Schools Receive Grants For Anti-Violence Initiatives.
The Baltimore Sun (3/19, Bowie) reported, “The Reginald F. Lewis High School in Baltimore has received a $3.4 million federal grant to support programs aimed at reducing violence at the school. The federal money is being given nationally by the U.S. Labor Department to six high schools that were named ‘persistently dangerous’ under” NCLB. According to the Sun, “In the past two years, 2.5 percent of the high school’s students have been removed or suspended for a serious offense, including having weapons or being violent, according to Principal Sylvia Hall.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer (3/19, Woodall) reported, “The School District of Philadelphia was celebrating a windfall in federal funding this week,” as the Department of Labor “announced Wednesday that it had awarded the district $25 million to reduce violence and improve educational outcomes at four neighborhood high schools on the state’s list of ‘persistently dangerous’ schools, based on the number of violent incidents and assaults reported over several years.” Also, “U.S. Sens. Arlen Specter and Bob Casey announced that the Treasury Department and [ED] had awarded the district $145.4 million in construction bonds that will help it obtain low-cost financing to upgrade and repair facilities.”

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In the Classroom
Indiana Superintendent Praises Reading Instruction Bill.
Tony Bennett, Indiana superintendent of public instruction, writes in the Indianapolis Star (3/22), in praise of House Bill 1367, “instructing the State Board of Education and the Indiana Department of Education to develop a K-3 plan for reading instruction and implement accountability by mandating retention for third-grade students who, after 720 days of reading instruction, do not have the skills necessary to be successful.” He says that the bill “empowers the Department of Education to direct existing resources and funding to K-3 reading instruction so every child enters the fourth grade able to read.”

Ohio District Sees Improvement With Reading Intervention Program.
The Lancaster (OH) Eagle-Gazette (3/22, George) reports, “Three Liberty Union intervention specialists say a new learning program geared toward students who struggle with reading has yielded impressive results in a short timeframe.” Intervention specialists Patty Closson, Katie Hochradel and Joyce McNally said that, “on average, their students’ reading skills have improved in such a way that they now are reading at a higher grade level than they were six months ago. District officials are looking to extend the program into the high school to help the students continue to take the specialized classes as freshmen.”

Nebraska Schools Use Pedometers To Encourage Activity.
The Lincoln Journal Star (3/22, Reist) reports, “Pedometers strapped to a group of fourth-graders made one thing clear: Reading, writing and ‘rithmatic leave little time for running, skipping and jumping. In fact, the students get only about a third of the physical activity they need…during the school day.” The pedometers were “part of a three-year, $500,000 federal grant aimed at getting grade-school kids more active and more fit.” The pedometers reportedly helped to motivate students to walk more.

Texas Curriculum Fight Reveals Broader Contours Of Culture Wars.
Sam Tanenhaus writes in a news analysis for the New York Times (3/19), “The social studies curriculum recently approved by the Texas Board of Education, which will put a conservative stamp on textbooks, was received less as a pedagogical document than as the latest provocation in America’s seemingly endless culture wars. … In reality, this controversy is the latest version of a debate that reaches back many decades and is perhaps essential in a heterogeneous democracy whose identity has long been in flux.” According to Tanenhaus, Americans “stand on the brink of a collective identity crisis and no longer share a set of common ideas about the true character of the country and the true meaning of democracy.”

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On the Job
Need For Translators Adds New Dimension To Parent-Teacher Conference At New York School.
The New York Times (3/19, Dominus) reports, “At every school, the parent-teacher conference has an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ feeling – men and women contorting their bodies to fit undersize desks, transported back to a time when they cowered before the judgment of teachers.” However, the event at Stuyvesant High School in New York City “is a confusing adrenaline sport on top of that, a mad rush in which strivers race to sign up for meetings with in-demand teachers who will tell them everything they need to know about their children’s academic careers, provided it can be done within the three-minute limit.” The Times adds that Stuyvesant, “a school of 3,200 students, has seen its Asian population soar to 70 percent, which inspired” Harvey Blumm “to start asking for volunteer interpreters” to translate for parents who could not speak English.

Finn: Extended Learning Time Key To Raising Academic Performance.
In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal (3/20, W1), Thomas B. Fordham Institute President Chester E. Finn Jr. noted that schools districts around the country are moving towards four-day weeks amid economic challenges, and reduced instructional time puts U.S. students at a disadvantage compared to peers in other countries who spend more time in the classroom. Finn goes on to highlight the success of the KIPP charter school network in raising the performance of students using an extended learning time model.

Law & Policy
Proposed Changes To NCLB Criticized.
Steve Chapman writes in an op-ed for the Chicago Tribune (3/22). “I can’t pinpoint the moment the Obama administration went wrong on the subject of education,” yet “I can pinpoint the moment when it demonstrated it can’t be taken seriously. … It happened on Monday, March 15, when Education Secretary Arne Duncan was expounding to reporters about revising [NCLB].” Chapman adds, “Our leaders have a lot of evidence that a bigger federal role will not produce the desired results, and yet they persist in believing that it will.”

University of Virginia Psychology Professor Daniel Willingham wrote in an “Answer Sheet” blog for the Washington Post (3/20), “The reception of President Obama’s proposed revision” of NCLB “has generally been positive,” yet it is “hard for me to see why people are optimistic.” Willingham added, “What’s disappointing is that we’re not seeing the bold new approach and fresh ideas we were led to expect. It’s fundamentally the idea we’ve had in place since 2001-accountability without guidance–and I suspect the outcome won’t be much different.”

Spellings Criticizes Obama Administration NCLB Plan. Former Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings wrote in an op-ed for the Dallas Morning News (3/19) that the Obama administration’s NCLB “blueprint says that up to 90 percent of schools could escape accountability for the performance of all students.” Spellings adds, “Encouragingly,” the Obama NCLB plan “would require some real form of action to turn around school failure in the lowest-performing 5 percent of schools.” However, according to Spellings, “Removing accountability will simply take us down the rabbit hole, back to a fantasy world, where billions of taxpayers’ dollars will be spent in the mistaken belief that more money equals higher quality education.”

More Commentary. The Concord Monitor (3/21) editorialized, ‘President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan, former superintendent of Chicago schools, are on a mission to reform public education. The president first proposed awarding nearly $4.5 billion in incentive grants to states with the best plans to reform their education laws and schools” and Obama “outlined the changes he wants to make to the Bush-era No Child Left Behind Act.” The “proposals are largely positive, but neither is likely to do what state and local education reform efforts have failed to do for decades: permanently increase the performance of schools that chronically fail their students.”

NYTimes Says NCLB Overhaul Requires New School Culture. The New York Times (3/21, WK9, 1.09M) editorializes, “While we had mixed feelings about President Obama’s plans for reworking the No Child Left Behind Act, he got it right when he called on the states to create credible systems for evaluating teachers and principals,” but “emulating the small number of schools that already have those systems will not be easy. It will mean creating a new school culture and redefining not just the roles of teachers, but the roles of principals and superintendents.” The Times adds, “That message comes through in a study from the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank that has recently been zeroing in on this aspect of school policy.”

Facilities
RI Schools To Receive $41.2 Million In Stimulus Construction Bonds.
The Providence Journal (3/20, Borg) reported, “Rhode Island’s schools will receive $41.2 million in interest-free school construction bonds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The monies will be used to finance the construction, rehabilitation and repair of schools throughout the state.” According to the Journal, “Through this program, the federal government provides a tax credit to cover the interest costs of the construction bonds,” and “recipients have to pay back only the principal and issuance costs.”

Texas Districts Offered Over $66 Million In School Construction Bonds.
The Monitor (TX) (3/22, Berghom) reports, “Four Rio Grande Valley public school systems have been offered a total of more than $66 million from the federal government to construct or refurbish their facilities.” That was part of “$11 billion in qualified school construction bonds to states and school districts throughout the country.” But “the catch for this offer is that the districts will have to take on debt, said Tony Fuller, chief financial officer for the Brownsville school district.”

Richmond County, Georgia, Schools Continue Construction Paid For By Special Sales Tax.
The Augusta (GA) Chronicle (3/22, Sparks) reports, “Some Richmond County schools this year might seem more like construction zones — the result of about a dozen school improvement projects under way.” The projects are part of “$190 million worth of improvements” that “should be mostly finished by the end of next year.” One of the projects is an “International Baccalaureate wing at the Academy of Richmond County.” They are funded by a 1-cent sales tax that “has been collected since 1996 in Richmond County.”

Some Detroit Voters Upset At Proposed Changes To Construction Plans.
The Detroit News (3/22, Schultz) reports, “Less than five months after Detroit voters passed a $500.5 million school construction plan, nearly half of the 18 schools that were to be rebuilt or renovated are now headed for closure or plans for them have been altered.” That has “outraged some supporters of the Proposal S bond who say they feel cheated for voting for a plan they were told would mean new construction or renovation in their neighborhood, but instead their schools will be shuttered as soon as this summer.” Treasury Department spokesman Terry Stanton said that “state officials expect the bond projects to proceed as planned” unless the department approves changes.

School Finance
Illinois Officials Seeking Race To The Top Funds For State.
The Bloomington (IL) Pantagraph (3/21, Coulter) reported, “More than a dozen Central Illinois school districts are at the starting line, ready to see if they qualify for Race to the Top. Earlier this month, Illinois was named one 15 states and the District of Columbia (among 40 and Washington, D.C. that applied) in the running for a share for of $4.35 billion in federal grants to enact education reform and improve student achievement.” According to the Pantagraph, “Last week, five Illinois representatives, led by state school Superintendent Chris Koch, went to Washington to convince federal officials that Race to the Top grants funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act would be well spent” in Illinois.

Michigan District To Drop Driver’s Education As Part Of Budget Balancing Effort.
The Saginaw (MI) News (3/20, Jaksa) reports that due to budget cuts the Davison School District “has announced it no longer will offer driver’s education.” Superintendent Clay Perkins “said the district is looking at an estimated budget shortfall of between $814,000 and $2.3 million.” Yet the savings from eliminating driver’s education would be just $25,000.

Also in the News
Ohio District To Act On First Lady’s “Let’s Move” Initiative.
The Hudson (OH) Hub Times (3/22, Troglen) reports, “While her husband has been making daily headlines on his push for health care reform, First Lady Michelle Obama has been working on her own type of reform — to childhood obesity.” Hudson schools have signed on to the “the First Lady’s health initiative, ‘Let’s Move,’” and “Maureen Faron, district supervisor of nutrition services, is the legislative chairperson for the Northeast Ohio Chapter of the School Nutrition Association.” Faron said that the initiative “seeks to ‘provide a partnership between the home and school to help educate our families on how to make a positive change in all areas of their lives.’ The effort focuses on meals at school and at home, she said.”

NEA in the News
Florida Senate Bill Would Adopt Annual Contracts And Base Pay On Test Scores.
The St. Augustine Record (3/22, Haughney) reports on Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine’s bill SB 6, under which, “Teacher pay would be based on how well students do on standardized tests.” The bill would also “place teachers on annual contracts and force the Department of Education to implement some method to gauge whether students made learning gains over the school year.”

Measure Criticized. The Orlando Sentinel (3/22, Balona, Postal, Weber) reports, “The state’s teachers union and Florida Democratic Party have opened a broadside media attack on Republican lawmakers who are trying to end teacher tenure in favor of a merit-pay system in an effort to beef up school quality without spending more. ‘If your child is a student in Florida public schools, brace yourself because Florida politicians are doing real damage,’ Andy Ford, president of the Florida Education Association, says in a TV and Internet ad. Ford goes on to criticize recent school cuts and then says, ‘Now some of our best teachers are at risk of losing their jobs.’”

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel (3/22) says in an editorial, “No one should mistake the measure linking teacher salaries to student performance on annual tests for a serious effort to reform education.” Instead the bill “seems more of a ham-fisted attempt to stick it to teacher unions and school districts than a serious effort to improve education.”

Ryan Haczynski, a teacher in the social studies department at Durant High School, writes in the Tampa Tribune (3/22), “Am I a teacher or a scapegoat?” He says, “as individual teachers, our students spend 1.7 percent of their time with each of us in one calendar year. If one were to only include waking hours, the number becomes 2.6 percent.” So, “Whether it is crime, dropouts, graduation, FCAT, reading proficiency or any other rate or percentage being pinned on our profession, the truth is we take 100 percent of the blame, though we comprise only 14 percent of each student’s time. It is time for accountability to be spread out evenly.”

