office told the House Education and Labor Committee “that only seven states require training for educators before they’re allowed to restrict children – and only five states ban ‘prone restraint,’ in which an adult lies atop a face-down child.”

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In the Classroom
Local High School First In Virginia To Participate In Online NASA Course.
The AP (12/23) reported, “Students at L.C. Bird High School in Chesterfield are getting a firsthand look at space exploration.” The school is the “first in Virginia to make an online course run by NASA part of its curriculum.” The AP noted students “may earn a college credit and a chance at a weeklong summer academy at the NASA Langley Research Center.” The Richmond (VA) Times-Dispatch (12/13, Lizama) reported, “Students will participate in live webcasts from NASA centers with astronaut instructors. They will also work on a project to design a colony on Mars and must come up with ways to sustain life there.”

Astronaut Wilmore Attends Announcement Of New Tennessee STEM Network.
The AP (12/12, Schelzig) reported, “Gov. Phil Bredesen (D) on Friday announced a partnership with the Battelle Memorial Institute to establish a network of math and science programs in Tennessee schools.” Attending the announcement for the Tennessee STEM Innovation Network was astronaut Barry Wilmore, who recently piloted the shuttle to the International Space Station. “Wilmore, who wore a blue flight suit, said the emphasis on science and math will help students achieve greater success.” The article noted the program “will be similar to Battelle’s partnership in its home state of Ohio, where it has managed a network of school districts, colleges and universities and private sector partners.”

Elementary Students In North Carolina Use Skype For Classroom Projects.
The Mount Airy (NC) News (12/14, Wall) reports that, this year, students at Dobson Elementary School “have been using Skype to talk with classes in other states and…countries.” Through the internet-based program the students use a computer with a video camera to see people as they speak with them. “The endeavor began with just a few classrooms doing projects using Skype.” Then, “the program has expanded so that students speak to classes in other states once a week or once a month, depending on their schedules. They are able to ask questions of the other class and also answer questions about life in North Carolina.” Dobson students “are also using Skype to learn about different cultures and to communicate with…soldiers stationed overseas.”

Virtual High School Increasing In Popularity Among South Jersey Students.
The New Jersey Courier Post (12/13, Guns) reported that the Massachusetts-based Virtual High School (VHS) is increasing in popularity among students in South Jersey. Overall, the school “has close to 12,000 online students enrolled this semester.” Students can choose from “150 courses and 347 course sections.” Small schools benefit most from the online program, according to “site coordinators and…teachers trained to deliver the program,” because those schools are not able “to offer certain advanced courses and quirky electives.” The virtual school is also beneficial for “students who are self-motivated and work well independently,” they say. “VHS courses are not correspondence courses, but are student-centered with collaboration between students encouraged. While students can access their classes at any time, there are due dates and deadlines for assignments and activities.”

On the Job
Troubled Miami School Embarks On Turnaround Effort.
The Miami Herald (12/13, McGrory) reported that Miami Edison Senior High School, “best known for a televised lunchroom brawl and repeated failures on the state’s standardized test,” seeks to revamp its reputation with new academic programs. Beginning next year, the school’s new structure will require students “to specialize in one of four areas: international studies; public affairs and health; the arts; or a rigorous honors program.” Over the last six months, Principal Pablo Ortiz “and the rebuilt faculty — culled from schools across the county — have been working to” improve the school. According to the Miami Herald, “some improvements are immediately apparent,” such as “better lighting” and “newly shined floors.” But the school has also “revved up its personalized preparation for state standardized tests.”

Teachers At Four-Day School In Hawaii Lose Professional Development To Furlough Fridays.
The Maui (HI) News (12/14, Nicolas) reports that before Furlough Fridays were mandated for Hawaii’s public schools, Hana High and Elementary School in Hana, HI, began operating on a four-day schedule. Instead of school days operating from 7:45 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday with early dismissal on Wednesdays, the schedule at Hana “had students and teachers in the classrooms from 7:45 a.m. to 2:35 p.m. Monday through Thursday.” On Fridays, Hana teachers were able to attend staff development workshops, prepare their classrooms, and tutor students. But, after the “furlough days were imposed, Hana teachers…lost classroom preparation and professional development days” in order to maintain “its unique Monday-to-Thursday class schedule.” Last week, Principal Rick Paul filed “a request to adjust Hana school’s class schedule for school year 2010-2011 so that time can be allocated for staff meetings and professional development activities. The schedule has to be approved by the Board of Education.”

North Carolina Ranks Fourth For Suspensions Handed Out Annually In Public Schools.
The Raleigh (NC) News & Observer (12/14, Latifi) reports that every year about 10 percent of students in North Carolina’s public schools are suspended, “either for serious offenses, such as fighting and making threats, or for infractions such as ignoring the dress code.” North Carolina ranks fourth in the number of annual suspensions in public schools. “Only three other states suspend a higher percentage of their students each year, according to the National Center of Education Statistics.” Children’s advocates worry about North Carolina’s “high suspension rate,” because, according to Action for Children North Carolina, “suspended students are three times as likely to drop out.” Moreover, “a new study from Northeastern University in Boston” shows that “dropouts, particularly African-American males… face higher risks of ending up in jail.” Advocates say that “teachers and schools need better resources for classroom management.”

Safety & Security

Florida District Considers Arming School Police Officers With Stun Guns To Deter Violence.
The Jacksonville (FL) Times-Union (12/14, Stepzinski) reports that this week, the Glynn County, FL, school board will consider “issuing stun guns to the school system’s police officers.” School Board chairman John Madala supports “the measure and said giving the officers Tasers would deter student violence and bolster school security.” The district’s 24 school police officers are already “armed with handguns and pepper spray,” but Glynn schools Police Chief Ron Lee said that “recent fights at high school football and basketball games show the need for officers to have stun guns,” and he wants all the officers trained and equipped with” the guns.

Board Chairman Advocates Bringing Back Corporal Punishment. The Jacksonville (FL) Times-Union (12/14, Stepzinski) reports in a separate story that at the same meeting, the Glynn County school board’s Safety and Discipline Committee “will also consider reinstating…corporal punishment.” Board member and committee chairman John Madala placed the issue on the board’s agenda because he “believes paddling is an effective tool needed to enforce student discipline.” Madala said, “We’ve got to equip the teachers with the tools they need to maintain structure and control in their classrooms. … Corporal punishment would be another tool in the box to control unruly students.” Paddling, the Times-Union notes, “has not been used in Glynn schools in more than four years,” after the board voted “unanimously July 12, 2005, to remove it as a student discipline option.”

School Finance
Tightening Budget Forces North Carolina District To Prioritize Construction Projects.
The NC Advertiser (12/13, Schmelkin) reported that, most years, the New Canaan Public Schools Board of Education “allocates anywhere from $800,000 to $1 million for capital projects.” But this fiscal year, “only $145,000 was set aside.” Under a tight budget, the BOE “is prioritizing for 2010-11, determining which capital projects – many of which were pushed to the back burner because of the harsh economic climate – will get done.” Its top priorities are “repainting the elementary schools, repairing the sagging Saxe Middle School gym hallway, and replacing exterior door keypads at the elementary and middle schools.” Hans Otto, the district’s manager of facilities and operations, said that “functioning keypads are essential to the schools…as they prevent doors from having to be left unlocked.”

Also in the News
Iowa Math And Science Education Partnership Director Touts Successes.
The Waterloo and Cedar Falls (IA) Courier (12/13, Christensen) reported that the Iowa Math and Science Education Partnership (IMSEP) “was created a year ago” to increase the math and science teacher candidate pool and improving student performance. According to IMSEP director Jeff Weld, his organization’s “is directly responsible for the 113 undergraduates who participated in a teacher recruitment program” and is partially responsible “for an increase in the number of students enrolled in math and science teaching majors at the University of Northern Iowa and Iowa State University.” Moreover, math and science scores have increased on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills since IMSEP began.

NEA in the News
Teachers In Michigan District Agree To Pay Freeze In Three-Year Contract.
The Saginaw (MI) News (12/14, Jaksa) reports that teachers in the Davison School District have agreed to “a wage freeze on a three-year contract while keeping their current health care insurance intact.” The insurance agreement “will continue unchanged through the 2010-2011 school year when the new contract expires.” Until then, teachers will “pay between six and nine percent of their health insurance premiums depending on the coverage they have selected.” Superintendent Clay Perkins and other “district officials applauded the Davison Education Association for approving the status-quo contract which covers about 275 teachers.” Perkins said, “We are facing very difficult financial times in Michigan. … I appreciate the dedication of our staff and their willingness to help the district weather these difficult times.”

Duncan Brings “Listening And Learning” Tour To Atlanta.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (12/15) reports that in recent months, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan “has been traveling the country to get input on education policy, and Monday was metro Atlanta’s turn.” Duncan “repeatedly stressed Monday the ‘competitive’ spirit he wanted to see in schools moving forward. He noted the administration’s new ‘Race to the Top’ program, in which roughly $5 billion in competitively awarded grants will be available to schools willing to raise their academic standards, improve teacher quality and allow more innovation.” Duncan’s “first stop Monday was at Tech High School, an independent charter high school in Atlanta that has a 97 percent graduation rate.” Duncan “also toured the city’s Grady High School in Midtown and attended a discussion about a White House initiative to prevent youth violence.”

The AP (12/14) reported that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said that “creating national education standards is ‘a good idea whose time has come.’” Duncan “spoke to a group of educators and education leaders at Atlanta’s Tech High School on Monday as part of a national tour to prepare for the reauthorization” of NCLB. Duncan and Sen. Johnny Isakson (R) “told the group that they are working to establish a common set of measurements for every state to use rather than allowing states to determine their own benchmarks.”

In the Classroom
More Class Time Is Key To Raising Performance, Some Educators Say.
The Miami Herald (12/14, Sampson) reported, “As educators seek to turn around the nation’s most struggling schools, one option has gained favor: More time in school.” Many state and local education officials “are hoping that adding time to a school day or year could help students needing extra attention.” The Herald noted that In Florida’s Race to the Top application, “the state plans to include in its application the idea of extending the school day or year for students in struggling schools. … And while nothing has been decided yet, superintendents in Broward and Miami-Dade say they are interested in using federal grant money to extend learning time.”

Virginia District Makes Strides Toward Online Testing Goal.
The Petersburg (VA) Progress-Index (12/15, Burchett) reports that schools in Dinwiddie County, VA, “are making progress in complying with a state requirement that all testing be conducted online by 2013.” All staff at Dinwiddie High School and Dinwiddie Junior High and “K-5 staff are now being taught to use the testing site and the ePAT educational tools located online.” Middle schoolers took history tests online last year, and this year they “will take both history and math tests online.”

Virginia Middle School Drops Assignment Asking Students To Argue In Support Of Taliban.
Valerie Strauss wrote in the Washington Post (12/14) The Answer Sheet blog that a geography teacher at Swanson Middle School in Arlington, VA, had assigned some of her eighth grade students “the task of arguing in support of Afghanistan’s Taliban in a United Nations Debate.” On Monday that assignment was dropped “because students and parents were uncomfortable with the exercise, school officials said.” According to Strauss, “some families became angry when they learned that some students would be arguing in support of the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban, which harbored Osama bin Laden when it was control of Afghanistan’s government before being overthrown in a U.S. invasion after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.” Furthermore, “the Taliban is now fighting U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and some of the students at Swanson are members of military families.”

On the Job
Neediest California High School Students Have The Least Prepared Teachers, Study Finds.
The Los Angeles Times (12/14, Landsberg) reported that the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning released a report on Monday titled, “The Status of the Teaching Profession 2009,” that found the neediest students in California high schools are being taught by the least prepared teachers. The study found “fewer than half the principals in high-poverty schools said their teachers had the skills to encourage critical thinking and problem-solving among their students, while more than two-thirds of their counterparts in wealthier communities said their teachers possessed those abilities. … [Also,] teachers in the lowest-performing schools are more than twice as likely as those in the highest-achieving schools to be working without at least a preliminary credential.”