Oklahoma Lawmaker Would Exclude Association Officers From Teacher’s Pension Plan.
The Oklahoman (3/22, McNutt) reports, “Retired teachers or teachers who take a leave of absence to work for a union or association should not be allowed to continue earning service credits in the Teachers’ Retirement System,” according to state Rep. Sally Kern (R-Oklahoma City). Kern filed HB3108 this year, which “would have ended the special status given to teachers or retired teachers, but withdrew it before it could be heard on the floor of the House of Representatives.” She said that “she will file similar legislation next year.” James Wilbanks, executive secretary for the Oklahoma Teachers’ Retirement System, said that too few people take advantage of the provision for it to be a financial concern. Kern said that “her bill was not aimed solely at the Oklahoma Education Association.” But “Joel Robison, associate executive director of the Oklahoma Education Association, said his group opposed the measure.”

Some Philadelphia Parents Oppose School Webcam Class-Action Lawsuit.
The AP (3/19) reports, “Some suburban Philadelphia parents are seeking to halt a potential class-action lawsuit accusing their school district of using cameras in school-issued laptops to spy on students at home.” Nearly “500 district parents have signed a petition opposing the class-action suit,” saying that “they are angry about the webcams but are concerned about the financial impact of a class-action settlement.” In “their complaint submitted in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, they requested hiring an independent public advocate, permanently banning laptop webcam use by the district and implementing new regulations on the proper use of technologies.”

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In the Classroom
High School Teacher Hangs Effigy Of Obama In Classroom.
The AP (3/19) reports, “A teacher at a failing school where he and all his colleagues are being fired hung an effigy of President Barack Obama in his classroom, apparently in reaction to Obama’s support of extreme measures to ensure accountability in schools. The teachers union on Thursday condemned the effigy, discovered Monday in the teacher’s third-floor classroom at Central Falls (RI) High School, saying it was wrong and cannot be condoned under any circumstances.” The AP adds that the “effigy was found in the teacher’s classroom by Superintendent Frances Gallo, Rhode Island Department of Education spokeswoman Nicole Shaffer told The Associated Press,” and Gallo “said that the teacher had been issued a ‘strong letter of reprimand’ and that she considered it an internal matter.”

The Providence (RI) Journal (3/19, Jordan) reports that after he “found the 12-inch doll dangling from the whiteboard, Gallo contacted the state police who immediately came to the high school, took photographs and removed the doll.” Afterward, a police investigation “determined that the incident did not rise to the level of a hate crime” and thus, “no charges were filed against the teacher, said Lt. Steven Lefebvre.” CNN (3/19, Drash) and AOL News (3/19, Knowles) also cover the story.

Strauss: Teacher That Hung Effigy “Ought To Go.” Valerie Strauss wrote in a “Class Struggle” blog for the Washington Post (3/18), “At the Rhode Island school where all the educators and staff were recently fired, a teacher hung upside down a foot-tall effigy of President Obama in a classroom, apparently in reaction to Obama’s support of the firings. The mass firings were wrong, but this teacher ought to go.” Strauss added that “no matter how angry the teachers are at any public official for their involvement or support of the firings, the behavior of the Central Falls teacher was unacceptable.”

On the Job
Turnaround Plan For Denver Middle School Includes Three New Schools.
The Denver Post (3/18, Meyer) reported, “A controversial turnaround strategy for Denver’s lowest-performing middle school is producing results, Denver Public Schools officials say. Three new schools opening in August to replace Lake Middle School already have drawn twice as many sixth-graders than currently attend the northwest Denver school.” According to the Post, “Two charter schools run by the West Denver Preparatory Charter School program will open in August within Lake’s enrollment boundary,” and a “new IB program will develop in Lake’s facility, beginning with a sixth-grade class and adding one grade each year.”

Law & Policy
Small Arizona District Sues To Block Repeated Open Records Requests.
The AP (3/19, Arrillaga) reports that Congress, AZ “is so small, in fact, that the prickly pear cacti may very well outnumber the 1,700 or so souls who call Congress home,” thus it “is a rather unlikely setting for a bitter open government dispute that has drawn attention far beyond” it’s borders. The AP adds that the “Congress Elementary School District, fed up with records requests from four women – two of whom have children in school – responded by suing them. The district seeks to prevent the four from filing open records requests without first getting permission from a judge,” claiming that repeated “requests are impeding this tiny, rural school district from its ability to function and educate.”

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Wake County, North Carolina Board Committee Suggests Changes To School Assignment Plan.
North Carolina’s News & Observer (3/19, Hui) reports that the Wake County school board’s “newly formed student assignment committee agreed” today “to recommend seven changes for this fall’s student assignment plan. The changes were made after parents at recent community meetings told board members they want to go schools closer to where they live.” The changes will be voted on by the full board next week. “If the resolution is adopted, the student assignment committee would spend the next nine to 15 months developing a new model that would divide Wake into community assignment zones.”

Education Experts Argued Against Ending Diversity Policy. The News & Observer (3/19, Goldsmith) also reports that “a group of Triangle academics pulled up research and data Wednesday as they urged the Wake County school board not to take the final vote to ditch its diversity-based student assignment policy next week.” A Duke University public policy and economics professor, Helen Ladd, predicted “problems hiring and keeping teachers at some exceptionally high-poverty schools Wake is likely to create under its new plan.” She “presented an analysis of statewide numbers that showed such schools have the highest percentage of teachers with less than three years’ experience, with lower teacher test scores and with degrees from lower-quality colleges.” Also, “professors from UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State University” spoke “against ending the policy of keeping schools socioeconomically diverse.”

Lawsuit Filed Over Suspension Of Students After Fistfights.
The New York Times (3/19, Eckholm) reports that a series of fistfights at Southside High School (Chocowinity, NC) in January 2008 led to arrests and suspension for the students involved, and two of the girls involved were suspended for a semester. The students’ “punishment was typical of the get-tough, ‘zero tolerance’ discipline policies that swept the nation over the last two decades, resulting in an increase in suspensions that are disproportionate among black students.” However, “whether banishing children from schools really makes them safer or serves the community well is increasingly questioned by social scientists and educators,” and “now the punishment is before the courts in what has become a stark legal test of the approach” as attorneys “for the girls – who are black – say that denying them a semester’s schooling was an unjustified violation of their constitutional right to an education.”

Georgia Senate Passes New Zero Tolerance Bill.
Maureen Downey wrote in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (3/18) “Get Schooled” blog that the Georgia State Senate “unanimously passed Sen. Emanuel Jones’ zero tolerance bill” on Thursday. It “requires judges to hold a hearing before a student can be taken into custody and bans the charging of a student as a designated felon. The action would be classified as a delinquent act unless the weapon was used in an assault or if it was a gun.” Downey notes that Senate Bill 299 was a response to “Jones’ experience trying to get 14-year-old Eli Mohone out of a juvenile detention center in Morgan County last year” after the child inadvertently brought a fishing knife to his Morgan County middle school.”

Political Wrangling Surrounding Education Reform Efforts Viewed As Counterproductive.
Susan Jacoby, author of “The Age of American Unreason,” writes in an op-ed for the New York Times (3/19, A25), “President Obama’s proposed revisions to [NCLB] appear, on the surface, to offer an example not of local control but of more federal intervention,” but “many experts agree that the main reason President George W. Bush’s original law has failed to raise student achievement significantly is that states have dumbed down their exams.” Jacoby added, “The new proposals being offered by the Obama administration will not significantly change a setup that combines the worst of both worlds: broad federally mandated goals and state manipulation of testing and curriculum.” Jacoby added, “The real question is whether anything, in the current polarized political climate, can be done about educational disparities that are inseparable from our fragmented system of public schooling.”

Safety & Security
Part Of Elementary School In North Carolina Will Shut Down Due To Mold.
The Wilmington (NC) Star News (3/19, Greene) reports, “Mold in classrooms will shut down part of Wrightsboro Elementary School. The remainder of the students at the school, all 409 children in grades first through the fifth, will not return to Wrightsboro starting Friday and through the end of the school year.” Instead, they will attend a nearby middle school. “Mold spores were found in air samples above the ceilings in several of Wrightsboro’s newer buildings, built in 2000. … The type of mold found was penicillium/aspergillus.” The Wilmington Star News notes that “in 2004, the Institute of Medicine found evidence that linked indoor exposure to mold with upper respiratory tract symptoms, coughs and wheezing in otherwise healthy people, and other complications.”

Also in the News
New Donors Step In To Rescue Dallas After-School Program.
The Dallas Morning News (3/18, Parks) reported, “The doors to the ‘I Have A Dream’ Foundation’s after-school program are open again at a Dallas public housing project. Several donors stepped forward in recent weeks to provide funding after a Dallas philanthropist abruptly withdrew his financial support of the foundation program.” According to the Morning News, “The ‘I Have A Dream’ Foundation program dates back to 1988″ and the foundation’s “literature says the center has provided support for public school students and helped about 780 students graduate from college.”

NEA in the News
Very Few States Are Adequately Funding Educational Systems, Research Shows.
Msnbc.com (3/18, Johnson) reported that “last week, the Harlem School District Board of Education, which serves the communities of Loves Park, Machesney Park and southern Roscoe, voted to eliminate” the Rising Stars program for pre-kindergartners “because the state of Illinois hasn’t made good on the grants that support it.” Throughout the US, “thousands of administrators and school board members…are making similar agonizing choices,” as “many states have nearly exhausted their windfalls from the federal economic stimulus plan.” Also, “with falling housing values shrinking property tax revenue – the largest source of public school funding – the question for state and local officials planning budgets for the next school year is: Will it be bad – or horribly bad?” NEA President Dennis Van Roekel told Congress last week, “Resources must be adequate and equalized across schools.” According to NEA research, he added, “almost no states are currently funding their educational systems adequately, and most states are around 25 percent short of funding their systems at a level adequate.”

Editor Says NCLB Plan Still Not “Road-Ready.”
Editorial board member Mike Norman writes in the Fort Worth Star Telegram (3/19) “The federal No Child Left Behind education act is dead. President Barack Obama drove a stake through its heart this week.” Norman asserts that “after 14 months in the Obama Fix-it Shop, federal education policy is still not road-ready. The mechanic-in-chief is still working on it, but he announced this week what he wants it to look like when he is done.” The current “blueprint already has one of the problems that plagued Bush and NCLB: Teacher unions don’t like it. Dennis Van Roekel, president of the largest of those unions, the National Education Association, called the plan “disappointing” and pushed for, among other things, more “supports and resources” for teachers.” Norman concludes that “as a Republican, Bush had more freedom to ignore what the unions thought. For Obama, teachers and all of organized labor are core constituencies. That will make a difference when Obama’s plan gets to Congress.”

Detroit District Emergency Financial Manager Announces Plan To Close 44 Schools.
The AP (3/18, Williams) reported, “Doors are expected to shut on more than a quarter of Detroit’s 172 public schools in June as the district fights through steadily declining enrollment and a budget deficit of more than $219 million, an emergency financial manager said Wednesday. Three aging, traditional and under-populated high schools would be among the 44 closures,” and another “six schools are to be closed in June 2011, followed by seven more a year later, emergency financial manager Robert Bobb said.” According to the AP, “The closures are part of a $1 billion, five-year plan to downsize a struggling district also is looking to improve education, test scores and student safety in a city whose population has declined with each passing decade.”

The New York Times (3/18, A19, Saulney) notes that “Detroit has closed more than 100 schools since 2004, yet still has more than 50,000 excess seats throughout the system.” The Detroit Free Press (3/18, Dawsey) reports that the new plan “was met today with concerns about safety, athletics and stability. … The $1-billion plan will shut 41 school buildings by June and another 13 by 2012″ and “coincides with a $540-million academic plan released this week that calls for new campuses that includes kids of all ages on the same campuses.”

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In the Classroom
Experts Say Some Changes To Texas’ Social Studies Curriculum Are Inaccurate.
The Washington Post (3/18, Birnbaum) reports that “historians on Tuesday criticized proposed revisions to the Texas social studies curriculum, saying that many of the changes are historically inaccurate and that they would affect textbooks and classrooms far beyond the state’s borders.” The curriculum revisions play “down the role of Thomas Jefferson among the founding fathers,” question “the separation of church and state, and” claim “that the US government was infiltrated by Communists during the Cold War.” The Post adds that “some textbook authors expressed discomfort with the state board’s changes, and it is unclear how readily historians will go along with some of the proposals.”

NASA Grant Helps Students Launch Rockets.
The Sand Springs (OK) Leader (3/18, Waldschmidt) reports, “The Sixth Grade Center playground for awhile Thursday became Sand Springs’ version of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.” Students launched rockets that they had made during science class. “The special high pressure water pump and launch stand was purchased with a joint grant from the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.”

On the Job
New Policy In Houston District Allows Teachers To Be Fired Based On Testing Data.
The Christian Science Monitor (3/18, Khadaroo) reports that a “new policy in” the Houston Independent School District “allows teachers to be fired based on data that some experts say isolates a teacher’s effect on his or her students’ test-score gains.” School officials would use the testing data “in making decisions about teacher-contract renewals.” HISD Board of Education President Greg Meyers said that the new policy “is just a natural progression after Houston’s forays into performance pay and other reforms.” According to the Monitor, “Dozens of districts, including Houston’s, have already incorporated the concept into ‘pay for performance’ systems,” yet “none has gone ahead as boldly as the Texas district.” Some parents support the policy, “but the local teachers union is planning a legal challenge, claiming, among other concerns, that the formula is not public and leaves teachers in the dark about how they’re judged.”

Audit Outlines Steps To Overhaul Selective Chicago High School Admissions Procedures.
The Chicago Tribune (3/18, Ahmed) reports, “Chicago public school officials released an audit Wednesday offering suggestions to improve the fairness of admissions to highly selective high schools. The audit suggests ways to curb wrongdoing, such as centralizing admissions decisions and overhauling the guidelines for principal discretion – a practice that allows the school leaders to handpick 5 percent of students to the most elite high schools.” According to the Tribune, “Influence peddling became an issue last year when it was revealed that the FBI was investigating admissions at the schools,” and “District CEO Ron Huberman then announced his own investigation, handled by the inspector general, and a separate audit conducted by an outside firm.”

Law & Policy
Lawmakers Question Whether NCLB Overhaul Addresses Issues Faced By Rural Schools.
The New York Times (3/18, Dillon) reports, “Lawmakers who represent rural areas told Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in a hearing Wednesday that [NCLB], as well as the Obama administration’s blueprint for overhauling it, failed to take sufficiently into account the problems of rural schools, and their nine million students. … In his testimony before the” Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee, Duncan “argued that the administration’s blueprint would solve some problems for rural schools, including one related to the No Child law’s teacher-quality provisions.”

The Washington Post (3/18, Anderson) reports, “Senate Republicans raised questions Wednesday about whether President Obama’s plan to turn around struggling schools would fly in rural America. … But for the most part, Education Secretary Arne Duncan drew a positive reception from key lawmakers as he began pitching the administration’s blueprint to rewrite” NCLB.

Obama Administration Urged Not To Lower NCLB Accountability Mandates. The New York Times (3/18, A30) editorializes, “President Obama’s blueprint for reworking [NCLB] has good ideas, but it doesn’t have anything close to the rigor that the word ‘blueprint’ would suggest. Whether the president’s plan will strengthen or weaken the program will depend on how the administration fleshes out the missing details – and how Congress rewrites the law.” According to the Times, “Teachers’ unions, state governments and other interest groups have long wanted to water down or kill off the provision of the law that requires the states to raise student performance – especially for poor and minority children – in exchange for federal money,” and “Congress must resist” these efforts.

NLCB Overhaul Seen As Opportunity For Bipartisan Cooperation. Time (3/17, Altman) reported, “When the bare-knuckled brawl over healthcare reform finally wraps up, and the Obama Administration pivots to less divisive topics, education reform may be one of the few issues capable of drawing bipartisan support. The Obama Administration’s proposed overhaul of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) could resonate with Republicans, many of whom have been disappointed with the results of George W. Bush’s signature education initiative.” According to Time, “Obama’s blueprint, which was sent to Congress March 15, sets forth an ambitious national standard -that by 2020, all students graduate high school ready for college or a career – but leaves the specifics on how to achieve this goal up to state and local authorities.”

Florida House Approves Measure Allowing Teachers To Pray With Public School Students.
The St. Petersburg Times (3/18, Silva) reports that a “controversial religious ban enforced by the Santa Rosa (CA) County School District last year has incited national debate over religious freedom and constitutional protections.” The Florida Legislature is now contemplating such issues. On Wednesday, “the House PreK-12 Policy Committee approved a measure…that would allow teachers to pray with public school students.” The proposal “would prohibit school boards from discouraging ‘inspirational’ messages at voluntary events and would protect teachers who bow their heads during student-led prayers.” Said co-sponsor State Rep. Greg Evers (R), “This is not necessarily a prayer bill. … This is a rights bill.” Opponents of the plan, meanwhile, “argue that government has no business institutionalizing religious speech.”

Parents, Officials In Alabama District Debate School Uniform Requirement.
The Montgomery (AL) Advertiser (3/17, Nettles) reported that the Montgomery school system has proposed a requirement that “all students…wear uniforms, a move school leaders tout as a way to decrease discipline problems, improve school safety, and erase economic disparities between students.” Some parents argue “that uniforms will take away student identity.” At a “parent meeting on the issue,” Montgomery Public Schools Superintendent Barbara Thompson “and some school principals presented arguments for school uniforms recently.” According to Thompson, “research has shown that uniforms not only eliminate parent-child conflicts on what to wear to school but they also decrease student discipline problems, help school staff identify students and create a sense of community and pride in schools.” She also pointed to research showing that “uniforms help decrease clothing costs for parents because students have two or three uniforms to wear all week.”

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Facilities
Elementary School’s Roof Coating Expected To Reduce Energy Costs.
California’s Mercury News (3/18, Richards) reports that on the surface of the roof on Las Juntas Elementary School is “an ‘engineered coating’ designed by Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory scientists to better deflect solar heat and light back into the sky rather than into the building.” The coating is intended to “save energy costs, keep teachers, students and staff members cooler, and thus reduce air pollution and greenhouse-gas emissions,” said Bay Area Air Quality Management District spokesman Ralph Borrmann.

School Finance
More School Districts Seek To Generate Revenue Via Website Advertising.
USA Today (3/18, Martin) reports, “A growing number of school districts facing budget cuts are looking to advertising on their websites as a new revenue source. School districts in Virginia and Arizona already have ads on their official sites, while officials at districts in South Dakota, Wisconsin and California say they are planning to place ads soon.” USA Today adds that the “130,000-student San Diego Unified School District has lost about 25% of its revenue in the past three years because of state budget cuts, says chief district relations officer Bernie Rhinerson,” and officials in that district “are developing a plan they believe could generate at least $100,000 annually by selling ads, he says.”

Utah District Will Cut Out-Of Classroom Expenses To Save Teacher Jobs.
The Salt Lake Tribune (3/18, Winters) reports that the Jordan School District “announced Wednesday it will balance the 2010-11 budget without increasing class sizes or taxes. In a letter sent to employees…the Board of Education announced that alternatives allowed by the Legislature and a $17.5 million cut to program, administrative, and non-classroom personnel costs has saved 250 teaching jobs.”

Indiana Lawmakers Move to Allow School Districts Spending Flexibility.
The Lafayette (IN) Journal and Courier (3/18, Watling) reports, “After months of lobbying by superintendents, teachers and parents, the Indiana General Assembly agreed on Saturday to a bill that allows schools to move money from the property tax-supported capital projects fund directly to the state-supported general fund.” Under House Bill 1367, a “one-year direct transfer, which wasn’t legal before, will allow districts to defer building projects and maintenance in favor of using that cash to pay for salaries and benefits.” Even though this “will allow some new spending flexibility to offset state budget cuts this year,” the money will not be enough “to save many of the jobs and programs on the chopping block,” according to the Journal and Courier. According to district leaders, they will, “at most…be able to recoup about one-third of what the state cut from their general funds – and some of the strings attached will prevent them from taking maximum advantage.”

Also in the News
Court Says Parents Can Block “Sexting” Prosecution Of Children.
The New York Times (3/18, Lewin) reports that “a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled Wednesday that parents could block the prosecution of their children on child pornography charges for appearing in” sexual “photographs found on some classmates’ cellphones.” The ruling came as a result of Miller v. Mitchell, a case that “began in 2008″ after Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania school officials “discovered seminude and nude photographs of some female students — some as young as 12 or 13 when the photographs were taken — on other students’ cellphones.” According to the Times, the district’s “attorney at the time…said that students possessing ‘inappropriate images of minors’ could be prosecuted for possession or distribution of child pornography, and sent letters to the parents of the students” involved, “threatening to prosecute any student who did not participate in an after-school ‘education program.’”

NEA in the News
NEA Pacific Regional Conference Will Focus On Low-Performing Schools.
Nevada’s Gazette-Journal (3/17, Martinez) reported that “the National Education Association’s Pacific Regional Leadership Conference is expected to attract about 800 educators Friday-Sunday to the Peppermill Hotel Casino.” The conference will focus on “strategies to improve the nation’s low-performing schools.” Spokeswoman Cynthia Kain said the NEA prefers a “transformation model” for school turnaround, one of four plans identified by the federal School Improvement Grants. “Each plan requires a new principal, but the turnaround plan also would transfer half the school staff.” The NEA will “invest $1 million a year for six years to help develop strategies to increase teacher effectiveness at low performing schools.”

Virginia Students Will Be First To View “Diary Of A Wimpy Kid” Film.
Valerie Strauss wrote in an “Answer Sheet” blog for the Washington Post (3/17), “An elementary school is not a typical setting for big Hollywood movie openings,” yet Riverside Elementary School in Alexandria, VA “beat out 5,000 schools from across the country in a contest to host the world premiere of the movie ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid.’” According to the Strauss, on Thursday, Riverside students “will meet Jeff Kinney, author of the best-selling illustrated novel from which the movie was made, and the movie’s cast” and the students will then screen the movie.” Strauss added, “All Riverside Elementary had to do to win was to enter the contest–sponsored by the School Library Journal and the National Education Association–by submitting a simple application.”

Duncan Addresses Union Concerns About NCLB Blueprint.
Education Week (3/16, Klein) reports, “Now that the Obama administration has unveiled its blueprint for reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, attention is shifting to whether the proposal will win sufficient support from lawmakers, policymakers, and education advocates to assure passage.” NEA is one of the plan’s “key detractors.” In a statement issued in response to the plan, NEA President Dennis Van Roekel said that “the proposal “still relies on standardized tests to identify winners and losers,” and further “requires states to compete for critical resources, setting up another winners-and-losers scenario.” On Monday, “U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan countered on a conference call with reporters…that union critics may have missed a critical aspect of the proposal in their initial appraisal: ‘Maybe they didn’t fully see how much of this [is] now a shared a responsibility,’ he said.”

The St. Louis (MO) Dispatch (3/16, Hunn) quotes Missouri NEA President Chris Guinther with saying, “We had great hopes that this reauthorization would not focus on student test scores. … It absolutely does.” Guinther “wanted to see more attention on reducing class sizes and involving parents,” the Dispatch adds. Gunther also said that the NEA is currently “mobilizing ‘to make this right.’”

Some Florida District Officials Support Obama Plan. The Miami Herald (3/16, McGrory, Sampson) reports, “President Obama’s overhaul of the No Child Left Behind education law will focus more on raising the bar for students and teachers — and less on punishing failing schools.” Officials in “Florida’s two largest school districts said they can get behind” the plan. “Overall, this is a step in the right direction,” said Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho. However, “Florida teachers unions, like their counterparts nationally, criticized the bill for not going far enough to promote reform.”

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In the Classroom
Programs In Some Texas Districts Help Older Middle School Students Catch Up With Peers.
The San Antonio Express-News (3/15, Kastner) reported on the Middle School Partners program in the San Antonio Independent School District, which “provides students who are two or more years older than their academic peers with direct instruction in core eighth-grade subjects and self-paced lessons in ninth-grade classes. The school day is stripped to the basics, such as English, algebra and geography.” Other districts throughout Texas have implemented similar programs. For instance, the Houston Independent School District “has created an entire school just for middle school students who have fallen two or more years behind.” It “requires Saturday and summer attendance and mixes regular and computer-based instruction.” Meanwhile, the North East Independent School District has a “pilot program that sets aside time to provide individualized help to some of the district’s older eighth-graders to ensure they don’t fall further behind.”

Apprenticeships Expose High School Students To Career Opportunities.
USA Today (3/16, Marklein) reports on Wisconsin’s Youth Apprenticeship Program, which was founded “to prepare non-college-bound high school students for jobs after graduation.” Although that mission “remains at the forefront” of the program’s efforts, it “also attracts college-bound students who want to explore careers, and as jobs have grown more technical over the years, participants are increasingly pursuing more education.” The program serves to place students in a wide variety of fields, particularly manufacturing-related jobs, and offers them not only work-related experience, but also an introduction to the importance of soft skills. Program graduates “earn a high school diploma, a certificate of occupational proficiency and, in some cases, credit for post-high school training programs.” Robert Halpern, an author and advocate of such programs, said, “What it really does is teach kids how much people need to know, or how hard they need to work, to get good at something specific.”