Law & Policy
Massachusetts DOE Eliminates Program To Help Students Who Transfer Mid Year.
Massachusetts’ Republican (12/15, DeForge) reports that last week Massachusetts’ Department of Education eliminated a grant to help schools fund the Transitional Opportunity Program, which was designed to help “middle school students who” moved “into the district mid-year” transition into their new classes. The program also “gave teachers time to…track” students’ “records from their previous schools, evaluate them for academic lags or learning disabilities, and help their families [with] housing or other services.” Educators said that the transition program “reduced disruptions caused by new students constantly moving into classrooms.” When it was implemented in 2004, the program cost $600,000, but it “has slowly been reduced because of budget cuts.”

Boston Teacher Performance Pay Program Violates Contract, Arbitrator Rules.
The Boston Globe (12/14, Vaznis) reported, “An attempt by Boston school officials to pay teachers bonuses for students who do well in college-level courses — a highly contentious move opposed by many teachers — violates the city’s teacher union contract, according to an arbitrator’s ruling that was obtained yesterday by the Globe.” Boston public schools “had wanted to give math teachers at the John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science in Roxbury $100 for each of their students with a high score on the Advanced Placement college exam, as part of a grant program funded primarily by Exxon Mobile Corp. … But the arbitrator ruled that Boston officials failed to negotiate the bonuses and other aspects of the program with the union before” launching the program. The ruling “puts the program in jeopardy at O’Bryant, and would probably prevent an anticipated expansion to 10 other city schools next year, said Morton Orlov II, who runs the AP initiative for Mass Insight.”

Bill Targets Nutrition, Exercise In DC Schools.
The Washington Post (12/15, Turque) reports that Washington, DC “schools would be required to serve students fresh produce from local growers and to dramatically expand physical education programs under a bill introduced by D.C. Council member Mary M. Cheh and Chairman Vincent C. Gray.” According to Cheh, the bill would “address high rates of adolescent obesity in the District by increasing the amount of exercise that students get” to 150 minutes a week for students in grades K through 5 and 225 minutes for students in grades 6 through 8. The Post also notes that the District is currently “running a pilot program at 12 elementary schools, serving fresh fruit and vegetables grown within 100 miles of the city two to three times a week in the fall and spring and at least once a month during the winter.”

North Carolina District Seeks Feedback On Year-Round Schools.
WRAL-TV Raleigh (12/14) reported that North Carolina’s Wake County Board of Education “is likely to vote Tuesday to block the opening of any new year-round schools until officials can determine whether more are needed.” By next school year, the board intends to transition current year-round schools “‘to either a voluntary basis or to traditional calendar by the beginning of the 2010-2011 school year,’ a resolution to be presented for a board vote reads.” It also “wants to survey parents whose children attend year-round schools to gauge the popularity of the calendar.” The proposed “resolution directs school district staff ‘to cease opening schools on a non-voluntary year-round calendar and stop work on any conversion of remaining schools to mandatory year-round pending the outcome of approved surveys.’”

Safety & Security

Philadelphia Commission Takes Steps To Diffuse Racial Tensions At High School.
WPVI-TV Philadelphia, PA (12/14, James) reported on its Web site that the Philadelphia Human Relations Commission held a meeting Monday “to defuse tensions at South Philadelphia High School. About 30 Asian-American students have boycotted classes at the school, which is on a ‘persistently dangerous’ list, since December 3rd.” The students “say that they are the targets of anti-Asian discrimination and violence.” Philadelphia Schools Superintendant Arlene Ackerman “met with the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations about alleged violence against Asian-American students at South Philadelphia High School. The Philadelphia HRC invited school district officials, Asian community representatives & Asian students who’ve boycotted class since last week after allegedly being attacked by African-American students.” The meeting “was intended to be the HRC’s effort to broker discussions and facilitate trust among various groups.”

Facilities
Sand Playground Surfaces Help Prevent Falling Injuries, Study Finds.
Amina Khan wrote in a “Booster Shots” blog for the Los Angeles Times (12/14) that in “a study published today in PLoS Medicine,” pediatric orthopedic surgeon Andrew W. Howard “and his fellow researchers documented the playground injuries at 37 elementary schools in Toronto. They found that children who fell from a height onto a wood chip surface were nearly five times more likely to sustain an arm fracture than children who fell onto granite sand.” According to Khan, “Both surfaces meet school safety standards, Howard said, but what gives granite sand the edge is each surface’s sliding friction.” Of the 5,900 “fracture-related hospitalizations that happen as a result of a playground fall in the United States, the study observes, 3,900 to 4,700 could be prevented if they had occurred on granite sand surfaces.”

School Finance
New Hampshire Lawmakers Urged Not To Suspend School Construction Aid.
New Hampshire’s Foster’s Daily Democrat (12/14) editorialized, “A panel of lawmakers is expected to file an interim report Tuesday asking the Legislature to consider suspension of the program that provides funds for school construction. The state pays 60 percent of approved projects’ costs.” Without the state aid, school construction “would most likely tail off sharply. Most or many school districts would find having to tap property tax coffers a prohibitive task.” The Daily Democrat added, “If Tuesday’s interim report bears any similarity to the one earlier this month – and if it is adopted by the Legislature – we will see more downshifting of costs in the form of higher property taxes or a hiatus on school construction for an as yet unspecified length of time.” Downshifting “allows the state to mandate a greater share of program costs while maintaining or increasing the level of special interest funding. … The suspension of building aid would be political chicanery.”

New York School Districts Scramble To Cover Shortfall After State Aid Delayed.
The New York Times (12/15, A34, Hakim) reports that on Monday, superintendents across New York “were recalibrating their budgets after Gov. David A. Paterson [D] announced that he would temporarily withhold $146 million in school aid payments due on Tuesday and an additional $436 million in property tax reimbursements due to be paid to districts later this month.” Districts “had already been developing plans to make cuts during the months the governor and lawmakers were sparring over budget cuts, but superintendents lamented the news that the state would defer payments in the middle of the school year.”

Also in the News
Students Accused Of Cyber Bullying Go To Court To Uphold First Amendment Rights.
Melanie Eversley wrote in an “On Deadline” blog for USA Today (12/14), “Some courts, parents and free-speech advocates are pushing back in cyber-bullying cases, saying students have a First Amendment right to be mean in cyberspace, the Los Angeles Times reports. In one Beverly Hills case, an eighth-grader complained to school officials that a classmate had posted a video to YouTube of students belittling her.” School officials “suspended the video poster, who then complained in federal court that her free speech rights had been violated. Last month a federal judge agreed.” Also, a Pennsylvania student “was suspended for 10 days and placed in an alternative education program after he created a parody MySpace profile of the school’s principal. … A federal judge ruled that although the profile was ‘lewd, profane and sexually inappropriate,’ school officials had no right to right to restrict the student’s speech because they couldn’t prove his handiwork caused a significant disruption on campus.”

NEA in the News
Rhode Island Governor Planning More Than $100 Million In Cuts To State Aid.
The Providence (RI) Journal (12/15, Peoples, Gregg) reports that Rhode Island Gov. Donald Carcieri (R) wants to cut state aid to cities and towns by more than $100 million, including cuts to education. NEA Rhode Island Executive Director Robert Walsh said that the governor’s plan would place “the state’s financial woes on property taxpayers, in order to preserve the income tax cuts built into this year’s budget for the state’s wealthiest taxpayers.” According to Walsh, about half of all teachers in Rhode Island “do not receive Social Security at retirement, so depriving them of annual cost of living increases will likely impel them to work longer, at the highest salaries, which in turn will cost the communities more than they save.”

California College Administrator Tapped To Serve As US Deputy Assistant Education Secretary.
The Contra Costa Times (12/17, Krupnick) reports that Frank Chong, president of Laney College in Oakland, California, “Wednesday left the East Bay for Washington, D.C., where next month he will begin his new duties as the nation’s deputy assistant secretary of education — essentially, President Barack Obama’s community college chief. … Chong, president at Laney since 2006, was recruited by Martha Kanter, the former South Bay community college leader who is the administration’s second-highest education official. Chong’s position has taken on new prominence because of Obama’s focus on community colleges as solutions to the nation’s economic problems, Kanter said.”

In the Classroom
Report Lists North Carolina Virtual Public School As Fifth Largest In Nation.
The Asheville (NC) Citizen-Times (12/17) reports that a report from Colorado’s Evergreen Associates has found that “North Carolina’s Virtual Public School (NCVPS) [is] the fifth largest virtual school in terms of enrollment. In just two and a half years, the school has become one of the fastest growing virtual schools in the nation, topping 20,000 in enrollments by the fall of 2009.” Asked to comment, Gov. Bev Perdue (D) said, “Technology is revolutionizing the way we live and work — and I’m committed to using it to revolutionize the way we teach and learn.” In North Carolina, “School districts are taking advantage of the resource to solve scheduling conflicts, space issues and to offer classes that might not be available to students.”

On the Job
Fewer Florida Teachers Pursue National Board Certification Since State Dropped Incentives.
The St. Petersburg Times (12/17, Solochek) reports that since Florida ended its financial support for teachers pursuing National Board certification, “many teachers, facing increasing costs and no raises, bailed on the system.” So “In Pasco, just 11 teachers completed National Board certification this year, down from 34 in 2008 and 36 in 2007. That two-thirds drop mirrored the decline statewide.” Pasco assistant superintendent Ruth Reilly said, “In the Race to the Top, we are going to be looking at different ways of getting our high-level teacher leaders involved, and there will be some incentives for them.”

South Carolina Third In Board Certified Teachers.
South Carolina Now (12/17) reports, “Horry County has the most National Board Certified teachers than any other school district in the state. According to a press release, seventy-six Horry County Schools’ teachers are among the 799 teachers from the Palmetto State to have earned National Board Certification (NBC) in 2009, according to data released today by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.” Horry County “ranks first in South Carolina among 62 school districts,” and now has 285 of its 2,483 teachers board certified. South Carolina “ranks the third highest in the country behind North Carolina and Florida.”

Alabama District Rejects Teach For America.
The Montgomery (AL) Advertiser (12/17, Nettles) reports, “The Montgomery County Board of Education on Tuesday balked at a recommendation from Superintendent Barbara Thompson that would have put uncertified teachers in Montgomery schools for the next three years.” Thompson had proposed “to enter a three-year contract with Teach For America.” Before the vote, “Carol Sippial with the Alabama Education Association also advised the school board against entering into the contract while state schools are in proration.” Thompson argued that “that teachers in the organization could have been placed in low-performing schools in Montgomery that did not meet adequate yearly progress.” Also, “Ifeyinwa Offor, vice president of new site development for Teach For America, unsuccessfully tried to ease board members’ concerns Tuesday by informing them that teachers in their program go through rigorous training and success in the classrooms has been measured over the years.”

Florida Districts Urged To Implement Merit Pay Program.
The Orlando Sentinel (12/17) editorializes that Florida Education Commissioner Eric Smith “informed superintendents last week that the state remains a strong contender for up to $700 million in federal money that could fund much-needed reforms. However, any real shot at winning a slice of the Race to the Top pie comes with a controversial string attached: Districts would need to adopt merit-pay plans.” Merit pay “would be a significant step — in a state where compensating teachers for results over seniority long has been anathema to their unions.” Yet Smith “rightly argues Florida is at a ‘crossroads.’ … And if adopting some form of merit pay rewards these top-notch teachers with something more substantial than a shiny apple, everybody wins.”

Law & Policy
Minnesota Charter Schools Said To Create Added Financial Burden For Districts.
The Winona (MN) Post (12/17, Porter) reports, “When state lawmakers envisioned how charter schools would build the educational climate in Minnesota, they likely didn’t see a scenario in which public school districts suffered under the financial burden charter schools create.” Winona, District 861 officials identified “funding loopholes that leave districts on the short end of the funding stick when charters are located within their boundaries.” Those loopholes are said to concern transportation for charter students and special education services to charter students. Superintendent Paul Durand said that “districts establish attendance areas for elementary schools to control transportation costs, but charter schools have no such attendance boundaries.” Second, “is the requirement that they pay the tab for any special education spending incurred by charter schools beyond the amount reimbursed by the state.” Last year, the district “paid out $206,000 to charter schools for special education services that state funding did not cover.”

Poll: Charter Schools, When Explained, Get Support From Virginia Residents.
The Augusta (VA) Free Press (12/16) reported that Virginia residents “are not well informed about charter schools but a majority support them when charter school programs are explained, according to a new statewide survey conducted by Virginia Commonwealth University.” The Commonwealth Education Poll “finds only 8 percent say they have heard or read a lot about them, 27 percent have read or heard some, and the majority of 64 percent have heard or read nothing or not too much about charter schools.” Gov.-elect Bob McDonnell (R) “made increasing the number of charter schools in Virginia one of his key proposals for education.”

Special Needs
Pennsylvania Program Teaches Special Needs Children Healthy Life Skills.
The Carlisle (PA) Sentinel (12/17, Dolson) profiles the LifeFit fitness and nutrition program that United Cerebral Palsy of Central Pennsylvania puts on at Carlisle High School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. “The program’s mission is to teach healthy lifestyle habits, including exercise and nutrition, to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, a population at greater risk for obesity and the chronic health problems associated with it, such as diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 33 percent of American adults are obese. That percentage is even higher among adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities,” according to program trainer Bre Metoxen. “This program is one of the first pairings of physical fitness and special education, Metoxen added.”

School Finance

Alabama State Superintendent Urges Support For Schools Budget.
The Decatur (AL) Daily (12/17) reports that state Superintendent Joe Morton “appealed to legislators Wednesday to pass a kindergarten-12 budget that will save jobs and programs critical to student learning.” Morton urged support for “a $245.3 million budget that he said would help the state avoid draconian cuts in reading, math, science and technology and distance learning.” His proposed budget would also give “a higher percentage of education funding to kindergarten-12 at the expense of colleges and universities.”

The Gadsden Times (12/17, Beyerle) reports, “State school Superintendent Joe Morton told legislators today he needs $245 million more in next year’s K-12 education budget or 3,543 teachers will lose their jobs.” While, “attrition will lower the potential for layoffs…retirements won’t protect the rest,” according to Morton. Morton also “asked the Legislature for a constitutional amendment to base funding on enrollment. He said K-12 schools have nearly 76 percent of the enrollment in all levels of education but received just less than 69 percent of funding from the ETF this fiscal year.”

Maryland District Chief Unveils Budget Containing Deep Cuts.
The Washington Post (12/17, Hernandez) reports, “Hundreds of jobs would be eliminated, furloughs would be imposed and student-teacher ratios would increase in many grades under a $1.67 billion budget for 2010-11 proposed” by Prince George’s County, MD Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. on Wednesday. The budget “calls for $42.5 million less in spending than this year’s plan. Although spending would increase for some purposes — such as the addition of 75 positions to staff four new schools — the budget contains about $110 million in cuts, including the elimination of 490 positions.” The cuts “were prompted by a $27 million drop in federal stimulus funding, as well as $17 million less from the school system’s reserve funds.”

Massachusetts District May Cut School Buses To Close Budget Gap.
The Boston Globe (12/17, Castello) reports, “With fewer high school students taking the bus than expected, Wellesley (MA) school officials are considering cutting some buses to help close a projected $1.6 million gap in the budget for fiscal year 2011.” Superintendent Bella Wong “made the recommendation to the School Committee at its meeting Tuesday night. The projected school budget for fiscal year 2011 is $1.6 million more than what was recommended this fall by the Advisory Committee, the town’s financial panel.”

Also in the News
Utah Educator Named National History Teacher Of The Year.
The Salt Lake Tribune (12/17, Burr) reports that Tim Bailey, a teacher at Escalante Elementary School in Salt Lake City, accepted National History Teacher of the Year honors from The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History at a reception in Washington.” Bailey “pocketed a $10,000 prize from the award and also earned praise” from Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who said, “Tim, thank you for the example you set,” noting “that there are hundreds of thousands of teachers like him nationwide but that he is a ‘symbol’ of what great teachers are all about.” Bailey “earned a favorite teacher status at his school and elsewhere for pulling history out of books and allowing his students to role play Civil War soldiers or members of Congress.”

Tennessee Governor To Call For Special Session On Education.
The Nashville Business Journal (12/17) reports that Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen (D) announced “that he will call a special session of the Tennessee General Assembly to address educational issues. The special session will begin Jan. 12 – the same day legislators are already scheduled to convene for next year’s regular session – and run concurrently with it.” Bredesen “hopes to put education at the front of lawmakers’ minds and increase the state’s chances of winning up to $700 million in federal economic stimulus funds for school reforms through the Race to the Top program.”

Dallas Has More Failing Schools Than Any Other Texas District.
The Dallas Morning News (12/17, Stutz) reports that Dallas “has more public schools rated as failures by the Texas Education Agency than any other district, with 48 campuses among the 499 on this year’s list of the state’s worst. The list released Tuesday consists of schools where student test scores were too low or recent school ratings were ‘unacceptable,’ giving students the right to transfer next year under the state’s Public Education Grant program.” According to the Morning News, “The number of Dallas Independent School District campuses on the list is down slightly from last year, when 52 schools were singled out. But Dallas is by far the state leader; Fort Worth and Houston tied for second with 30 campuses each.”

Florida Education Association Sees State’s Race To The Top Bid As “Fatally Flawed.”
The St. Petersburg Times (12/18) reports that officials with a coalition of teachers unions, including the Florida Education Association, yesterday called Florida’s bid for a $700 million portion of Race to the Top funds “‘fatally flawed’ and said there isn’t a local union that can support it.” The Times notes that “union partnerships are a requirement, as many of the reforms need contract negotiations. Florida education commissioner Eric J. Smith expressed regret over the unions’ stance, and the conservative Foundation for Florida’s Future said it showed they were ‘willing to play union politics at the expense of teachers and students.’” The Times explains that the union’s recalcitrance stems from “a memo sent out last week by the state Department of Education. It asks districts and unions to agree to pursue a full slate of changes and return a signed copy by Jan. 12.”

The AP (12/18, Kaczor) adds that the FEA “discouraged local affiliates from endorsing the state’s application,” noting that “Smith’s plan would require school districts and their teachers unions to adopt local merit pay plans based at least 50 percent on how each teacher’s students do on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test – FCAT – or other exams as a condition for receiving grant money. Ford’s letter does not specifically mention the merit pay requirement but calls the application for a Race to the Top grant ‘prescriptive, topdown and unreasonable.’ It also fails to focus on struggling schools as envisioned by the Obama Administration but allocates money to all schools in participating districts, Ford wrote.”

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In the Classroom
Schools Singled Out For Reducing Achievement Gap.
Relating anecdotes about US schools lagging behind schools abroad, and noting that this shortcoming can be even worse for low-income and minority children, U.S. News and World Report (12/18, Chenoweth) reports on successful efforts around the country to deal with this education gap. “Take, for example, George Hall Elementary School in Mobile, Ala. Just five years ago, it was so low-performing that it was being threatened with state takeover.” The school is described as predominately African-American and in a “high-poverty, high-crime neighborhood,” adding that the district took the school over in 2004. “Today, under the leadership of veteran principal Agnes ‘Terri’ Tomlinson, the school is one of the highest achievers in the state, outperforming much wealthier schools.” Tomlinson says that “her current goal is that all her students be ‘above average,’ and, according to the national standardized test that all Alabama students take, she is well on her way.”

Study Finds Perfectionism Not Helpful For Elementary Students.
The Exchange Magazine (12/18) reports on a New York University study, “the first to examine the relationship between perfectionism and achievement in elementary students,” found that such “perfectionists don’t perform significantly better than their laid-back peers. … Gifted students who are perfectionists do excel slightly in math, but at a price: they’re more likely to feel unhappy than other children surveyed. ‘It turns out that perfectionism in children is actually not just unhealthy – it’s also totally unnecessary where academics are concerned,’ says study co-author Gordon Flett, Professor of Psychology in York’s Faculty of Health. ‘The old adage of ‘no pain, no gain’ is really more like ‘more pain, no gain.”"

On the Job
National Writing Project Aims To Improve Writing Instruction At All Levels.
An article in the Washington Post (12/18, Johnson) describes the National Writing Project, “a professional development program for public and private school teachers” at all levels. It located “at more than 200 universities and other sites in all 50 states.” The Post focuses on “the Northern Virginia Writing Project, based at George Mason and started…in 1978.” The program “selects 25 teachers from all levels and disciplines to attend a five-week summer writing institute.” There “teachers try out the same writing exercises they will require of their students.”

New Detroit Contract Faulted For Not Allowing Termination Of “Incompetent” Teachers.
The Detroit News (12/18, News) in an editorial criticized a new teachers’ contract for the Detroit, Michigan, school district because while it “puts in place many important reforms,” it does not “provide for a way to fire incompetent teachers,” but instead places “them in a so-called ‘rubber room’ to do nothing, or perhaps some day serve as reading aides.” The News portrays this scheme as an improvement, but notes that “in New York City’s rubber room…teachers sit and play games for an average of three years while accruing pensions.”

Los Angeles Superintendent Wants Principals To Weed Out Ineffective Teachers Early. KPCC-FM Pasadena, CA (12/18) reports that yesterday, L.A. Unified schools superintendent Ramon Cortines announced that “administrators will do more to weed out incompetent beginning teachers before they gain tenure.” In California, “it takes two years for beginning instructors…to become permanent teachers. During that time, school districts have wide discretion to not to rehire a teacher.” Cortines is proposing for “principals to do more to eliminate underperforming teachers during that two-year probationary period.”

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Law & Policy
Texas Pre-K Student Suspended Over Long Hair.
The AP (12/18) reports, “Taylor Pugh has been suspended from pre-kindergarten because he likes his hair a little on the floppy side. The 4-year-old’s locks – long on the front and sides, covering his earlobes and shirt collar – violate the school district’s dress code. ‘They kicked me out that place,’ said Taylor, who prefers the nickname Tater Tot. ‘I miss my friends.’” The AP notes that Taylor’s parents complained about the district’s focus on their child’s hair, but adds that “according to the dress code, boys’ hair cannot extend below the bottom of earlobes or over the collar of a dress shirt.”

Safety & Security
Routine Searches Of Student Property In Detroit Schools Seen As “Critical.”
Darrell Dawsey writes in the Time (12/18, Dawsey) Detroit Blog about an argument in which he engaged with a friend over a report that the ACLU and some students in Detroit Public Schools (DPS) are suing the district because at the Mumford school DPS security officers routinely search students’ personal belongings when the students enter the school building. Dawsey said that his friend’s argument was that, regardless of “the constitutionality of the searches,” they “are necessary–critical even–to maintaining order and safety at a school that has been hit hard by violence and administrative tumult.” However, Dawsey argued that the “children at Mumford are already going through metal detectors to get to class each day.”

Parents Tell Buffalo, New York, BOE Of Dangers To Students En Route To School.
The Buffalo News (12/18, Simon) reports that a group of parents told members of the Buffalo, New York, Board of Education on Wednesday night that many students “face daily safety concerns going to and from school because of crime in city neighborhoods,” saying that “several students have been robbed recently” near a local high school. “Superintendent James A. Williams promised to address the situation,” noting that “similar problems have also popped up” near other schools. “Williams said school security officers patrol in school buildings and on school grounds but can’t protect students in surrounding neighborhoods. He urged parents to also take their concerns to Mayor Byron W. Brown and Common Council members, who could commit a greater police presence to areas around schools.”