On the Job
Los Angeles Schools Panel Recommends Teacher Evaluation, Tenure Changes.
The Los Angeles Times (3/16, Song) reports, “High-performing teachers should earn more pay, tenure should be more difficult to achieve and teacher reviews should be tied to student test scores, a Los Angeles school district panel is expected to recommend Tuesday. The proposals, aimed squarely at increasing the effectiveness of teachers, would be the most far-reaching change in years in how the Los Angeles Unified School District decides which teachers to promote and retain.” According to the Times, “Employee unions are expected to oppose some of the proposals, some of which would have to be collectively bargained.”

Law & Policy
Duncan To Outline Proposed NCLB Overhaul On Capitol Hill.
The Washington Post (3/16, Anderson) reports, “For most public schools, the perceived heavy hand of the federal government would become a lighter touch under President Obama’s plan to rewrite” NCLB, yet “for some, the consequences of academic failure would stiffen considerably.” Secretary of Education Arne Duncan “will head to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to start selling the administration’s 41-page blueprint to the House and Senate education committees,” yet “there is no certainty that Congress will act before the midterm elections.” The Christian Science Monitor (3/16, Chaddock) also covers the story.

Stephen Sawchuk wrote in a “Teacher Beat” blog for Education Week (3/15) that the Obama administration’s ESEA reauthorization blueprint will “tackle leadership, by requiring states to define what an effective principal looks like. Also, the requirement for states and districts to distribute teachers equitably among high-and low-poverty schools would be strengthened by making ‘effective’ rather than ‘highly qualified’ teachers the measuring unit.” And, it “would maintain NCLB’s annual testing and targets,” though states “would mostly get to figure out how to intervene in schools, unless they didn’t make enough progress in closing achievement gaps.”

White House Urged To Back Education Secretary’s Civil Rights Compliance Push.
The New York Times (3/16, A22) editorializes, “In a little more than a year in office, Education Secretary Arne Duncan has used his bully pulpit and a burgeoning discretionary budget to focus state governments on school reform as never before” and Duncan “has now promised to energize the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights, which has done a poor job in recent years of enforcing federal laws that protect poor, minority and disabled students from discrimination.” According to the Times, “Sticking with the civil rights plan will be difficult once districts begin whining to legislators in Washington. The secretary will need cover from the White House to succeed.”

DC Teachers Would Be Fired For Having Sex With Students Under Proposed Bill.
The Washington Post (3/16, Craig) reports that in D.C., “it’s not illegal for a public school teacher to have sex with a student who is older than 16, the age of consent in the city. Emergency legislation sponsored by D.C. Council member Kwame Brown (D-At Large) would go part of the way toward addressing that issue, by requiring the school system to fire any teacher who is found to have engaged in a sex act with a student, regardless of the student’s age.” According to the Post, “Brown’s bill stems from concerns by Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee that no charges could be brought against a teacher she believes impregnated an 18-year-old special needs student.”

Virginia Legislature Approves Virtual, Charter School Bills.
The AP (3/15) reported, “Online schools aided by state funds appear to be heading to Virginia after both chambers of the legislature last week passed virtual and charter school measures pushed by Gov. Bob McDonnell [R].” According to the AP, the Virginia Senate “approved bills March 9 that would give the state a role in the creation and financing of such schools, despite objections from some lawmakers that doing so would raid public school funding in a time of unprecedented budget cuts,” and the “state House of Delegates had approved the measures the day before.” McDonnell “said the legislation would particularly benefit at-risk and disadvantaged students.”

ACLU Sues School In Indiana Over Expected Graduation Prayer.
The AP (3/16) reports that Eric Workman, valedictorian of Greenwood High School in Indiana “wants a federal judge to stop a prayer at graduation. It’s a prayer the senior class voted on and approved but” the 18-year-old argues that “both the vote and the prayer violate the First Amendment.” Last week, the ACLU “filed suit Thursday in federal court on behalf of the high school senior asking for an injunction to stop the prayer and future votes and asks for nominal damages.” ACLU Legal Director Ken Falk said, “There should not be prayer at any graduation ceremony per the Supreme Court and if any other school is doing it than they should look this as an instruction moment and realize what they are doing is unconstitutional.”

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Facilities
Earthquake Review Of Utah Schools Is Nearly Complete, Lawmaker Says.
The Salt Lake Tribune (3/16, Fahys) reports that “Utah lawmakers balked once again at legislation to inventory Utah public schools to see how they would weather a strong earthquake.” Instead, “they plan ‘to study whether to require a school district or charter school to conduct a seismic evaluation’ of its buildings.” On Monday, Finance Director Larry Newton said that “an earthquake review is” nearly complete. “The inventory is happening. … We’ve been gathering the information for two months. The data is coming in,” he said. The Salt Lake Tribune notes that “an informal survey estimates that 58 percent of about 800 school buildings were constructed before modern seismic standards of the mid-1970s. With about 560,000 students in public and charter school buildings and a reasonable likelihood that Utah will face a magnitude-7.5 temblor, a statewide to-do list is urgently needed, earthquake experts say.”

School Finance
Budget Cuts Lead To Larger Class Sizes In Kansas, Missouri Districts.
The AP (3/15) reported that larger class sizes are “a growing concern as Kansas and Missouri districts cuts millions of dollars from their budgets. Fewer teachers means bigger classes — and teachers aren’t the only ones who are worried.” In Kansas, “school districts have seen the state cut $200 million over the past year, while Missouri has cut $30.3 million for elementary and secondary education.” According to the AP, the cuts have prompted parents in Kansas’ Shawnee Mission School District to begin discussing “ways they can volunteer more as the teaching and support staff dwindles.”

Also in the News
Middle School Teacher Suspended For Writing “Loser” On Student’s Paper.
FOX News (3/16) reports that “a North Carolina teacher…has been suspended after being accused of writing ‘loser’ on a sixth-grade student’s school work.” A teacher at Enka Middle School was accused by a parent “of writing ‘-20% for being a LOSER’ on an assignment done by her daughter, after she had already complained about him writing the word ‘loser’ on previous assignments.” The teacher “apologized, saying using that kind of language is his way of relating to his students.”

Education Stakeholders Debate Whether All Should Seek College Educations.
USA Today (3/16, Marklein) reports, “Long before President Obama vowed last year that America will ‘have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world’ by 2020, the premium placed on going to college was firmly embedded in the American psyche. … And yet, there’s an undercurrent of concern about a group of students – sometimes called ‘the forgotten half,’ a phrase coined 22 years ago by social scientists studying at-risk young people – who, for whatever reason, do not think college is for them.” According to USA Today, what is “still getting lost, some argue, is that too many students are going to college not because they want to, but because they think they have to.”

NEA in the News
Lawmakers Urged To Back Lieberman’s Efforts To Fund DC Voucher Program.
The Washington Post (3/16) editorializes, “The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program may finally get the attention it is due on the floor of the Senate,” as Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I) “plans to offer an amendment to the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill that would continue federally funded vouchers for low-income students attending private schools in Washington.” The Post notes that the NEA, “claims the program ‘has yielded no evidence of positive academic impact on the students the program was designed to assist.’” Meanwhile, “Others, including the American Civil Liberties Union, say it’s improper to use taxpayer dollars to fund the religious education of children.” The Post refutes these claims, concluding that parents consistently “cite their satisfaction with schools that are safer, where students are more respectful, and where teachers better meet their children’s needs. Politicians like to say they want to do what is best for kids; here’s their chance.”

Obama Proposes Changes To No Child Left Behind.
USA Today (3/15, Toppo) reports that in his radio address on Saturday, President Obama announced plans to overhaul No Child Left Behind. He is “asking Congress to” replace the old “old system under NCLB in which schools either passed or failed and replace it with one that labels schools” as either “high-performing, needs improvement, or chronically low-performing,” said Education Secretary Arne Duncan. The proposed changes are “getting mixed reaction among educators: Teachers unions complained that teachers are being scapegoated by the overhaul; a school board leader praised it but called for more flexibility; and an administrators group said it was just glad to see NCLB go away.” NEA President Dennis Van Roekel “said the union was expecting a broader effort. Instead, the blueprint still relies on standardized tests and ‘too much top-down scapegoating of teachers and not enough collaboration.’”

The New York Times (3/14, A1, Dillon) reported on its front page that the Obama administration seeks to “replace the law’s pass-fail school grading system with one that would measure individual students’ academic growth and judge schools based not on test scores alone but also on indicators like pupil attendance, graduation rates and learning climate. And while the proposal calls for more vigorous interventions in failing schools, it would also reward top performers and lessen federal interference in tens of thousands of reasonably well-run schools in the middle.” The Times notes that Van Roekel and other union leaders and educators said they did not approve of Obama’s proposal. Meanwhile, Susan Traiman, “a director at the Business Roundtable, a group that represents corporate executives, called the proposals a ‘really positive step forward.’” She said that “the business community especially liked the proposed new goal of helping all students graduate from high school ready for college and career.”

Bloomberg News (3/14, Peterson, Brower) added that “the proposal would fund the overhauled law at $28 billion in fiscal 2011, which is $3 billion more than states, districts and schools received this year under No Child Left Behind, according to an Education Department summary. It includes $7.8 billion in competitive grants for states that embrace the plan’s primary priorities.”

The Los Angeles Times (3/14, Serrano), the Christian Science Monitor (3/14, Nichols) lists “five key changes that the Obama administration is proposing.” Education Week (3/13, Klein), the Washington Post (3/14, Anderson), and the AP (3/13, Turner) also covered the story.

Van Roekel Responds To Obama’s Plan For No Child Left Behind. Maureen Downey wrote in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (3/13, Downey) “Get Schooled” blog that one of “the first reactions to the new Obama plan” came from NEA President Dennis Van Roekel. Downey reprints a statement from Van Roekel that begins, “We are disappointed by this first effort by the Administration to rectify the considerable problems in the current federal education law.” Van Roekel added that the NEA was “expecting more funding stability to enable states to meet higher expectations. Instead, the ‘blueprint’ requires states to compete for critical resources, setting up another winners-and-losers scenario.” He concludes, “The National Education Association cannot support the Administration’s plan at this time.”

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In the Classroom
Study Assesses Impact Of Chicago Schools’ Curriculum Overhaul.
Education Week (3/15, Aarons) reports, “A policy change that made college-preparatory courses the default high school curriculum in the Chicago public schools increased the number of science courses that students took and passed. But it also kept some students from taking higher-level science courses and did not increase the college-going rate, according to a study by the Consortium on Chicago School Research.” According to Education Week, the study “examines the effects of increasing science coursetaking in the nation’s third-largest school district.”

Every Senior At All-Boys High School In Chicago Gets Accepted Into College. ABC News (3/15, Aasen, Bass) reports on its website that every student in “the first graduating class at” Chicago’s Urban Prep Charter Academy has been accepted to college. The 107 students at the all-boys school come “from one of the toughest neighborhoods on the South Side of Chicago.” And, “just four years ago, when” the school was founded by Tim King, “only 4 percent of the class was reading at grade level.” Chicago’s Urban Prep Charter Academy is “open to all” male students, who are chosen “by a lottery.” Classes begin at 8:30 am and end at 4:30 pm — “that’s 72,000 more minutes in high school than most other students — almost an extra school year.” Although “the school isn’t limited to African American students,” the student body “reflects the makeup of the neighborhood.”

Teachers In North Carolina District Managing Class Sizes Of Up To 35 Students.
North Carolina’s News & Observer (3/15, Bonner) reports that mainly due to state “of budget cuts that sacrificed instructors,” high school classes in Wake County, North Carolina are larger now that in previous years, “with some hitting 32 to 35 students.” This year, “the proportion of state funds going to public education dropped to 35 percent, down from 39.4 percent last year and more than 50 percent in 1970, according to” a report by the state Department of Public Instruction. After class sizes increased, students say they have had to wait “longer for teachers to return corrected quizzes and papers.” One student also said that in a class of 33 students, it is “harder for the teacher to control the kids.”

Middle School’s Green Team Teaches Sustainability, Environmental Responsibility.
California’s Press-Telegram (3/14, Peters) reported on Hughes Middle School’s Green Team, a students club with about “100 members” that “requires a willingness to dig through trash and dirt.” The Press-Telegram noted, “More than 70 public and private schools throughout Long Beach have ‘green’ programs that incorporate litter reduction and recycling programs into the classrooms.” These schools have contributed to the city “about 20 tons per week of recyclable material,” which has “played a large role in lowering the city’s total refuse, city Environmental Services Bureau recycling coordinator Lisa Harris said.” In addition to “recycling and litter abatement, the Green Team at Hughes implements gardening and landscape practices that teach students sustainability and environmental responsibility,” said Cathy Procopio, co-head of the school’s “environmental education program.”

New Jersey High School Group Makes Music With Plastic Buckets.
The New York Times (3/14, Gorce) reported on the Jaguar Bucket Ensemble at East Orange (NJ) Campus High School, a 45-member group that bangs “out songs using drumsticks and overturned five-gallon plastic paint buckets. … The ensemble, which also uses a variety of traditional percussion instruments and some made from PVC pipe, owes a debt to both the Blue Man Group and the musical ‘Stomp.’” According to the Times, “Founded by Patrick O’Donnell, a music teacher at the school, in September 2008, it has performed since then with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark.”

Elementary Students In Texas Decorate Crutches For Haiti Quake Victims.
The Denton (TX) Record-Chronicle (3/15, Tabor) reports that last week, “the students at Ryan Elementary School…decorated 18 donated metal crutches, using permanent markers to create a variety of shapes such as polka dots, lines and stars in bright colors.” The crutches will be donated to “Haitians devastated by the country’s recent earthquake.” Teacher Nancy Walkup, who organized the activity, said that “involving students in a project that decorates crutches for disabled citizens offers them ‘a real connection to what’s happening in Haiti.’” The teacher “plans to transport the decorated crutches to Burnet, headquarters of the Global Art Initiative’s Global Crutch Project, during spring break this week.”

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On the Job
More Schools Hiring Recess Coaches To Curb Bullying, Address Behavior Issues.
The New York Times (3/15, Hu) reports that Broadway Elementary School in Newark, NJ “is one of a growing number across the country that are reining in recess to curb bullying and behavior problems, foster social skills and address concerns over obesity” via the hiring of recess coaches. According to the Times, Playworks, “a California-based nonprofit organization that hired” Brandi Parker “to run the recess program at Broadway Elementary, began a major expansion in 2008 with an $18 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. It has placed recess coaches in 170 schools in low-income areas of nine cities, including Boston, Washington and Los Angeles, and of Silicon Valley.”

Florida High School Aims To Use Its “Diversity Of Culture” As Teaching Tool.
The St. Petersburg Times (3/14, Solochek) reported that Gulf High School in New Port Richey, Florida, “is filled with people from different countries who speak different languages, 30 in all (including English).” The mixture is due to several “factors – the school’s culturally flavored International Baccalaureate program, the proximity of agencies that serve immigrant and refugee families, the availability of nearby affordable housing, and a growing medical community that has attracted physicians from the Middle East and Asia.” Gulf High Principal Steve Knobl said that he wants “to focus on the diversity of culture and language as a strength, one that can help students understand and deal with the wider world. But he also wants them to embrace something they all have in common.” Still, “the school has done little extra to highlight the cultural differences in the student body.” And, according to some teachers, that works “in many ways.”

Law & Policy
Texas Board Of Education Approves Changes To Social Studies Curriculum.
The AP (3/13, Castro) reported that on Friday, the voted on changes to the state’s “social studies, history, and economics” curriculum. “Teachers in Texas will be required to cover the Judeo-Christian influences of the nation’s Founding Fathers, but not highlight the philosophical rationale for the separation of church and state. … Following three days of impassioned and acrimonious debate, the board gave preliminary approval to the new standards with a 10-5 party line vote.”

The New York Times (3/13, McKinley) notes that before voting on the changes, “efforts by Hispanic board members to include more Latino figures as role models for the state’s large Hispanic population were consistently defeated, prompting one member, Mary Helen Berlanga, to storm out of a meeting late Thursday night, saying, ‘They can just pretend this is a white America and Hispanics don’t exist.’” Berlanga also said that the approved changes rewrote “history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world.”

Teachers At School In Baltimore Say Principal Asked Them To Buy Thousands In Cosmetics.
The Baltimore Sun (3/14, Bowie) reported that “the principal of a Baltimore City high school recruited seven Filipino teachers on her staff to buy and resell thousands of dollars of Mary Kay cosmetics, a business arrangement the teachers entered reluctantly but felt would keep them in good standing with their boss.” According to three of the teachers, Principal Janice Williams, “who is an independent sales director for Mary Kay,” asked the teachers on various occasions to “for their credit cards to purchase lipstick, perfume, foundation and eye makeup,” even though “they never intended to use the products and were unable to resell most of them.” Williams told the Baltimore Sun that the allegations were untrue. The Baltimore Sun notes that “The city school board’s ethics code prohibits salaried employees from using ‘the prestige of their offices for their own personal gain or that of another.’”

Also in the News

Competition Encourages Students To Use Creativity, Teamwork In “Unique Challenges.”
The Nashua (NH) Telegraph (3/14, Michaelson) reported on New Hampshire Destination ImagiNation competition, “where teams of students are challenged to use their creativity and teamwork to score big in unique challenges.” Two regional competitions were held on Saturday. Winners of those competitions will “compete in the state finals in Nashua on March 27.” For the competition, “each team participated in one prepared Team Challenge and one Instant Challenge, which is presented to the team at the competition.” All of the challenges incorporated “a broad range of components including theater, construction, research and robotic technology,” and teams were “judged by specific criteria by trained appraisers, who award points on their performance and creativity.” The Nashua Telegraph notes that “the Destination ImagiNation organization has been active for 29 years and has more than 1.3 million alumni.”

Pennsylvania Educator Says High School Is Key To College Success.
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (3/14, Crawford) reported that the National Center for Education Statistics estimates that “less than two-thirds of students who enroll in a four-year college in Pennsylvania will earn a bachelor’s degree within six years.” The Pennsylvania Department of Education has “joined with Complete College America, an alliance with 16 other states,” to establish “goals for increasing graduation rates and to take a hard look at why it is so difficult for many students to earn a degree.” The alliance may look into why “many students graduate from high school without the academic skills they need to succeed in college.” Carol Rush, vice president of academic affairs for Westmoreland County Community College, noted that “getting students on track to graduate from college begins in high school.” Said Rush, “Some of the high schools that know they’re struggling have asked us to work with them, and I think that’s going to make a difference over the next five years.”

NEA in the News
Van Roekel Highlights Challenge Of Making Lessons “Relevant To Students.”
Dennis Van Roekel wrote in a commentary for the Huffington Post (3/13, Van Roekel) titled, “What Slumdog Teaches Us About Education,” that a “scenario” in the movie Slumdog Millionaire reminded him “about how different people learn things in different ways.” Like the main character I the film, Jamal, “people everywhere” gain “knowledge through experience.” Van Roekel adds, “One of the greatest challenges we face as educators is making the curriculum exciting and relevant to students. To do this, we must understand how they live and tap into their own experiences.” Like Jamal, “many students from poor backgrounds…fare poorly on standardized tests, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t intelligent.” Teachers, he adds “must find the intelligence in each child, and engage him or her in a way that promotes creative thinking.”

Governors, State School Chiefs To Propose Common Academic Standards.
The Washington Post (3/10, Anderson) reports on its front page, “The nation’s governors and state school chiefs will propose standards Wednesday for what students should learn in English and math, from kindergarten through high school, a crucial step in President Obama’s campaign to raise academic standards across the country.” The Post adds that the “proposal from the National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers, called ‘common core’ rather than national standards, seeks to sidestep the federalism debate,” as the Obama administration “played no role in drafting the blueprint.” The Post notes that Alaska and Texas were the only states not to endorse the effort last year.

More States Emphasizing College, Career Standards. Education Week (3/10, Robelen) reports, “Just as a draft of K-12 common standards designed to prepare students for college and the workforce was set to be released for public comment this week, a new report finds that more than half the states have revamped their high school standards to emphasize such readiness upon graduation.” The report, from nonprofit Achieve, also found “that states have been slower to embrace assessments, high school graduation requirements, and, most especially, ‘comprehensive’ accountability systems to match the standards.” Achieve President Michael Cohen said, “First and foremost, college and career readiness is now a national priority, as a result of the leadership of the states.” The Achieve report indicates “the number of states with standards it deems ‘college- and career-ready’ has grown from three to 31 since 2005 — with eight added in the past year.”

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In the Classroom
School Recognized For Success With Students Who Struggled Elsewhere.
The Roseburg (OR) News-Review (3/10, Sullivan) reports on the Phoenix Charter School in Roseburg, “which serves seventh- through 12th-graders and was recognized last week for its ability to help kids who have struggled elsewhere succeed.” Principal Jerry Runnels said, “I’m glad that they realize what we’re trying to do — we’re trying to engage the students,” he said. “It’s not the same old, same old.” Officials also emphasized the importance of connecting classroom experience to students’ lives outside of school. The school’s career and technical education curriculum incorporates, among other things, the Oregon Youth Conservation Corps. The program puts “students into a working environment where they learn skills while earning credits toward graduation,” as well as “minimum wages through Title II and III funding, and sometimes college credit and college scholarships.”

Some Schools Offer Students Gum, Candy During Testing To Increase Concentration.
The Frederick (MD) News-Post (3/9, Neal) reported, “Citing research that shows chewing increases the ability to concentrate and has a positive effect on thinking, memory and other cognitive tasks, many schools” in Maryland “are offering hard candy and chewing gum to students this week.” North Frederick Elementary School, for instance, “has been issuing candy and gum during the tests for three years. … At North Frederick , each day this week has a theme attached to a specific candy, Myers said, like ‘Kiss Your Brain’ for a certain small chocolate morsel, and ‘Here’s a Smartie for Our Smarties.’”

Elementary Students In Florida Vote On Names For Six Local Lakes.
The Deland-Deltona (FL) Beacon (3/10, Hatfield) reports that “when tropical storms in recent years flooded DeBary’s lakes, city officials realized flooding wasn’t their only problem. Six of the city’s lakes and ponds had no names.” Recently, students at DeBary Elementary School voted on names for the lakes. They chose: Eagles Eye Lake, Golden Eagle Lake, Peaceful Eagle Lake, Eye of the Eagle Lake, DeBary Freedom Lake, and Soaring Eagle Lake. The Beacon notes that “the eagle is DeBary Elementary’s mascot.” On March 5, the school held a “short ceremony” to reveal the names.

On the Job
Peer-Ratings In Teacher Evaluations May Begin This Fall In Hillsborough County, Florida.
The St. Petersburg Times (3/10, Nguyen) reports that beginning “as early as this fall, every Hillsborough County schoolteacher will be subject to ratings by his or her peers.” The new procedure is “part of a reform effort under way to improve schools through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The board’s vote dedicates $360,000 to an online training course for the peer evaluation system that, by 2013, will help determine whether teachers qualify for tenure or merit pay.” The new system will rely on principal and peer evaluations “for 30 percent of” teachers’ ratings, “while student performance over three years will comprise the remaining 40 percent.”

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Minneapolis Seeks To Open First Teacher-Run School In 2011.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune (3/10, Johns) reports that this week, “the Minneapolis school board voted…to open Minnesota’s first school run by its teachers.” The target opening date for the French-immersion elementary school “in north Minneapolis” is 2011. It “would be the state’s first ‘self-governed’ school.” The Star Tribune notes that “under the new ‘self-governed’ schools law, teachers can spearhead the creation of charter-like schools, but under the school district’s umbrella.” The idea, which “grew out of frustration that many schools with poor students are struggling,” is “already being tried in several cities nationwide.”

Effect Of Total School Restructuring On Education Outcomes Analyzed.
USA Today (3/10, Toppo) reports, “Is the wholesale firing of teachers and administrators at an underperforming Rhode Island high school just the kind of get-tough intervention students need,” or “is it an unproven, risky disaster waiting to happen?” According to USA Today, “Education reformers say Obama was correct to support Central Falls Superintendent Frances Gallo, as Education Secretary Arne Duncan said, for ‘doing the right thing for kids.’ … Scratch beneath the surface, and it’s not clear who’s right” as successful school turnaround examples “abound, but critics say the evidence is anecdotal.”

The Washington Times (3/10, Curlin) reports, “President Obama’s approval of the recent firing of teachers at a Rhode Island high school has spurred a debate among education specialists about whether staff turnover will help underperforming schools. Some experts agree that it is appropriate for underperforming schools to start over with a new staff, an element of Mr. Obama’s initiative to overhaul lowest-performing public schools.” However, other education stakeholders “say such drastic turnover will only hurt student performance.”