School Finance
Indiana BOE Offers Suggestions For How To Cut Spending Without Laying Off Teachers.
The AP (12/18, Smith) reports that “the Indiana Board of Education plans to give school districts a list of options on how they can collectively cut at least $300 million from state spending without laying off teachers, including the possibility of wage freezes.” The options include joining “state employee health plans that might cost less,” freezing hiring, cutting down on the number of administrators, renegotiating “purchase agreements to buy in bulk,” considering “consolidating districts,” and allowing “transportation and building funds paid through property taxes to be transferred to classroom operating funds.”

Also in the News

Merit Pay Said To Be Better Used For Superintendents.
In an op-ed in the Des Moines Register (12/18) former Des Moines, Iowa, school board member Jonathan Narcisse dismisses merit pay for teachers as a “simplistic solution to Iowa’s education crisis” and an ineffectual approach to seeking Race to the Top funds. He laments that “it was not until the 2007 legislative session that districts were directed to develop and implement an evaluation system for administrators,” further complaining that Iowa Gov. Chet Culver (D) abandoned this move toward administrator evaluations “in the name of ‘free federal money.’” He argues that rather than starting with teachers, such efforts should begin at “the top,” using financial incentives to promote better superintendent performance.

Arizona Choir Teacher Suspended For Taking Students To Hooters.
USA Today (12/18, Scott) reports that Mary Segall, the choir director at Phoenix, Arizona’s, Paradise Valley High School “has been put on administrative leave after taking 40 students to eat at a Hooters” restaurant, noting that her students “performed at one of President Obama’s inauguration events.” Segall “told her principal that the restaurant, known for its busty waitresses in tight shirts and orange shorts, was the only place that could accommodate a group of that size.

NEA in the News
NEA Rhode Island Official Says Budget Cuts Will “Kill” Chances Of Winning Federal Grant.
WJAR-TV Providence, RI (12/17, Rappleye) reported that even though the state is in the midst of a budget crisis, “Rhode Island is still in the race for $100 million in federal education grants,” according to state education commissioner Deborah Gist. But NEA Rhode Island executive director Bob Walsh “said Wednesday that Gov. Don Carcieri’s (R) plan to cut educational aid would hurt the state’s chances.” Walsh told WJAR, “We’ve had folks working for months on this application. It’s due in January. It’s a coordinated effort across the state to improve education. These proposed cuts are going to kill that application,” he said.

House Approves Bill With $23 Billion For Education Jobs.
Education Week (12/18, Klein) reports that on Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill that would create “a $23 billion ‘education jobs fund’” that would come from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The money would be distributed to “districts and states…to restore cuts to K-12 and higher education to cover the cost of compensation and benefits for teachers and other employees. The funds could also be used for services related to school modernization, renovation, and repair.” Education Week adds that the NEA, “which championed the measure, heralded its passage and urged the U.S. Senate to act quickly.” NEA President Dennis Van Roekel wrote in a statement, “The timely injection of federal funds into states’ coffers is … necessary, to keep schools open and running by education support professionals, teachers teaching and students learning at a time when many students are experiencing tremendous stress due to the economy.”

Kansas NEA Officials Tour State To Promote Effort To Restore State Education Spending.
The Salina Journal (12/18, Strand) reports that yesterday, Kansas NEA (KNEA) Vice President Karen Godfrey and communications director Cynthia Menzel are touring the state, meeting “with teachers and others” to “persuade them to get organized and call their legislators” about restoring state budget cuts to education, “restaurant inspections, highway maintenance, National Guard armories” and other areas in which funding has been reduced. Geoffrey noted, “The tax cuts were an effort to help the economy, but they haven’t really worked.”

Fewer Students Taking High School Computer Science Classes.
The Washington Post (12/21, Chandler) reports on the decline in “the portion of schools that offer an introductory computer science course,” a figure that “has dropped from 78 percent in 2005 to 65 percent this year, and the corresponding decline in AP courses went from 40 to 27 percent,” survey results show. The College Board even “canceled its AP computer science AB class” because of “declining enrollment.” Some see the decline in computer science as “surprising,” particularly given the political initiatives centered around “fueling innovation by sharpening the math, science and technology skills of the future workforce.” Chris Stephenson, executive director of the Computer Science Teachers Association, “said computer science classes might be an unintentional casualty in the push to increase academic standards. Computer science is not considered a core subject by the No Child Left Behind law, which influences school priorities and budgets,” he explained.

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In the Classroom
Census Bureau Makes Curriculum Available To Teachers Online.
The Miami Herald (12/21, East) reports that through its 2010 Census in Schools program, the US Census Bureau is helping “teachers to integrate census-related information into subjects like social studies and math.” The aim of the $13 billion program “is to improve on the response rate of the 2000 Census.” According to Renee Jefferson Copeland, chief of the program, “children historically have not been counted properly.” In some cases, “parents don’t realize that babies should be included when they respond to the question of how many people live in a household.” Recording accurate numbers is important, the Miami Herald notes, because census “results are used to determine how about $435 billion in aid will be distributed to local, state and tribal governments.” Census curriculum is “available at www.census.gov/schools.”

Michigan School Encourages Students To Model Positive Behavior.
The Chicago Tribune (12/20, Schoch) reported that staff at Port Huron (MI) High School are “taking steps to accentuate and encourage positive behavior.” The Positive Behavior Support program is “in its first year at the school. … One example of the program is the Wall of Hands, on which all of the seniors signed and put an imprint of their hands in paint.” The program aims to encourage students to be good citizens and take steps towards graduation.

Initiatives Seek To Draw More Students Into Computing.
The New York Times (12/21, B1, Lohr) reports on the front page of its Business Day section that “hybrid careers” combining “computing with other fields will increasingly be the new American jobs of the future, labor experts say.” At the same time, however, fewer students are becoming involved in the field of computing. “Educators and technologists say two things need to change: the image of computing work, and computer science education in high schools.” To address the latter issue, the National Science Foundation “is working to change this by developing a new introductory high school course and seeking to overhaul Advanced Placement courses as well.” The new curriculum will, among other things, seek to broaden students’ understanding of how computer science relates to research and developments “across the sciences, industries, culture and society.” To address the former concern, experts say, they must address the notion among students of “being branded nerds” and being “stuck in a basement, writing code.”

Growth In AP Course-Taking Analyzed.
The New York Times (12/20) ran a “Room For Debate” blog which analyzed the rise in the number of high school students taking Advanced Placement courses, noting that the “number of students taking these courses rose by nearly 50 percent to 1.6 million from 2004 to 2009. Yet in a survey of A.P. teachers released this year, more than half said that ‘too many students overestimate their abilities and are in over their heads.’” The Times goes on to post responses from a number of leading education stakeholders to the question of whether the boom in AP course-taking has been beneficial to U.S. schools and students, on the whole.

On the Job
Fewer Than Two Percent Of Los Angeles Public School Teachers Denied Tenure.
The Los Angeles Times (12/20, Felch, et al.) reported that its own investigation into the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) shows that the district “routinely grants tenure to new teachers after cursory reviews — and sometimes none at all.” New LAUSD teachers can be terminated in a two-year probationary period before they earn tenure. After the teachers earn tenure, they are harder to terminate. The Times adds that LAUSD “all but squanders” the probationary period, “according to interviews with more than 75 teachers and administrators, analyses of district data covering the last several years, and internal and independent studies.” Times investigation found that “fewer than two percent of new teachers “are denied tenure.”

Law & Policy
Desegregation Ruling Prompts Concern Over Maintaining Diversity Gains In Chicago Schools.
The New York Times (12/19, A44A, Yednak, Little) reports that the Chicago public schools’ “response to a recent court desegregation ruling – a plan to use students’ social and economic profiles instead of race to achieve classroom diversity – is raising fears that it will undermine the district’s slow and incremental progress on racial diversity.” The Times notes that nationwide, court rulings “have prompted school districts to seek creative ways to diversify classrooms without using a student’s race as a factor.”

Special Needs
New Jersey Lawmakers Consider Creating Reading Disabilities Task Force.
The AP (12/21, Shipkowski) reports that legislation is currently under consideration in New Jersey “that would create a reading disabilities task force” to “help determine the best methods for diagnosing, treating and educating special needs students” and to look into the effect of “state educational laws and regulations” on “students with special reading and language skill needs.” This month, both the state Assembly and Senate passed the bill, which is now waiting for Gov. Jon Corzine’s (D) signature. “The governor’s office said he was reviewing the measure, but it was not clear whether he would sign, reject or conditionally veto it.”

Safety & Security
Editorial: Tackling School Safety Issues Starts At Home.
Alan Kerr wrote in an editorial for the Intelligencer (PA) (12/20) that in the 2008-09 school year, districts in Bucks and Montgomery counties (PA) “reported nearly 3,500 safety-related incidents.” However, most of the incidents reported by the Pennsylvania Department of Education “involved fighting and relatively minor disturbances. … Overall, the report shows that the broad term ‘safe school’ could be applied in most Bucks-Mont districts.” However, according to Kerr “It’s wrong to think this is strictly, or even primarily, a school issue. … Just like encouraging academic achievement, ensuring safety in the schools must be a collaborative effort that starts and is continually reinforced at home.”

Facilities

Massachusetts School Offers Health, Social Services To Majority Low-Income Student Body.
Massachusetts’ The Republican (12/21, DeForge) reports on the William R. Peck School, which this year “started a full-service community school that joins parents, teachers and outside health, social services and educational agencies to offer more to students.” The purpose of a community school “is to bring in services for families who need them and also offer a wide range of in-school and after-school programs.” At the Peck School, 96 percent of students are eligible for free lunch and about 25 percent of students are homeless. One major effort at the school, at the request of parents, is to “ensure all sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders in the school are exposed to early college awareness and have an opportunity to visit a college this year,” said Principal Paul Hyry.

School Finance
Editorial: Amid Downturn, Maryland Counties Should Be Granted Education Funding Waiver.
The Baltimore Sun (12/20) editorialized that Maryland “has long required local government to spend as much on school operating budgets on a per-pupil basis as they did the year before. The so-called maintenance-of-effort law has been a cornerstone of public education for a quarter-century and has ensured predictable and stable funding for schools.” However, according to the Sun, the current economic downturn has applied extreme pressure on local government budgets, thus, state lawmakers should “pass legislation making it easier for local government to be granted a waiver this year and in future years.”

Kansas School Districts To Take Court Action Over State Funding Cuts.
The Wichita (KS) Eagle (12/19, Yount) reported that numerous Kansas school districts “voted Friday to ask the state Supreme Court to reopen a lawsuit dismissed in 2005. The court had ruled that the level of state aid to public schools was inadequate and, therefore, violated the state’s constitution.” The “new action would ask the court to decide whether the funding plan legislators created in response to the 2005 court opinion – and state budget cuts that began during the third year of the plan – are constitutional, said John Robb, the lead attorney for the Schools for Fair Funding group.”

Arbitrator Issues Recommendations To Settle Pay Dispute In Maryland County.
The Washington Post (12/20, Goodman) reported that M. David Vaughn of the American Arbitration Association “recently released recommendations to help end an impasse over the current school year’s contract between the Calvert County (MD) Board of Education and the teachers union.” According to the Post, “At issue are the terms of the third year of the teachers’ three-year contract.” Vaughn recommended that teachers “receive a one-time payment of 1 percent of salary and that a sick leave bank be established.”

Also in the News
Hawaii Elementary School’s “Giving Basket” Aids Homeless Family.
The Honolulu Star-Bulletin (12/20, Oda) reports that for the last 20 years, students at Patrick Owens of Aikahi Elementary School participate “in an annual schoolwide effort called the Giving Basket,” for which the students and their families donate items to a needy family. “This year, all fifth-grade classrooms were assigned to fulfill the wishes of a” man who lost his job, his wife, and three children. Students “who donated to The Good Neighbor Fund were entered in a drawing for $50 gift certificates.” The Star-Bulletin added that as “part of Aikahi’s tradition,” staff place “all the gifts, decorated with big ribbons, on the cafeteria stage for the Christmas program,” then they unveil the gifts “to show the kids what they’ve accomplished.”