Editorial: Dallas Education Stakeholders Need Sense Of Urgency In School Turnaround Effort. The Dallas Morning News (3/10) editorializes, “TAKS time has arrived again in Dallas, and never has it been more critical for 10 of its high schools” which have “slipped to the bottom of the [NCLB] ranking system. … Clearly, these 10 campuses have nothing less than their futures riding on the outcome of the state’s annual Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, which the federal government uses in evaluating schools.” According to the Morning News, the “school district needs to act innovatively, aggressively and passionately in turning each of these high schools around or starting over.”

Law & Policy
Education Department To Launch Civil Rights Probe Of Los Angeles School District.
The Los Angeles Times (3/10, Blume) reports that the US Education Department “has singled out the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) for its first major investigation under a reinvigorated Office for Civil Rights, officials said Tuesday. The focus of the probe…will be whether the nation’s second-largest district provides adequate services to students learning English.” According to the Times, Department of Education’s Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Russlynn Ali “plans to announce the inquiry at a news conference Wednesday” and is quoted saying, “This is about helping kids receive a good education, the education they deserve.”

The AP (3/9) reported that the Department of Education “is planning to examine the Los Angeles Unified School District’s low achieving English-language learning program to determine whether those students are being denied a fair education.” According to the AP, “Problems in LAUSD’s English-language learning program were highlighted last fall in a study by the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute. The study, which looked at the data of thousands of Los Angeles students in the sixth grade in 1999, found that a significant proportion of English-language learners-29 percent-are never reclassified as English proficient.”

NAEP Board Curbs Special Ed And ELL Exclusions.
Education Week (3/9, Sawchuk) reported, “Over the objection of officials at the statistical wing of the Department of Education, the independent body that sets policy for the National Assessment of Educational Progress has approved a policy that will limit school officials’ ability to exclude students with disabilities and English-language learners from the national exams.” According to Education Week, “Beginning with the 2011 releases, the National Assessment Governing Board will also highlight states and districts that don’t meet testing-participation targets for those populations.”

Safety & Security
Grade-Changing Scandal At Maryland School Exposed Common Security Gap, Experts Say.
The Washington Post (3/10, Birnbaum, Johnson) reports that Montgomery County, MD “school officials have not yet closed gaps in their computer system that allowed students at a high-performing Potomac high school to change dozens of grades using a device that can be bought from Amazon.com for $69. And other school systems…remain just as vulnerable, school officials said Tuesday.” According to the Post, computer experts said nearly “every school system that protects its teachers’ data with a simple username and password is vulnerable” and “accessing a teacher’s computer files is extremely common.”

Also in the News
Public Schools Launch Marketing Campaigns To Compete With Charters.
The New York Times (3/10, Medina) reports, “As charter schools have grown around the country, both in number and in popularity, public school principals…are being forced to compete for bodies or risk having their schools closed. So among their many challenges, some of these principals, who had never given much thought to attracting students, have been spending considerable time toiling over ways to market their schools.” According to the Times, public school principals “are revamping school logos, encouraging students and teachers to wear T-shirts emblazoned with the new designs,” and some principals “have worked with professional marketing firms to create sophisticated Web sites and blogs.”

Illinois Mayor To Add Schools Superintendent Duties To Workload.
The Chicago Tribune (3/9, Schorsch) reported that Harvey, IL Mayor Eric Kellogg has been tapped to also assume the role of schools superintendent, raising conflict-of-interest questions among some stakeholders. The Tribune added, “There’s nothing illegal in Illinois about running a school district and a city at the same time or receiving a promotion from a board that includes relatives and city employees. School districts often promote from within, but allowing someone to have those two taxpayer-funded jobs is unusual, experts say.”

NEA in the News
Vermont Lawmakers Consider Reducing Number Of School Districts From 260 To 16.
WPTZ-TV Montpelier (3/10) reports that Vermont “state lawmakers returned to the capital Tuesday,” with “House and Senate appropriations committees” considering “ways to close a $150 million deficit.” A bill by Sen. Robert Hartwell (D) would “redraw Vermont’s 260 local school districts into 16 new (much larger) districts.” In addition, the “bill would give the commissioner of education the authority to redraw school districts so they would be managed by one superintendent, with one labor union contract for its unionized teachers.” Under the proposed legislation, students would not “have to travel more than 10 miles to get to school” and “parents could send their child to any school within the new district.” Joel Cook of the Vermont National Education Association (VNEA) said that 16 districts were too few and that the VNEA did not support mandating district consolidation.

West Virginia Awarded Nearly $22 Million In Federal School Turnaround Funds.
The Charleston (WV) Gazette (3/11, White) reported that West Virginia “is the first state to be awarded federal money to turn around the lowest performing schools in the state, state schools Superintendent Steve Paine said Thursday.” The nearly $22 million in School Improvement Grant funds, “part of $3.5 billion in federal stimulus money, comes with strings attached. County school leaders must agree to big changes such as firing principals, closing schools, cutting staff and allowing only half the teachers to return at poorly performing schools.”

The AP (3/11, Dickerscheid) reported, “West Virginia is getting nearly $22 million in federal stimulus money to help take drastic measures to turn around its worst-performing schools. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced Thursday that West Virginia is the first state to receive money through its School Improvement Grants program.” According to the AP, “Selected districts have to agree to replace principals, overhaul curriculum and extend learning times as early as next fall.”

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In the Classroom
Texas Physical Education Teacher Recognized At State, National Levels For Innovative Programs.
The San Antonio Express-News (3/11, Davis) reports that Terri O’Bryant, a physical education teacher at Converse Elementary School in Converse, Texas, was recently honored by “state and national organizations…for her innovative programs and passion for her 725 students.” She was named Elementary School Physical Educator of the Year by the Texas Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance last December and she will receive one of 10 grants from the American Heart Association next week. “The award will go to buy new gym equipment.” The Express News notes that during O’Bryant’s gym classes, “there are…tag races with rubber chickens” and garbage-can tosses. Students also dance and “do the cha-cha slide – all part of her creed of doing whatever it takes to inspire her kids to stay fit.”

Famed Northern Virginia High School Labeled A “Persistently Lowest Achieving School.”
The Washington Post (3/12, Chandler) reports that T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia, is “one of 17 in Virginia — and the only one in Northern Virginia — to be dubbed a ‘persistently lowest achieving school,’ as determined by standardized test results.” Although the school’s “early integration efforts were celebrated in the movie ‘Remember the Titans,’” T.C. Williams struggles in lifting “the achievement of its large population of minority students, whose performance lags behind those of white students at the school.” The Post adds that the high school “has never met all federal testing benchmarks required by the No Child Left Behind law.” In the last year, however, “the school’s staff began a series of reforms…including opening a college and career center and adding graduation coaches and tutorial services.” Alexandria Superintendent Morton Sherman is considering “revamping instruction…expanding professional development,” and “replacing a significant portion of the faculty.”

Kindergartners Attend Ball State University To Learn About Manufacturing.
The Muncie (IN) Star Press (3/12, Reichanadter) reports that kindergartners at Pleasant View Elementary School attended Ball State University last week to learn “about manufacturing. … And at the end of the day, they each got to take home the product they had a hand in creating: a wooden school bus emblazoned with Yorktown on both sides.” The lesson was part of a program that teaches “tikes about economics and production” and “gives the university students an opportunity to try out their teaching skills.”

On the Job
Superintendent Says Kansas City Schools Are Ready To “Rise From The Ashes”.
The New York Times (3/12, Saulny) reports that the suddenness of “the Kansas City school board’s decision to shutter 28 of its 61 schools” hints at “a depth of dysfunction…that is rarely associated with Kansas City, a lively heartland town with a reputation for order.” According to the Times, “Students have been leaving the Kansas City public schools in droves” over the last ten years to attend schools in “better suburban districts or charter schools.” Many “education experts” have “praised” Kansas city’s “new schools superintendent, John Covington, who was hired in April from the Pueblo, Colorado…for pushing for change.”

The Kansas City Star (3/12, Robertson) reports that Kansas City School District Superintendent John Covington says his “his staff had already begun developing plans to close 26 schools and improve instruction in classrooms” in anticipation of a 5-4 vote by Kansas City School Board approving his vision to dramatically downsize the district. “Based on district reports and interviews with members of [Covington's] Cabinet, the Kansas City Star explains how the school district intends reduce staff, incorporate Teach for America, “blend middle school and high school grades,” and close buildings. The district “is ready ‘to rise from the ashes,’” said Covington, adding, “It is my firm conviction. … I am confident in the ability of the leadership team I have, that the school board will come back to the table, working in the spirit of cooperation.”

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Law & Policy
Texas Education Board Rejects Proposal To Teach Reasons For “Prohibition Of State Religion.”
The Dallas Morning News (3/12, Stutz) reports that in a 10-5 vote, the Texas State Board of Education on Thursday rejected a “proposal to require that…students be taught the reasons behind the prohibition of a state religion in the Bill of Rights.” Board member Mavis Knight (D-Dallas) proposed the amendments, which “called on students to ‘examine’ the reasons the Founding Fathers ‘protected religious freedom in America by barring government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion over all others.’” However, the Dallas Morning News notes, “many religious conservatives, including a board-appointed curriculum expert, contend that separation of church and state is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution or Bill of Rights.” And Republicans on the board said that the proposal “was based on an inaccurate interpretation of what the Founding Fathers wanted.”

Virginia Bill Aims To Protect Student-Athletes With Head Injuries.
The Washington Post (3/12, Helderman) reports that the Virginia General Assembly “has passed legislation that would require high school coaches and others to bench student-athletes who show signs of having suffered concussions until they are cleared for further play by a licensed health professional. Sponsored by” state Sen. Ralph S. Northam (D), a pediatric neurologist, “the measure comes in response to studies that have shown high school students frequently return to play too soon after suffering concussions and that repeated concussions can have long-term health effects.” Northam “said he regularly sees high school students who have suffered concussions and has to persuade them not to return immediately to action.”

Facilities
Report Says Colorado Public Schools Need $18 Billion In Renovations.
The Denver Post (3/11, Meyer) reported, “Colorado’s 8,419 public-school buildings need almost $18 billion worth of construction work, energy upgrades and overall maintenance, according to a statewide facilities assessment. Teams of evaluators last year examined every kindergarten through 12th-grade public-school building in Colorado, looking at energy use, overall condition and whether current or future educational needs were being met.” According to the Post, “The assessment was commissioned by the state’s Public School Capital Construction Assistance Board to help decide how to allocate grant money from the Building Excellent Schools Today Act – a fund that directs money from the state’s School Trust Lands to school renovation.”

School Finance
High Schools In Maryland District Will Get $24,000 In Seized Drug Money For Post-Prom Parties.
The Baltimore Sun (3/12, Williams) reports that “Howard County [Maryland] Executive Ken Ulman announced Wednesday that he will donate $2,000 to all 12 county high schools for their post-prom party efforts. The $24,000 will come from money seized during drug-related crimes.” The grants will “to help defray the costs of facility rental, food, refreshments and entertainment.”

Shopping Campaign Aims To Generate More Revenue For Utah District.
The Salt Lake Tribune (3/12, Drake) reports on an initiative called ShopWest that “aims to boost city revenues” in West Jordan, Utah “with sales taxes, which proponents believe would raise property values over the long term.” In turn, “those higher property taxes would eventually benefit the Jordan School District, which is suffering a $30 million shortfall due partly to losing about 58 percent of its tax revenue when residents of the east side voted to create the new Canyons district.” Paul Pugmire, who started the initiative, said that “ShopWest is asking that when faced with equal options…residents choose the west-side option,” instead of the east-side option, which would not benefit the Jordan district. The Salt Lake Tribune points out that “it will be a few years before the school district sees a benefit” from the effort.

Also in the News
Teaching Tools Program Donates School Supplies To Haiti.
The Tampa Tribune (3/12, Ackerman) reports that the Haitian Consul General in Miami “visited the warehouse for the Hillsborough Education Foundation’s Teaching Tools program” on Thursday to receive “eight pallets of school supplies” the foundation is donating to Haiti. During his visit, Ralph Latortue told donors, “The situation in Haiti is improving, but not enough, very slowly. … It’s going to be a very long process.” He “estimated that 500 schools had been destroyed in the capital and there are a half-million children who need to go to school.” Of the gifts, Latortue said, “I’m speechless. It’s heartwarming,” noting that “the school supplies are an important gift to the Haitian students.”

WFTS-TV Tampa (3/11) reported that the donated supplies included “crayons, spiral notebooks, dry-erase markers, recycled paper,” pens, and “two paper cutters.” Hillsborough’s Teaching Tools program “normally helps at-risk students with basic school supplies. Teachers from the county’s Title I schools can visit the Supply Store once a month to get up to $250 worth of free supplies for their classrooms.”

Los Angeles Schools Chief To Reassign Teachers Involved In Black History Month Controversy.
The Los Angeles Times (3/12, Zavis) reports that Los Angeles Schools Superintendent Ramon C. Cortines “said Thursday that he will reassign three South Los Angeles elementary school teachers who were suspended for having their students display pictures of O.J. Simpson, Dennis Rodman and RuPaul in a Black History Month parade. Cortines said he had no evidence that the teachers’ actions were racially motivated,” but added, “I think it was an exercise of very poor judgment.” The Times adds, “The teachers, white men who teach first, second and fourth grades at Wadsworth Avenue Elementary School, were suspended without pay for three days and will be kept out of the classroom until they are assigned to three other schools.”

NEA in the News
Pennsylvania Education Association Opposes Changes To School Employees’ Retirement System.
The Lancaster (PA) New Era (3/12) reports that Pennsylvania “Legislators and state associations representing school boards and school business managers are calling for major changes” to the Pennsylvania’s School Employees’ Retirement System, in order “to cut costs and avoid future massive rate hikes.” While the Pennsylvania State Education Association, “which represents a majority of PSERS members, opposes changes to the current system,” a study by the State Government Commission in 2004 says that “the PSERS plan is one of the most generous.” According to the report, “the average PSERS retiree” would need “no additional savings…to maintain a pre-retirement standard of living.” The Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials favors “reducing many of the benefits cited in that 2004 study.” The New Era lists the changes the Pennsylvania ASBO supports.

NEA To Offer Math Professional Development Courses Through I CAN Learn.
T.H.E. Journal (3/11, Aronowitz) reports that the NEA’s “Academy has announced” its partnership with “I CAN Learn to help both K-12 and college mathematics educators improve content knowledge and learn new classroom strategies.” Professional development courses offered through the I CAN Learn system include “building math concepts and process and communication skills, improving math reasoning skills, increasing math vocabulary knowledge, and presenting strategies for finding contextual meaning.” NEA members could earn “2 continuing education units for each completed course, subject to approval by state and local educational certification agencies.”

Kansas City, Missouri, Board Of Education To Close Nearly Half Of All Schools.
The New York Times (3/11, Saulny) reports that the Kansas City (MO) Board of Education “voted Wednesday night to close almost half of the city’s public schools, accepting a sweeping and contentious plan to shrink the system in the face of dwindling enrollment, budget cuts and a $50 million deficit. In a 5-to-4 vote, the members endorsed the Right-Size plan, proposed by the schools superintendent, John Covington, to close 28 of the city’s 61 schools and cut 700 of 3,000 jobs, including those of 285 teachers.” The Times adds, “For decades, national education experts said, the Kansas City schools had not responded to changes in demographics that would have spared them such a drastic one-time cut.”

The AP (3/10, Hollingsworth) reported that “less than a third of elementary students in the city schools read at or above grade level,” and “in most of the schools, fewer than a quarter of students are proficient at their grade levels.” The AP added, “District officials say the closings will improve achievement by allowing the system to focus its resources.”

USA Today (3/11) reports that in addition to the closings, “teachers at six other low-performing schools will have to reapply for their jobs…the district will sell its downtown central office,” and “700 of 3,000 jobs, including 285 teachers,” will be eliminated under “the plan, proposed by Superintendent John Covington.” The Kansas City Star (3/11, Robertson, Rodriguez) also covers the story.

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In the Classroom
Schools Emphasize Reading, Fun At Read Across America Events.
The St. Petersburg Times (3/11, Ritchie) reports that “a week of activities at” Pine Grove Elementary School in Brooksville, Florida, “culminated with a Green Eggs and Ham Dr. Seuss celebration on Friday.” The week began “with Crazy Hat Day” on Monday, “Thing One and Thing Two Day” Tuesday, “Crazy Socks Day” Wednesday, and “Thursday was Stuffed Animal Day. Students were allowed to bring stuffed toys to school to hold during reading times.” On Friday, “‘Scrambled Eggs Super!’ was read, and surprises in plastic eggs were distributed in the media center.” Also in the media center, “students and their families were invited to make Dr. Seuss things, such as Cat in the Hat hats, picture frames, door hangers and flip books.”

The St. Petersburg Times (3/11, Ritchie) reports, “There was a lot of reading going on at Eastside Elementary School as it hosted community members and business partners for the National Education Association’s Read Across America event on March 2.” The visitors arrived in the morning to spend “a little bit of their day encouraging students to read and showing them how much fun it can be.” Guests included Hernando County School Board member James Yant and Hernando County Fire Rescue Assistant Chief Frank DeFrancesco The school also held a book giveaway in which “every kindergarten child received a new book.” After the visitors left, “there were other activities” throughout the day, such as “the school’s ‘Reading Cheer’ recitation and making Dr. Seuss hats and door decorations.”

The Mountain Statesman (3/10, Flohr) reports that “the NEA purpose of Read Across America says, ‘Motivating children to read is an important factor in student achievement and creating lifelong successful readers.’ With that in mind, the weeklong awareness and campaign kicked off across the country.” At Flemington Elementary School in Taylor County, West Virginia, the cat from “The Cat in the Hat” visited students and “took the opportunity to read aloud a tongue twister, made up of rhyming words and quirky characters written by Dr. Seuss.”

New York City School Implements Staggered Teaching Schedule.
Education Week (3/10, Sawchuk) reports on the Brooklyn Generation School in New York City, noting that its teachers “attribute the collegial atmosphere” at the school to its “novel way of differentiating teachers’ roles and staggering their schedules. At Brooklyn Generation, teachers instruct only three classes a day, get two hours of common planning with colleagues each afternoon, and have a highly reduced student load — as few as 14 students per class.” However, the “restructured scheduling costs no more to operate than a traditional schedules.”

On the Job
Boston Globe Says Students Could Be “Biggest Losers” In Mass-Firing Of Teachers.
The Boston Globe (3/11) editorializes, “The shocking decision to fire the entire staff of Central Falls High School is largely cast as a courageous stand against bad teachers and an obstructionist union determined to protect them.” Similar to the decision in Central Falls, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, “as chief executive of the Chicago public schools,” fired “staff, hired turnaround specialists and shut down failing schools during his seven year tenure.” While Duncan “got mixed results,” the Globe points out that “according to the [Washington] Post, other systems that followed less eye-catching plans made more progress: Miami, Houston, and New York had higher scores than Chicago on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Boston, San Diego, and Atlanta had bigger gains.” The Globe concludes that “if the firings proceed, the best, most experienced teachers will find jobs elsewhere” and “the students at Central Falls could be the biggest losers.”

USA Today Says Union Resistance To Firing Of Underperforming Teachers Hurts Schools. USA Today (3/11) editorializes, “Few public school principals in the country are able to dismiss an incompetent teacher without a protracted, expensive struggle, and therefore firings rarely happen. … At long last, some troubled school districts are deciding that enough is enough,” as at Central Falls (RI) High School, “all the teachers and the principal were fired” due to the unwillingness of the teacher’s union to accept the superintendent’s turnaround plan. USA Today adds, “When Education Secretary Arne Duncan and then President Obama expressed support for the mass firings, the unions protested,” yet “if unions take their protection of incompetence much further, they risk, and perhaps deserve, the fate that befell federal air traffic controllers in 1981, when President Reagan fired more than 11,000 of them for staging an illegal strike.”

Dallas Teachers With Low Attendance Rates Win Appeal To Get Bonus Money.
The Dallas Morning News (3/11, Rado) reports, “More than 100 Dallas teachers are expected to get long-awaited performance bonuses in the next few days, after an appeal by teachers who missed too many school days to qualify for the 2007-08 awards. Teachers argued that the attendance rules were unclear and unfair, persuading a three-member grievance panel – Dallas ISD trustees Lew Blackburn, Adam Medrano and Bruce Parrott – to allow partial or full bonuses for teachers who met all requirements except the 95 percent attendance rate.” According to the Morning News, “District spokesman Jon Dahlander said bonuses range from $500 to $8,000 for 104 employees and will cost $222,875 if awards are limited to teachers involved in grievances.”

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Law & Policy
Panel Of Governors, Superintendents Propose Uniform Set Of Academic Standards.
The New York Times (3/11, Dillon) reports, “A panel of educators convened by the nation’s governors and state school superintendents proposed a uniform set of academic standards on Wednesday, laying out their vision for what all the nation’s public school children should learn in math and English, year by year, from kindergarten to high school graduation.” According to the Times, “Under the proposed standards for English, for example, fifth graders would be expected to explain the differences between drama and prose, and to identify elements of drama like characters, dialogue and stage directions. Seventh graders would study, among other math concepts, proportional relationships, operations with rational numbers and solutions for linear equations.” USA Today (3/11, Toppo) reports, that “the move comes as education reformers and lawmakers complain that many states have watered-down expectations in the face of a decade-long federal push to get greater percentages of students scoring higher on state skills tests.” President Obama “has made adoption of the standards a key metric in whether states qualify for a share of the $4.35 billion Race to the Top federal grant money.” The Washington Post (3/11, Anderson), Education Week (3/10, Gewertz), and the AP (3/11, Blankinship) also reported the story.

Utah Senate Approves Bill Eliminating Testing Requirement For Some Students.
The Salt Lake Tribune (3/11, Schencker) reports that Utah Gov. Gary Herbert (R) on Monday signed SB16, which “eliminates the requirement for Utah third, fifth- and eighth-graders to take the Iowa Test of Basic Skills.” The bill would also “allow more schools to participate in a pilot program where, among other things, students take computer-adaptive tests several times a year and the ACT instead of the Iowa and the Utah Basic Skills Competency Test.” And, it would “the pilot program for five more years.” The Salt Lake Tribune Explains, “Computer-adaptive tests change difficulty as students take them and provide more immediate results to teachers and students.” But the US Department of Education so far “has refused to allow the state to give computer-adaptive tests instead of CRTs to fulfill the requirements of No Child Left Behind.”

Obama Seeks To Duplicate Success Of Harlem Children Zone.
Forbes (3/11, Perlroth) reports on Harlem Children Zone, a program started by Geoffrey Canada that “offers free prenatal care to pregnant women and follows their children from birth to college, providing free health and dental care, afterschool programs and tutoring along the way.” Last spring, all of the fourth-graders in the program “took their first state standardized test” and “all scored above the New York City average in reading and well above the state average in math.” According to Forbes, Canada’s “approach that is catching on. … President Obama recently announced plans to duplicate the Zone model in 20 other cities, making it the centerpiece of his ‘Promise Neighborhood’ campaign.” Forbes adds, however, that “before the Harlem Children Zone can be replicated nationally, the plan’s advocates need to” figure out how to make “it work without Geoffrey Canada.”

Florida Senate Approves Merit-Pay Bill.
The Orlando Sentinel (3/11, Postal) reports that “a sweeping and controversial plan to overhaul how teachers are evaluated and paid got a first favorable vote in a key state Senate committee Wednesday.” SB 6 would eliminate “the current practice of giving teachers raises for years worked and degrees earned.” Instead, teachers would receive pay increases based on “student ‘learning gains’ — as measured in large part by standardized tests.” It “also would pay teachers more if they worked in ‘high need’ schools or taught subjects for which teachers are hard to find — such as chemistry or physics.” The Orlando Sentinel lists other facets of the bill.

The Tampa Tribune (3/10, Salinero) reported, that the “bill would penalize school districts that don’t adopt the new teacher performance measures by reducing the district’s education funding by 5 percent.” Those “districts would have to raise property taxes to fill the gap in state funding.” The South Florida Sun-Sentinel (3/11, Hafenbrack, Sentinel) adds, “Teachers unions are putting on a full-court press to stop the bill, which they say is a power grab to punish unions and strip control from local school boards.”

Columnist Says Community Schools Are A “Done Deal” In Wake County, North Carolina.
Contributing columnist Rick Martinez wrote in North Carolina’s News & Observer (3/11), “The nastiness surrounding the Wake County school board’s move away from schools’ economic diversity grows increasingly vile. It’s also irrelevant,” because the switch to community schools in Wake County is “a done deal.” He adds that in addition to the new school board majority, “the ranks of neighborhood school supporters on the board are likely to grow” after the 2011 election. Martinez concluded, “The next Wake County school superintendent has a tough job ahead. The more community-based options we can provide him or her, the better off our underperforming students will be.”