NEA in the News
Alabama Education Association Seen As One Of State’s Most Influential Organizations.
The Montgomery (AL) Advertiser (12/21) reports that during the civil rights movement in 1969, “black Alabama Teachers Association” merged with “the then-all-white Alabama Education Association,” forming “one of the most formidable and influential interracial organizations that Alabama has ever seen.” The AEA is “still led by the two men” who led the organizations 40 years ago: Paul Hubbert and Joe Reed. According to the Montgomery advertiser, Alabama’s lawmakers now “factor the AEA into their plans when it comes to education policy and education dollars.” The AEA also has its detractors, and “with Reed and Hubbert both in their early 70s, the question of how the AEA will fare once they and their ties are gone looms large.” The Montgomery Advertiser chronicles the organization’s history.

Student Interest In Science Found To Increase After Teachers’ Zero-G Flight.
The New York Times (12/22, D4, Chang) reports on the “flights of weightlessness” organized by the Northrop Grumman Foundation in order to “excite teachers and students about science and mathematics.” Polling of teachers who took the flights in 2005 and 2006 found “nearly 92 percent reported an increase in overall interest in science among their students. About 75 percent said more students expressed a desire to continue studying math and science.” While Francis Eberle, executive director of the National Science Teachers Association, called the program “helpful” for improving science education, Brookings Institute senior fellow Grover Whitehurst thought “the emphasis on engagement and inspiration for students can be somewhat misplaced.” Whitehurst believes the money spent on the flights could be “more effective elsewhere.”

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In the Classroom
Many Schools Cutting Driver’s Ed Programs Amid Budget Shortfalls.
The AP (12/21, Armario) reported, “Because of budget cuts, many schools around the country” are cutting back on or eliminating driver’s education, “leaving it to parents to either teach their teenagers themselves or send them to commercial driving schools.” However, some educators “and others worry that such cutbacks could prove tragic.” However, Russ Rader, “a spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, said studies show there is no difference in crash risk between 16- and 17-year-olds who take driver’s ed and those who don’t.”

Teachers, Not Technology, Viewed As Key To Enhancing Classroom Learning.
Greg Owens, executive director of the Hill School in Ft. Worth, TX wrote in an op-ed for the Fort Worth (TX) Business Press (12/21), “In the past 20 years, schools have invested enormous sums of money to buy the newest, most innovative technology, which is used at only a fraction of its capacity and then replaced with even newer technology.” According to Owens, as Microsoft founder Bill Gates points out, technology “is just a tool, but the teacher is the vital link. … Educators must move from simply dispensing information to creating a vital, hands-on environment where students learn to access, manipulate, interpret and use data.”

On the Job

DC Schools Chief Seeking To Overhaul Teacher Pay, Tenure System.
U.S. News and World Report (12/21, Smith) reported, “In her quest to revive [Washington, D.C.'s] public school system, Chancellor Michelle Rhee is pushing innovative but contentious ideas, one of which has garnered her national attention: whether teacher pay can be tied directly to student performance.” Tenure “is a thorny issue,” as Rhee “cannot hire gifted teachers without firing others, but she cannot fire teachers because tenure protects them.” Rhee “may not get the sweeping reform she prefers, but the idea has influential supporters, including the Obama administration and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who announced this summer a $297 million Teacher Incentive Fund to reward teachers and principals nationwide for increases in student achievement.”

New Report Analyzes Teacher Compensation Issue.
The Fort Worth (TX) Business Press (12/21, Bassett) reported that “Teacher Compensation and Teacher Quality,” a report recently released by the Committee for Economic Development, “laid out the issues tied to teacher pay reform and its importance if the United States wants to truly raise student achievement in public schools.” Steffen Palko, a CED trustee and former president and vice chairman of XTO Energy Inc., said currently, teachers “overwhelmingly are being paid according to how many years they’ve been working in a school district.” This system, according to Palko, “doesn’t do a good enough job of compensating teachers who do exceptionally well in the classroom and push their students to achieve at a higher standard.”

Law & Policy
Ohio To Collect Fines From Districts Reporting Rules Violations On Standardized Tests.
WYTV-TV Youngstown, OH (12/22) reports that the Ohio Department of Education will “start collecting a $25 fine, per student, each time a district reports a breach of rules on a standardized test.” Fines collected will be used “to cover the cost of re-testing students and re-scoring their tests,” according to a department spokesman.

National Foreign Language Center Director Endorses Troops To Teachers Expansion.
In a letter to the editor of the New York Times (12/22), Catherine Ingold, “director of the National Foreign Language Center at the University of Maryland,” wrote that “the Troops to Teachers program does indeed deserve to be expanded,” because “former military personnel” bring classroom management skills to the classroom, “along with their acceptance of diversity.” In addition, “many former service members also bring from their overseas deployments an understanding of the real-world linguistic and cultural skill requirements of our global age,” Ingold adds, noting that “most soldiers have needed to interact effectively with the local populace and with troops from other nations, drawing on language and culture training.” She concludes that prior service personnel may help American youth compete with international peers in the areas of math and technology.

Dispute Over Parental Control Delays California School Reform Efforts.
California’s Press Enterprise (12/21) editorialized that a major dispute in the California state Legislature regarding education reform is “whether parents should have an alternative to keeping their children in substandard schools.” The Press-Enterprise asserts, “There should be no debate. The Legislature should approve changes to state law that give parents tools to spur school improvements.” Under the Senate bill, parents would be allowed to “move their children from persistently poor-performing schools and enroll them in other schools — even in other districts.” The Senate has also proposed that parents be given “more power to prompt improvements at local schools.” Even this, the Press-Enterprise admits, “is not a magic cure for California education.” Still, it concludes, “parental involvement is key to strong student learning — and supporting steps that give parents a serious role in boosting schools should be an easy choice.”

Pennsylvania Agencies Improve Compliance With Right-To-Know Law.
The AP (12/22, Scolforo) reports that Pennsylvania agencies have improved compliance with the state’s Right-to-Know Law, which has “made it easier for the public to obtain access to records kept by agencies at all levels of government.” Once “considered one of the least effective in the nation,” the law now makes “most government records…open to public inspection, with a new Office of Open Records in place to settle disputes.” The AP notes that a local newspaper used the new law to obtain “records of a veteran school district employee during her campaign for school board.” Another paper reviewed records to discover “how a school district lost millions of dollars through complex financial transactions.”

Tennessee To Consider Revamping Teacher Evaluation Law.
The Tennessean (12/21, Sarrio) reported that Tennessee lawmakers “will hold a special session beginning Jan. 12 to consider whether Tennessee teachers should be evaluated on student test scores, including those that measure how much their students learned in a year.” The new law “must be passed before Jan. 19 if the state is going to be an attractive candidate” for Race to the Top funds, said Gov. Phil Bredesen (D). Under the new law, instead of being “judged on effort – lesson plans, student interactions, planning and training – teachers would be judged largely on test scores.”

School Finance
Study Finds Schools Will Face Shortfalls After Stimulus Ends.
The AP (12/22, Gormley) reported, “Using federal stimulus money to avoid layoffs at schools is going to create a shortfall even more difficult for states and schools to contend with when that money runs out,” according to a study released Monday by New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. In July, the Government Accountability Office “cautioned that many states facing deep deficits were using stimulus dollars to fill budget holes and avoid layoffs, rather than reforms that could mean longer-term savings or programs such as building new schools.” ED “encouraged schools to diversify the use of stimulus money to ward off huge budget gaps when it runs out, said spokeswoman Sandra Abrevaya. ‘When one saves a job, it doesn’t mean one saves it indefinitely.’”

Teachers “Loan” Connecticut District Part Of Pay To Help Close Budget Gap.
The Connecticut Post (12/22, Ramunni) reports that school employees “bracing for layoffs” in the Shelton, CT district “can breathe a bit easier after an agreement was reached Monday afternoon that eliminates that possibility.” According to the Post, the “unions that represent school employees agreed to ‘loan’ the school system a day and a half’s pay in order to help close the $700,000 gap in the current year’s school budget.” The employees “won’t forgo the pay completely — they’ll get it when they retire or leave the district — but agreeing to work the hours without getting paid now will save the system more than $300,000.”

Also in the News
Substitute Teacher Facing Potential Legal Trouble After Taping Kindergartners To Seats.
Michigan’s Jackson-Citizen Patriot (12/22, Cummings) reports that the Michigan-based Professional Educational Services Group “defended its policies for screening substitute teacher applicants Monday after officials say one of its employees taped seven…kindergartners to their chairs with duct tape last week” at Northeast Elementary School in Jackson, MI. The substitute “allegedly told the students to sit down a few times, then asked what she had to do to keep them in their seats, said LaToya Ramsey, whose son Makii Kelley, 5, was taped to a chair at the abdomen.” Ramsey, “who filed a police report, requested the incident be forwarded to the prosecutor for review.”

Seattle Rated Most-Literate City.
USA Today (12/22, Marklein) reports on a study by Jack Miller, “president of Central Connecticut State University in New Britain, Conn., who for seven years has compiled” a list of the most literate cities in the US. The rankings focus “on six indicators: newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment and Internet resources.” Seattle and Minneapolis “have typically traded the top two spots, and this year Seattle comes in first.”

NEA in the News
21st Century Physical Education Emphasizes Cooperation Through Noncompetitive Activities.
New York’s Democrat Herald (12/22, Moody) reports on the 21st century physical education classes at Oak Elementary School In Albany, NY. “Unlike traditional P.E. classes, which were heavy on competitive sports and often left half the class on the sidelines, 21st-century P.E. concentrates on building skills to stay healthy for a lifetime,” according to instructor Jake Gerig. The activities are noncompetitive and involve “teamwork and cooperation.” With a $5,000 grant from the NEA, the school purchased a rock climbing wall. Skateboarding and golf are also part of the curriculum. “Classes start with warm-ups and usually feature tag or some other game intended to get pulse rates up before the main activity of the day.”

Suburban Chicago Districts Find Strategies To Serve Growing Low-Income Student Population.
The Chicago Daily Herald (12/23, Lester) reports that Mundelein High School social worker Melissa Buenik “keeps a food pantry stocked with nonperishable groceries and toiletries, all donated by staff,” for students and their families. Buenik said that this year, the pantry has been getting “a lot more visitors” than in previous years. This correlates with the 5.4 percent increase of low-income students this year. The Chicago Herald adds that “across the suburbs, districts are using different strategies to serve their growing numbers of low-income students.” Some are using “federal Title I funds earmarked for low-income students for school-wide programs.” In District 62, for instance “school principals are allowed some flexibility in how to use the funds.” At Algonquin Middle School in Des Plaines, “which has 44.4 percent of students coming from low-income homes,” some of the federal funds have been used “to purchase computers and software programs to provide students with extra support.”

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In the Classroom
Kindergartners Taught How To Stay Safe Around Dogs.
Minnesota’s Oakdale Lake Elmo Review (12/23, Zillmer) reports that to teach her kindergartners how to stay safe around dogs, Carver Elementary School teacher Mary Gamache invited volunteers from A Rotta Love Plus, a pet aid organization, into her class. Volunteers Kellie Dillner and Aimee Mabie, “a certified dog trainer who helped start the dog-safety program years ago, demonstrated how to approach a dog and its owner, and explained what kids should do if they see a stray dog.” The volunteers “brought their pit bulls…to assist with the school program.” Dillner warned the students, “Any dog can misbehave and that’s why it’s especially important that we teach about being responsible because really being responsible is what will keep kids safe and knowing what to do in dangerous situations.”

Teacher Facing Criticism After “Monkey” Remark.
The Salt Lake Tribune (12/23, Maffly) reports, “Is the term ‘lazy little monkey’ a racial slur or a term of endearment?” Mount Ogden (UT) Junior High School teacher Judy Sepulveda “has learned the hard way that it can be both after she used that phrase on a black student in front of his class.” According to the Tribune, “The mother of the 14-year-old boy has denounced the remark as racially insensitive and pulled him out of the school.” However, the “eighth-grade teacher’s colleagues and administrators are standing by teacher Judy Sepulveda,” as she is a “native of Australia, where calling children ‘monkeys’ is common and not considered an insult, according to Mount Ogden principal Trevor Wilson.”

On the Job

Alabama Middle School’s “Operation AYP” Targets Student Achievement.
The Montgomery (AL) Advertiser (12/23, Bird) reports that when Southside Middle School principal Dr. Kenneth Varner, a former “infantryman in the United States Marine Corps,” took over leadership of the school, it had not made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). According to the Advertiser, Varner’s military “preparation brought [him] to the conclusion that he had to take a drastic approach — a plan of attack.” At “a recent faculty meeting, assistant principal Bruce Dean, serving as the executive officer, ” swore in “faculty members as soldiers of Southside Middle School,” and Varner, dressed in his battle dress uniform and war paint, discussed “Operation AYP.” He told the faculty that the school “will approach AYP like a battle,” noting that the school is “under attack, and at risk of failure.” The operation includes a strategy to incorporate “reading and vocabulary in all subject areas,” and another component calls for “monthly benchmark tests and in-depth analysis of collected data.”

Dallas Independent School District Releases Organizational Health Data.
The Dallas Morning News (12/23, Rado) reports that under pressure from the “Texas attorney general, Dallas school officials have for the first time released ‘organizational health’ scores that measure teacher morale and working conditions at more than 200 schools.” According to the data, “20 schools in the district, including top magnet schools, got scores of 90 or higher on a scale of 1 to 99,” but “the work atmosphere is less than mediocre or even abysmal even at some of the most elite Dallas schools.” The Dallas Morning News explains that “the organizational health scores are based on 10 factors considered key to a healthy work environment and higher student test scores, including morale, problem-solving ability, creativity and good communication,” as rated by “teachers and other certified staff .”

New Detroit Teacher Contract Seen As Lacking Needed Reforms.
Amber Arellano wrote in a column for the Detroit News (12/22) that as word about the newly ratified Detroit Public Schools’ new teacher contract “spread around the country, I started getting calls from national experts Monday, scratching their heads and wondering: Why are folks in Detroit so happy about this contract?” The contract “lacks major reforms that other big cities have incorporated in their negotiations in the last several years. And it includes, even creates, some of the most politically embarrassing and disturbing facets of other big city school districts’ contracts, including what New York City calls a ‘rubber room.’” Arellano goes on to post excerpts of a Q&A regarding the contract featuring Robert Bobb, the district’s emergency financial manager, and DPS academic chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett.”

Law & Policy
California Lawmakers Urged To Focus On Teaching In Education Reform Discussion.
San Jose State University professors B. Kumaravadivelu and Revathi Krishnaswamy write in an opinion piece for the San Jose Mercury News (12/23, Kumaravadivelu, Krishnaswamy) that as the California Legislature seeks to “put the state on track to Race to the Top by seeking its share of the $4.3 billion federal fund, what seems to be sorely missing is any informed discussion on the strategy to improve teaching.” They assert that the same emphasis No Child Left Behind placed on “the improvement of teacher quality” should be “incorporated in the rules states must follow for the Race to the Top fund,” because the largest number of points – 138 – is “allotted for recruiting quality teachers and for evaluating their effectiveness.” California, however, “seems to be paying no attention to classroom teaching,” the authors say, concluding, “As legislators and negotiators wrangle over parental freedom, charter school accountability and other issues, they should remind themselves, ‘It’s the teaching, stupid.’”

Teachers Union Files Lawsuit Over Charter Takeovers.
The Los Angeles Times (12/22, Blume) reported, “The union representing Los Angeles teachers filed a lawsuit Monday to block the potential hand-over of new campuses to charter schools under the district’s groundbreaking and controversial school-reform strategy.” According to the Times, charter-school advocates “defended the plan’s legality as did the Los Angeles Unified School District. … The long-anticipated lawsuit contends that under state law a new school can only become a charter if at least 50 percent of its permanent teachers petition for it.”

School Finance
Michigan Leaders Weigh Numerous Ideas To Fix School Finance System.
The Detroit News (12/23, Hornbeck) reports that while Michigan lawmakers “enacted sweeping education reforms last week in an effort to win up to $400 million in federal Race to the Top cash, they left in place a finance system that some say is failing public schools.” According to the Detroit News, school funding “is heavily reliant on retail sales in a down economy that is increasingly shifting toward services. That has left school budgets lean and getting leaner at a time when the state needs to retool to prepare students for a knowledge-based marketplace.” Thus, school budgets “are being slashed by at least $165 per pupil and more than $600 a student in some districts.”

The Detroit News (12/22, Hornbeck) reported, “Proposed remedies for treating what ails Michigan’s school finance system try to take on both sides of the worsening problem: taxes and spending.” According to the Detroit News, proposed reforms “range from consolidating some administrative services to overhauling the state’s tax structure.” Michigan “has 554 traditional school districts and another 230 when charter schools are included.”

Also in the News

Forbes Lists Most “Revolutionary” Education Reformers.
Forbes (12/22, Perlroth, Finneran) publishes a list of 14 “revolutionary educators,” including Knowledge is Power Program founders Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin and DC Schools Chief Michelle A Rhee. Forbes notes that all of the educators on the list “are taking radical tacts” to reform education, “and in many cases, they are accomplishing the seemingly impossible.” According to Forbes, “the usual medicine–cutting class sizes, raising teacher pay, revamping curriculum–isn’t working” to improve student achievement among all ethnic groups, and most “educational reforms typically have incremental gains at best.” It suggests a more “revolutionary approach” to education reform.

Efforts To Boost Parental Involvement In Schools Analyzed.
Dale Russakoff writes in an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times (12/23), “Since the 1960s, the federal government has required schools serving poor children to involve parents in their education. Under a little-noticed section” of NCLB, schools “are instructed not only to educate students but also to help parents become more effective learning partners for their children.” However, despite “the emphasis on accountability that defines [NCLB], the law requires little oversight of how tens of thousands of schools spend their parent-involvement money or whether those efforts raise achievement. … ‘It’s a dilemma we all face in the area of parental involvement,’ said Rosie Kelly,” an ED official “involved in monitoring state Title I programs. ‘Our monitoring is for compliance. You’re talking about a quality issue.’”

NEA in the News
NEA Article Recalls American Teacher’s Experience With Nigerian Education.
Sadiq A. Abdullahi wrote in Nigeria’s Daily Triumph (12/23, Abdullahi) Global Education column that the NEA “published an article titled, The Nigerian Connection: Lagos and Teaneck, by New Jersey teacher Dena Florczyk “in its January/February 2010 NEA Today magazine.” He article brought to mind for Abdullahi a recent trip she made back to Nigeria after 20 years away. She visited various primary and secondary schools “conducting tennis and educational clinics.” Abdullahi adds that the NEA “story recaptures the essence of” her trip and her thoughts of education in Nigeria. In her article, Florczyk writes that “Nigeria is a challenging place to live, work, or travel,” and it “falls desperately short of meeting the educational needs of its children.” She points out similarities between her students in Nigeria and New Jersey, concluding, “Teachers don’t have to go abroad to connect their students with the world outside.”

Chicago Schools’ Academic Progress Seen As Lackluster Under Duncan’s Leadership.
The Washington Post (12/29, A1, Anderson) reports on its front page that soon after Secretary of Education Arne Duncan left his post as Chicago Public Schools CEO to assume his Cabinet office earlier this year, “his former students sat for federal achievement tests,” and math National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results indicate that Chicago “trailed several cities in performance and progress made over six years.” According to the Post, the “federal readout is just one measure of Duncan’s record as chief executive of the nation’s third-largest system. Others show advances on various fronts.” Still, the NAEP scores show that while Duncan now “cites the successes of his tenure as he crusades to fix public education,” the school system he led prior to becoming education secretary is not a model for “urban school improvement.”

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In the Classroom
Connecticut Magnet School Eliminates Achievement Gap Among Fifth-Graders.
The New Haven (CT) Independent (12/29, Bass) reports that the Davis Street 21st Century Magnet school in New Haven “has eliminated the achievement gap” among its fifth-grade students, making it “the first New Haven public non-charter school to” do so. The Independent points out that “the achievement gap is particularly acute in New Haven,” with African American students in “non-charter public schools” lagging behind other races on Connecticut Mastery Tests. At Davis, however, “62.6 percent of…African-American fifth-graders made goal on the most recent exams,” which is “higher than the overall state average” and “almost double the average for African-Americans.” The school eliminated the achievement gap by “involving parents, staying on top of data, and pushing students one-on-one to overcome obstacles.”

Online Learning Helped Avert Extended Loss Of Instruction Time Amid Swine Flu Outbreak.
In a story titled, Top 10 Ed-Tech Stories Of 2009: No.5, eSchool News (12/29) reports that this year, online learning “helped many schools avoid a disruption to the learning process as” they “closed temporarily amid swine-flu outbreaks in their communities.” For instance, “Louisiana’s Calcasieu Parish Public Schools, which has a history of planning for emergencies,” developed an emergency school closure plan that would allow “students with internet access” to keep up with assignments “through an ‘emergency assignments’ link on the district’s Blackboard portal.” Meanwhile, “the district’s web site displays an H1N1 status for each school, including suspected and confirmed cases.”

Online Math, Literacy Program Tailors Lessons To Build Up Students’ Weak Areas.
The Oakland (CA) Tribune (12/29, Murphy) reports that Prescott Elementary School in Oakland, CA, is the pilot school for “let’s Go Learn,” an online mathematics and literacy program. The first part of the program is a diagnostic test, according to which exercises are tailored to help “strengthen each student’s weak points, such as phonetic sounds or vocabulary.” Students can log in wherever they are — at school, at the library or at home, if they have Internet access — and pick up where they left off.” The Oakland Tribune notes that of the roughly 220 students at Prescott, “about 98 percent…are eligible for a free or reduced-price lunch, and” most do not “have working computers at home.”

New Jersey District Alters Curriculum, Moves Physics To Ninth Grade.
New Jersey’s Independent Press (12/28, Keill) reported from Summit, New Jersey, “The school district is making major curriculum changes — including the elimination of Honors English for freshmen, the discontinuation of the Algebra I track at the seventh grade and replacing biology with physics in ninth grade.” Officials said the changes were “not happening in a vacuum,” and were the result of “intensive meetings with faculty” and research into testing results. The new physics class “will focus on conceptual skills rather than mathematics,” and is “inquiry-based.” Officials said that “by starting with physics…the average student will have a better chance to experience all three science disciplines, including biology and chemistry.” The school also pledged to continue offering multivariate calculus.

Students Design, Build Marble Sorters For Principles Of Engineering Class.
Minnesota’s West Central Tribune (12/29, Vanderwerf) reports on students in the Principles of Engineering class at Willmar Senior High, who are engaged in a project to design and build “marble sorters” using fischertechnik components. “The assignment was to have a hopper dump the marbles into the machine, where a photo cell would sense the difference between the clear and opaque marbles and drop them into separate trays.” The article notes the differences in design among the student groups, the real-world applications of such work, and also details the challenges the students had to overcome in order for their projects to be successful. “Principles of Engineering is an introductory class in the curriculum for Project Lead the Way,” which Willmar offers at both the middle and high school levels.

Law & Policy
North Carolina’s Largest District Re-Examines Long-Term Suspension Policy.
North Carolina’s News & Observer (12/29, Hui) reports that the Wake County, NC, school board is calling “for a review of student discipline policies,” particularly those that “require students to be suspended for the rest of the school year for a wide range of offenses, including drug possession and fights that cause serious injuries.” Each year, Wake County schools issue long-term suspensions to more than 1,000 students…accounting for more than 20 percent of the statewide total.” Some board members say that students on long-term suspension may be more likely to get involved with drugs or gangs. The News & Observer points out that “North Carolina has the fourth highest suspension rate in the country, according to the National Center of Education Statistics.” But in Wake County, the state’s largest school system, the rules exceed “what state law requires by saying long-term suspensions cover the entire school year,” though the district does offer “the option of taking online courses” to some students.

Wake County Ends Early Release Day. The Lincoln (NC) Tribune (12/29, Stegall) reports that earlier this month, the Wake County Board of Education ended the district’s “controversial policy of releasing students one hour early on Wednesdays.” The purpose of the early release schedule was “to allow teachers time to collaborate with one another on lesson plans and come up with solutions to common problems.” But the schedule was “highly unpopular with parents, who were forced to make extra arrangements for childcare and transportation one day a week.” However, the teachers union argues “that teachers could be more effective if they had more time without students during the day to work with their colleagues.” At the Wake school board’s Dec. 2 meeting, Jennifer Lanane, president of the Wake County chapter of the North Carolina Association of Educators — an NEA affiliate — and several teachers expressed their disapproval of the new policy.

Advocacy Group Works To Save Utah Arts Program.
The Salt Lake Tribune (12/29, Schencker) reports that unless the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts Learning Program, “now in 53 Utah schools,” gets additional funding during the coming Utah legislative session, “it will likely end in many schools at the end of this school year instead of two years from then. The advocacy group Friends of Art Works for Kids, which is funded” by philanthropist Beverley Taylor Sorenson, “has been inviting lawmakers to schools and hosting events to educate parents statewide about how to save the program, which funds full-time arts specialists at each of the schools.”

School Finance
Los Angeles Public Schools Seeks To Retrieve From Employees $9.4 Million In Overpayments.
Los Angeles Times (12/29, Blume) reports that two former teachers of the Los Angeles Unified School District owe “more than $148,000″ in overpayments and are facing “a court order to return” the money. According to the Times, the judgments are “part of an increasingly aggressive push by the Los Angeles Unified School District to retrieve $9.4 million from employees who were inadvertently caught up in its malfunctioning payroll system,” Tools for Schools. The system was activated Jan. 1, 2007, and for several months thereafter caused overpayments, underpayments, and nonpayment to “thousands of employees.” The two former teachers “are accused of receiving some of the largest overpayments and returning nothing,” even after district officials contacted them numerous times “by phone and mail.”

Also in the News

Parents In Aurora, Colorado, Can View Children’s Grades At Mall Kiosks.
The Denver Post (12/29, Illescas) reports that the Aurora, CO, public school system “has placed two kiosks at the mall” that allow parents to “check everything from homework assignments to grades.” The district has already made the information available online, “but the free kiosks are a boon for parents who do not have a computer or Internet access at home.” In order to use the kiosks, “parents must get a password from their child’s school.” Aurora Public Schools may “expand the kiosks to other locations throughout the city.”

Ride Working To Overcome “Persistent Gender Gap” In Science Fields.
The New York Times (12/29, Shih) “The Bay Area” blog wrote about Sally Ride’s work to close the “persistent gender gap” in science and technology fields “that will prove…deeply detrimental to America’s global competitiveness.” In an earlier interview, Ride “said that hard money is needed to attract more qualified teachers and apply data-driven analyses of education programs.” Ride also blamed “social and cultural expectations” for what girls should study. Ride is currently “pushing” President Obama’s “Race to the Top” program to improve education. According to the article, with her recent work with the program, Ride “speaks like someone ready to move in policy circles.”

High School Pairing Seen As Model Of Future Of Education.
The Los Angeles Times (12/29, Landsberg) reports on the engineering class assignments on display at Da Vinci Science High School in Hawthorne, CA. Da Vinci Science High and Da Vinci Design High School are seen as models of “the future of education,” in which a “highly successful” school is paired with one that is not as successful. The two charter schools “have 448 students” between them. “The design school offers only ninth grade this year,” while “the science school has ninth and 10th.” Each year, the schools “will expand by one grade” until they become full high schools. Several “nearby corporations, including Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Chevron, Boeing and Belkin, have lined up to support the new schools with money and time,” the Times adds.

NEA in the News
Hawaii NEA Affiliate Approves Deal To Reduce Furlough Days.
The AP (12/28) reported that the NEA-affiliated Hawaii State Teachers Association “has approved an agreement to reduce the number of furlough days in the current school year” from 10 to three. The AP noted that “hundreds of parents protested a plan this fall to cut 17 instructional days for budget reasons, giving the island state the shortest school year in the nation.” Hawaii State Teachers Association President Wil Okabe “says $35 million from the state’s rainy-day fund will be used to restore five furlough days, and teachers will give up two planning days.”

New Jersey Schools Address Gaps In Immigrant Students’ Education.
New Jersey’s Record (12/30, Llorente) reports that New Jersey school districts which “cater to a large immigrant population say that, increasingly, students are arriving from abroad with academic skills far below those of kids in their age groups.” School systems’ bilingual department staff work to meet the academic needs of immigrant students, first by picking “up on the gaps in schooling through testing or through a teacher’s observations,” and then providing “extra help to such children.” For instance, Hackensack High School in Hackensack, NJ, has developed a program “for students who have limited skills in English as well as in their own language.” Called Port of Entry, the program helps students who arrive “in the country with interrupted schooling.”

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In the Classroom
Texas Elementary School Integrates Distance-Education Into Standard Curriculum.
The Fort Worth (TX) Star-Telegram (12/28, Jinkins) reports that Vandagriff Elementary School in Aledo, TX, “has been recognized as one of the top distance-learning schools in [Texas'] Region XI Education Service Center.” The school is working with various museums to “maximize the number of children who can participate in programs” through distance education. For instance, several of the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History’s distance learning programs “involve students giving reports and presentations back to the off-site museum facilitators.” Martha Bryant, Vandagriff’s distance-learning coordinator, said that “Distance-learning projects always go with something the students are studying in science, social studies, reading or language arts.”

“Project Change” Aims To Enhance Students’ Financial Literacy.
The Chicago Tribune (12/29, Rosen) reported on Project Change, “a new financial education program sponsored by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Jumpstart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.” The initiative is “part of a growing push from educators and legislators to incorporate instruction on personal finance into curricula starting in grade school.” Volunteers such as Timothy Warren, “an SEC attorney from Chicago,” and Thomas Clough, “a FINRA associate vice president in Kansas City, helped introduce Project Change in late November at 18 elementary schools around the country.”

Utah Program Trains Mentors To Guide Underrepresented Students To College.
The Salt Lake Tribune (12/30, Schencker) reports that over the past two-and-a-half years, “more than 4,000 Utah students…have turned to college-access advisers.” The goal of the Utah College Advising Corps, “part of the National College Advising Corps and is slated to run for a total of four years, is helping underrepresented minority, low-income and first-generation students find their way to college. The program trains recent college graduates…to work in schools for two years, so they’re still close enough to college to relate to students.”

Colorado District Seeks To Maintain Normal School Routine For Newly Homeless Students.
The Coloradoan (12/30, Miranda) reports that Colorado’s Poudre School District (PSD) is seeing growth in the number of homeless families. Currently, roughly “680 students have been identified by PSD as being homeless,” about 100 more students than were homeless at the same time last year. Jan De Lay, PSD’s program coordinator for the Title I/McKinney noted that the district staff’s “most important” responsibility “is ensuring children whose families are in housing transition, or who don’t have a stable home, try to keep their school routine as normal as possible.” Busing to and from school plays a major role in helping maintain normalcy for homeless students. “Under the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Assistance Act…students have the right to remain enrolled in the same school they attended before becoming homeless.” This means that districts “must provide transportation to that school, unless the family waives that right.”

On the Job
Award-Winning Teacher Calls For More Men To Enter Profession.
Valerie Strauss wrote in an “Answer Sheet” blog for the Washington Post (12/29) that Ronald Maggiano, an “award-winning teacher in the Social Studies Department at West Springfield High School in Virginia,” in a piece on his “The Classroom Post” blog, “calls for more males to enter” the teaching profession. According to Strauss, a 2008 study by the National Education Association “showed that the number of male teachers hit a record 40-year low.” Maggiano wrote, “Hopefully, the Race to the Top initiative now being pushed by President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will at some point address this critical shortage of male teachers in America’s schools.”

Nevada Teacher Under Investigation For Holocaust Remarks.
The Las Vegas Sun (12/29, Richmond) reported that Lori Sublette, a physical education teacher at Northwest Career and Technical Academy in Las Vegas, “is under investigation by the district for allegedly telling students that the Nazis lacked the technological capability to kill millions of Jews during World War II.” According to the Sun, “On Dec. 17, the district reassigned Sublette from the classroom to her home, where she is allowed to work on assignments. She will continue to receive her full salary and benefits pending the outcome of the district’s investigation.”

Law & Policy
Federal Policymakers Vow To Boost Safety Of Food Served In Schools
USA Today (12/30, Weise, Eisler) reports that the special protections that the U.S. Department of Agriculture “sets for the ground beef it sends to schools do not extend to other products the federal government — or schools themselves — purchase for student meals.” According to USA Today, the “stakes are especially high for schoolchildren with still-developing immune systems.” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack “has pledged to address the problems, and members of Congress are vowing to do the same as they work to update the Child Nutrition Act, which governs the National School Lunch Program.”

California Mayors Urge State Lawmakers To Pass Education Reforms.
The AP (12/30) reports that “the mayors of Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and Sacramento released a joint letter” on Tuesday asking state lawmakers to “pass a bill that would allow California to compete for a share of $4.3 billion” in the federal Race To The Top competition. The AP notes that “California has three weeks left to qualify for the competition.”

The Orange County (CA) Register (12/30, Martindale) reports, “At least 20 of Orange County’s 28 school districts have tentatively committed to implementing a series of controversial education reforms outlined under President Obama’s competitive Race to the Top grant program for schools.” And “at least 663 school districts and other educational institutions across California have already signed letters of intent to apply for the Race to the Top funds, according to state education officials.” But “the state Legislature still hasn’t passed a comprehensive Race to the Top bill that contains the education reforms necessary to make California competitive for the funding.”

Special Needs

Utah Charter For Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders To Add High School.
Utah’s Deseret Morning News (12/30, Stuart) reports that Utah will soon “have a public high school specifically designed to address the educational and social needs of children with autism and Asperger syndrome.” The Spectrum Academy K-8 charter school is expanding to include a high school. “Ninth and 10th grades will be available starting next fall; 11th and 12th grades will follow in 2011 and 2012.”

School Finance
Indiana Districts Must Trim $300 Million As A Result Of State Funding Cuts.
The Indianapolis Star (12/30, Schneider) reports that Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) announced this week that the state’s “public schools will have to begin trimming budgets in January” to match $300 million in state funding cuts. Each district will need to cut about 3.5 percent of its budget over 12 months. Dennis Costerison, executive director of the Indiana Association of School Business Officials, “said districts have been cutting budgets already,” and so “a lot of the things the State Board of Education came up with for potential cuts … they’ve already made those cuts.” Cuts include teacher layoffs; “freezing salaries and hiring; outsourcing transportation and custodial services…and cutting compensation for administrators and boards.”

Dallas Public School District Relinquished $13.7 Million To Less Wealthy Districts In 2008-09.
The Dallas Morning News (12/30, Rado) reports, “For the first time, Dallas taxpayers had to give some of their money to less-affluent school districts in 2008-09, [as] part of Texas’ share-the-wealth school finance system.” Critics say that the funding formula “doesn’t make sense,” pointing to the fact that the Dallas Independent School District had to give up “$13.7 million during a time when it had to borrow money just to pay bills.” The funding formula is based on property value within the district and student enrollment. The goal was to make it so “that no district had a major advantage over another in per-pupil funding because of property wealth.” But according to DISD Chief Financial Officer Larry Throm, “disparities continue in the amount of state aid given to school districts.”

Florida District Maintained Programs In 2009 With Help From Stimulus, Minimal Student Growth.
The St. Petersburg Times (12/30, Solochek) reports that in 2009, Pasco County, FL, school district employees “went a second straight year without raises or step increases, though they did get one-time bonuses.” The district avoided layoffs, but did not renew contracts for “many teachers” and “several district-level jobs remained unfilled.” Despite the concessions Pasco County school employees had to make this year, the St. Petersburg Times points out that “without millions of dollars from the federal stimulus package,” the district “would have faced a much worse fate.” Moreover, the district grew “minimally,” so it “was able to maintain its programs and even add a few, such as the new K-12 online program and the expanded AP options.”

Also in the News
NCES: Ohio Student Population To Decline Over Next Eight Years.
The Cincinnati Enquirer (12/30, Amos) reports that Ohio “will be among 16 states to lose elementary and high school students over the next eight years, the National Center for Education Statistics predicts.” The NCES report “predicts that nationwide enrollment will grow 8 percent in schools, to 59.8 million students, by 2018. Private school enrollment will drop 2 percent on average, but public schools will gain 9 percent.” However, Ohio “stands to lose 3.1 percent of its public school students, according to the report, while Kentucky will gain 3.6 percent.”

NEA in the News
Vermont NEA Drafts State Worker Pension System Reform Plan.
The Barre Montpelier (VT) Times Argus (12/29, Porter) reports that the Vermont chapter of the National Education Association “says the work of a retirement commission considering changes to the pension systems for teachers and state workers is incomplete and likely unconstitutional.” Revenue for Vermont’s retirement plans is expected to trail demand because of “longer life spans for beneficiaries,” a poor “investment climate,” and “underfunding by the state.” In a draft response, the Vermont NEA said “the commission failed to take into account ‘the Constitution, and its ramifications and limitations on any changes to a pension promise.’” The Union is currently drafting its own proposal that, it says, will “achieve significant savings to the taxpayers of Vermont, while addressing the issues of falling student enrollment and education costs in general.”

Florida Education Association May Not Endorse State’s Race To The Top Application.
Education Week (12/31, Sawchuk) reports that the Florida Education Association (FEA) and Education Minnesota “are threatening to withhold endorsements of their states’ Race to the Top applications,” a move that “could jeopardize the states’ chances of winning the coveted federal dollars.” In an ad in the Tallahassee Democrat, FEA President Andy J. Ford encouraged “local union affiliates” not to sign “an agreement to implement a state plan that…would require districts to base teacher evaluations and compensation bonuses heavily on student test scores.” He also sent a letter to Florida Education Commissioner Eric J. Smith this month stating, “Any sense of collaboration is absent in your proposal. … Your approach is prescriptive, top down, and unreasonable.” Meanwhile, Education Minnesota President Thomas A. Dooher, said that he will urge “local affiliates not to sign off on” Minnesota’s “application unless officials there agree to changes, including dropping a requirement that participating districts implement a pay program that has been voluntary for districts.”

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In the Classroom
Elementary Students Visit Senior Living Facility For International Baccalaureate Project.
The Flint (MI) Journal (12/31, Johnson) reports that as part of Tomek Eastern Elementary Schools effort to become “an International Baccalaureate world school,” students visit a local “senior living facility… to participate in activities with the residents.” Each month, students and seniors engage in activities “based on the visiting grade’s curriculum.” Sherri Carter, a “parent representative for IB Service Learning Project,” said that in the future, she wants the students and seniors to work together on an “economic project” in which they “create something to sell.” She added, “With the funds raised from the project, they might be able to purchase something for the seniors like a community computer.”

On the Job
Teacher Wants To Develop Holocaust Training For Colleagues In Nevada District.
The Las Vegas Sun (12/31, Richmond) reports that Irv Madnikoff, a teacher at Northwest Career and Technical Academy in Nevada’s Clark County School District will offer to develop a Holocaust studies course for teachers in Clark County, following a recent incident in which “one of his colleagues…reportedly told students that the Nazis lacked the technology to kill millions of Jews during World War II.” Madnikoff “created an award-winning Holocaust studies course that earned congressional praise” as a teacher in Miami, FL. He says that Holocaust education is “a window to explore deeper truths about prejudice and hate.” The Las Vegas Sun notes that four years ago, Madnikoff “volunteered to develop and teach a similar class,” but the idea was rejected by administrators. Madnikoff said that whether or not school administrators accept his proposal this time, he hopes that the incident “can somehow become a teachable moment – for the faculty as well as the students.”

Law & Policy

Michigan Governor Poised To Sign Package Of Education Reforms Into Law.
The Grand Rapids (MI) Press (12/31, Reinstadler) reports that Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) “is expected Monday to sign into law what she calls ‘revolutionary’ changes in public education.” The legislative measures “increase the state’s dropout age from 16 to 18 years old; incorporate teacher merit pay; allow the state to take over poorly performing districts; and enable charter school operators with solid records to open at new sites.” The “package was approved as part of the state’s effort to claim” around $400 million in Race to the Top funds.

Opinion: Teachers Unfairly Singled Out In Education Reform Push.
Robert Craig wrote in an “Our Schools” blog for the Indianapolis Star (12/30), “Underrepresented in legislatures, policy panels, school boards, consulting and advice, and even specific education forums, the regular k-12 teacher struggles daily to teach.” Also, more “arrows of reform fly in his/her direction via new proposed teacher recruitment and training theories, student failure to achieve, voucher pressure, and general criticism from outside.” Craig concludes that education “will improve as the needs of the community are addressed nationally.”

Hawaii Education Stakeholders Urged To Restore School Days.
The Honolulu Star-Bulletin (12/30) in an editorial said that Hawaii education officials “and the teachers union have made an earnest effort to restore classroom days to public schools-but more needs to be done. A plan for eliminating or at least significantly reducing the number of Furlough Fridays without raising taxes is necessary to maintain an adequate school system during difficult economic times.” Ultimately, the “time for adversity on the issues has passed and all sides seem to recognize now that they must work together to achieve the public goal. They should not allow frustration and hostility to undermine that effort.”

Teacher Unions Urged To Help Develop Performance Pay Policy In Maryland District.
The Annapolis (MD) Capital (12/30) wrote in an editorial, “Our Sunday report showed that more than 6,200 bonuses worth about $7.8 million were doled out” to Anne Arundel County (MD) Public Schools “personnel last year. … Whether such bonuses are deserved is hard to judge.” Nevertheless, “this is the direction in which President Barack Obama seems to be moving in his Race to the Top incentive program. So the unions would do well to work with the superintendent to develop the fairest criteria for rewarding teachers for their class’ academic achievements.”

Special Needs
Independence Science To Use NSF Grant To Create Science Software For The Blind.
The AP (12/30) reported that Indiana-based Independence Science “has won a $150,000″ grant from the National Science Foundation “to help blind students learn.” The grant will help the company “create audio-based software to make scientific data more accessible to blind and visually impaired students” by developing “an add-on text-to-speech component for a scientific device called LabQuest.”

Indiana’s Journal and Courier (12/30, Mack) reported that, according to Cary Supalo, president and founder of Independence Science, after testing “by Independence Science, the software will be tested at the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Indianapolis,” followed in July by “a focus group testing at” the National Federation of the Blind. Supalo also stated that “allowing people affected by blindness and low vision to participate in collection of scientific data is the company’s goal.”

Safety & Security
Florida District To Form Bus Safety Task Force In Wake Of Student’s Death.
The St. Petersburg Times (12/31, Silva) reports that Pinellas County, FL school officials “will be monitoring traffic safety at a handful of ‘arterial’ bus stops when classes resume Monday, including the bus stop a Pinellas Park High junior was trying to reach when she was struck by a car and killed.” Superintendent Julie Janssen “announced Wednesday plans to create a task force to study the controversial new bus system, which places ‘arterial’ stops for thousands of students attending schools outside of their residential zones on busy intersections along main streets. … Janssen said Wednesday the death of Nora Huapilla shows not all parents are following school policy that they are expected to transport students to and from arterial bus stops.”

Facilities

Students Create Facebook Page To Protest School Rezoning Plan.
The Naples (FL) Daily News (12/31, News) reports that over 130 students in Collier County, FL, responded to the school board’s “decision to rezone them to a different school” by signing up on the Facebook page Don’t Rezone Collier County Students.” One of the administrators of the page has a sister and two brothers who face rezoning under the school board’s plan. The Facebook page “encourages students to speak out against the rezoning and to attend the 6 p.m. Jan. 13 rezoning meeting.” Meanwhile, district administrators say that they “will do everything it can to make sure that all of the classes students could take at one school will be offered at another, with the exception of academies, which are assigned to specific schools.”

School Finance
Texas Teacher Retirement Fund Rebounding, Officials Say.
The San Antonio Express-News (12/31, Ratcliffe) reports that officials with Texas’ teacher retirement system say that the retirement fund “is coming back from the dramatic losses it suffered in last year’s stock market decline.” At the end of August 2008, The Teacher Retirement System of Texas “had $104.9 billion in assets.” Afterward, the “crash hit,” leaving the fund with only “$67 billion at the end of March.” However, on Wednesday, the agency reported that “the total value of the investments had grown to $91.4 billion.”

Opinion: Race To The Top Competition Won’t Fix Public Schools.
Former UCLA Graduate School of Education Lecturer Walt Gardner writes in an op-ed for the Christian Science Monitor (12/31) that the “distribution of $4.5 billion” in Race to the Top funds “will not improve educational quality for all children. This assessment is based largely on the emphasis given to competition as the centerpiece in creating successful schools.” Ultimately, the “goal of a healthier education system can be achieved only by the implementation of economic and social reforms aimed at narrowing the differences in the backgrounds of children whom schools serve.”

Washington State Lawmakers Urged To Enact Race To The Top Reforms. McKinstry Company CEO Dean Allen and Microsoft Senior Vice President and General Counsel Brad Smith write in an op-ed for the Seattle Times (12/31) that Washington State “has the chance to improve its schools and gain unprecedented amounts of funding” through the Race to the Top competition. Washington was among the first states “to adopt standards-based educational reforms.” However, Washington’s “track record has been characterized more by inaction and delay than innovation and determination. … Even if Washington does not receive Race to the Top funds,” education reforms “are essential to providing our students with the education they deserve and to keeping our state economically competitive in the future.”

Best Buy Helping California Schools Fill Budget Gaps.
The San Jose Mercury News (12/31, Barry) reports that Milpitas, CA “business employees stepping up to alleviate the disheartening financial burden on local schools are proof-positive they are more than just retailers in the community, but for the community. Best Buy Milpitas is one such place that began working with the school district through its Adopt-a-School program last year.” Best Buy General Manager Scott Nash “would like the outreach to eventually evolve to include teaching. Such things he would like to see are some of his tech-savvy staff working with students and parents for workshops and also keeping a computer lab open a couple nights a week for community use.”

NEA in the News
Vermont NEA Launches Report Into State Retirement Systems.
The AP (12/31) reports the Vermont chapter of the NEA this week “launched its own report” on the state’s retirement systems, “ahead of next week’s start to the Legislative session.” With the report, the union aims to “provide solutions to the state’s short-term budget crisis without destroying a teacher pension system in place for six decades.” The NEA Vermont wants the lawmakers to avoid making changes to the system that would call for “teachers and other public employees to work longer, pay more into the system and receive less in pensions.”

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