Special Needs
Blind, Visually Impaired Students In Utah Compete In “Braille Challenge.”
The Salt Lake Tribune (3/11, Dicou) reports that “fifty-two students, who use their sense of touch, not sight, when settling into a cozy chair with a good book, met at the Utah State Division of Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired last week for the annual Braille Challenge.” The students, aged six to seventeen, “tested their ability to decipher the raised dots that make up the code,” typing answers to questions “using a Perkins Brailler machine.” The machine “resembles a typewriter but has only nine keys, which blind readers press in combination to create the dots that represent letters.” Winners “took home ribbons and small cash prizes.” Similar events are being held nationwide. Regional winners “will advance to the Braille Challenge finals in Los Angeles in June. Finalists will be announced in May.”

NEA in the News
Nashua Telegraph Endorses Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act.
“The Nashua Telegraph (3/11) editorializes, “It’s the time of year when many parents and graduating high school seniors apply for financial aid in anticipation of university or college admission in the fall.” Students attending financial aid seminars are getting “advice on completing the complicated paperwork and making their best case for loans and grants” for college. This year, they are also getting “a warning that” the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act “supported by President Barack Obama, approved by the House, and now pending in the Senate could forever change the way student loans are issued in this country.” It would remove banks as middlemen “in the student loan process” and eliminate “the Federal Family Education Loan program.” The Telegraph adds that the NEA, among other organizations, has endorsed the bill, adding, “These groups and many others realize that cutting out needless and costly bank subsidies in the student loan equation will mean more money for the students.”

Department Of Education Names Race To The Top Finalists.
The AP (3/4) reported that the US Department of Department “named 16 finalists Thursday in the first round of its ‘Race to the Top’ competition, which will deliver $4.35 billion in school reform grants.” The 16 finalists are: Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Tennessee.”

The Washington Post (3/5, Anderson, Turque) reports, “The Obama administration gave a major lift Thursday to the reform agenda of Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee and D.C. charter school leaders, announcing that the District had joined 15 states as finalists in an unprecedented $4 billion contest for federal aid.” The Post adds that “at stake for D.C. schools is $20 million to $75 million.”

The New York Times (3/5, Dillon) reports that “first-round winners will be announced on April 1. … There are expected to be only a handful of winners in the first round.” Also, according to the Times, under Race to the Top “rules, the awards that states are likely to win vary according to the size of their student populations.”

The Christian Science Monitor (3/4, Khadaroo) reports, “The bar is set high and the number of winners in this first round is expected to be small, in the single digits, Secretary Duncan said.” The Monitor also notes that the second round of Race to the Top applications will be “considered this summer.” And, President Obama another “$1.35 billion in his budget for a third round of such grants.”

CNN (3/4) reported, “It is unclear how many states will actually win the education dollars, but Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told reporters in a conference call…that it would be in the single digits. Each winner will receive no more than $2 million” and remaining funds “from the $4.35 billion will be distributed to states under the second round of competition.”

The Chicago Tribune (3/5, Ahmed, Banchero), the Denver Post (3/4, Meyer), the St. Petersburg Times (3/5, Solochek), Louisiana’s News Star (3/4, Hasten), Kentucky’s Herald-Leader (3/4, Warren) reported on the implications of their respective states being named finalists in the competition.

Utah Lawmakers Unsure About Applying For Future Rounds Of Race To The Top. The Salt Lake Tribune (3/5, Schencker) reports, “Utah is officially out of the first round of a race for a piece of $4.35 billion in federal dollars for schools.” State education officials are not “yet sure if they want to try again. The state had asked for $250 million for school reforms,” all school districts signed on to “the quest,” Utah “seemed, in many ways, a good candidate.” Moreover, “the largest teachers’ union in the state, the Utah Education Association, sent a letter of support with Utah’s application, and most of the state’s charter schools were supportive as well.” Said State Superintendent Larry Shumway, “We’re very disappointed. … We’ll have to wait and receive feedback from the reviewers before we decide our next step.” The Salt Lake Tribuen notes that currently, Utah “has the lowest per-pupil spending in the nation and the highest student-to-teacher ratio.”

The Los Angeles Times (3/5, Song, Blume), California’s Mercury News (3/5, Noguchi), and the Minneapolis Star Tribune (3/5, Johns, Lemagie) also report on their respective states’ disqualification from the first round of the Race to the Top competition.

In the Classroom
Students Teach, Learn From Peers Nationwide Through Teleconferencing.
T.H.E. Journal (3/5, Harrison) reports that “Stamford High School, located in rural Stamford, Texas,” uses videoconferencing to enable “students to experience the United States far beyond the confines of the cotton-growing region in which they reside.” Students at Stamford High also teach classes to their peers in remote areas through videoconferencing. “In fact, every videoconference class at Stamford HS was selected and designed by the students themselves,” T.H.E. Journal adds. For instance, “One program of their design allows them to share their unique knowledge of cotton with students in other parts of the country who have never seen it in any form other than manufactured products.”

Colorado District Considering Specialized High School Degrees Requiring College Credits.
The Aurora (CO) Sentinel (3/5, Goldstein) reports that “the push to offer” Aurora Public Schools “students more options could eventually include the choice specialized high school degrees that include earning college credits as a requirement.” Next fall, “the district’s new P-20 school…will offer students a specialized pathways program.” The program is “designed to give students the opportunity to follow their interests and hone specific skills, offering students specialized high school degrees in” the areas of STEM, “health sciences; arts, humanities and music; and business, marketing and entrepreneurship.” School district officials are considering college credits as requirements for the “specialized tracks.”

Three Los Angeles Teachers Suspended Over Black History Month Role Model Choices.
The New York Times (3/5, Steinhauer) reports that “as part of a black history celebration at the end of last month, teachers in each classroom at” Wadsworth Avenue Elementary School in South Los Angeles chose a picture of “an African-American role model” for students to wear pinned to their shirts “in a parade around school.” Three teachers have been suspended “by the Los Angeles Unified School District” for choosing for their students to wear pictures of “O. J. Simpson, the imprisoned former athlete; Dennis Rodman, the retired basketball player and controversy magnet; and the transvestite entertainer RuPaul, district officials said.” District spokesman Robert Alaniz said, “Three of our teachers made what were unfortunately choices for poor role models. … We were taken aback by their judgment.”

Alexandra Zavis wrote in the Los Angeles Times (3/4, Zavis) “LA Now” blog that Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D) “expressed shock over allegations that three teachers at a South Los Angeles elementary school encouraged students to celebrate O.J. Simpson, Dennis Rodman and RuPaul during Black History Month. … Los Angeles Unified School District spokeswoman Gayle Pollard-Terry said Supt. Ramon C. Cortines learned about the incident Tuesday and had the teachers…pulled from their classrooms for the duration of an investigation.”

On the Job
Court Rulings Highlight Need For Seasonal Affective Disorder Accommodations.
The Los Angeles Times (3/5, Twohey) reports on “seasonal affective disorder” (SAD), “depression triggered by limited daylight in winter. … Pointing to a federal law that prohibits employers from discriminating against the disabled, some SAD sufferers say they are entitled to schedule changes, access to windows and other modifications.” In October, “the US 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled…that a teacher could pursue a lawsuit against her former employer alleging that the school district had failed to accommodate her SAD, causing her mental health to deteriorate.” Prompted by this and similar recent rulings, human resources experts are warning employers to seriously consider SAD accommodations for affected employees.

Educators Debate Merits Of Replacing All Teachers At Failing Schools.
The AP (3/5, Henry) reports though test scores have been shown to improve as a result of firing all teachers at failing schools, “schools where most teachers have been replaced still grapple with problems of poverty and discipline.” Secretary of Education Arne Duncan “chose to fire teachers en masse” at Sherman Elementary School in Chicago “when he headed Chicago’s public school system.” Test scores improved, and a “spokeswoman for Duncan cites the school as an example of where replacing the staff – which he calls a turnaround – worked.”

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Special Needs
Report Recommends Reorganization Of Pittsburgh Public Schools’ Special Education Programs.
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (3/4, Kurutz) reported that “an independent review of special-education programs at Pittsburgh Public Schools contains 59 recommendations for the district, including revising the criteria of who is eligible.” The Washington-based Council of Great City Schools released a report this week that was “commissioned by the district for $40,000…and took five months to complete.” In it, “the council recommended changing how the special-education department is organized — increasing how many students attend regular classes and decreasing the number moved to private schools for additional help.” Pittsburg school officials are currently addressing some of the issues and reviewing others.

School Finance
Official Disputes Claims That Arizona Districts Illegally Use Merit Pay Funds For Teacher Salaries.
The Arizona Republic (3/5, Gersema) reports, “State auditors are concerned that some Arizona school districts are illegally using voter-approved tax funds intended to reward top teachers to instead pay for regular-teacher salaries and other costs.” According to “the latest audit of special funds…voter-mandated spending on performance pay for teachers is continuing to decline, and officials accuse schools of undermining the state’s goal of raising student achievement.” But Chuck Essigs, a lobbyist for the Arizona Association of School Business Officials, said that auditors “should have mentioned…in the report” that in November lawmakers cut the $215 million soft capital fund “by $177 million.” He also “noted that tax revenues are down because of the recession” and rejected “auditors’ accusations that spending voter-approved dollars meant for performance pay on regular-teacher pay instead is illegal because the money is still going for teacher salaries.”

Also in the News
Student-Built Spacecraft To Launch This Month From Wallops Island.
The AP (3/5) reports, “Two spacecraft designed and built by university students in Kentucky and California will launch into space this month at NASA’s Wallops Island facility on Virginia’s Eastern Shore.” The spacecraft, “no bigger than child’s toy block,” will be launched on a Terrier-Improved Malemute sounding rocket on March 11. They will “gather information that may be applied to future small Earth orbiting space vehicles.”

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NEA in the News
Community Leaders In Malden, Massachusetts, Participate In Read Across America Day Event.
Massachusetts’ Malden Observer (3/5) reports, “Cheverus School in Malden celebrated Dr. Seuss’ Birthday and Read Across America on Tuesday, March 2 by having several guest readers read to the classes.” Readers included Malden Mayor Richard Howard and other community leaders.

Agreement Will Allow Pennsylvania NEA Members To Join State AFL-CIO.
The Philadelphia Inquirer (3/5, Von Bergen) reports, “The Pennsylvania AFL-CIO and the Pennsylvania State Education Association will announce next Tuesday that they have created an agreement that will allow for a closer relationship between the two groups.” The agreement will open the door for “the PSEA and its area associations [to] join regional and state umbrella organizations of the AFL-CIO.”

Oregon NEA Contributes To Income Tax Increase Campaign.
The Oregonian (3/3, Walth) reports, “Heavy spending by public employee unions and corporations drove spending on the recent campaigns over raising taxes on the wealthy and Oregon businesses to more than $12.5 million, making it one of the state’s most expensive ballot measure campaigns ever.” The Oregon Education Association and National Education Association gave $2.4 million toward a campaign in favor of Measures 66 and 67 to raise “personal income tax rates on taxable income above $250,000 for households and $125,000 for individual filers” and to raise “the corporate minimum tax to $150 for most businesses, or about 0.1 percent of total Oregon revenues,” respectively.

Van Roekel Points To Collaboration As An Effective Model For Improving Schools.
NEA President Dennis Van Roekel writes in a letter to the editor of the Washington Post (2/8), “Charter schools and performance pay are not “silver bullets” for struggling public schools; innovation is what matters.” He points out that Hillsborough County, FL “has been at the forefront of teacher pay reform, with the full cooperation of the local teachers union.” The district has “proposed a system to look at many indicators of student achievement in its evaluation of teachers,” and will receive $100 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation “to put this system in place.” Van Roekel concludes, “While education policy seems to be increasingly driven by conflict, teachers unions have found a different model for improving schools: collaboration.”

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In the Classroom
Teacher Created Math Curriculum Around Football Statistics.
The Indianapolis Star (2/6, Becker) reported that during football season, third-grade students in Chad Wallace’s class at Allisonville Elementary School “Indianapolis’ Washington Township” wore their Jerseys each Friday. Wallace used “Colts game statistics to create word problems for his Go Blue Math curriculum.” For the activity, students formed “their own problem-solving teams with fun names, such as Manning’s Math Magicians, named after quarterback Peyton Manning.” After Wallace read the “word problems relating to Colts stats. Then students” were given “four minutes to work the problem on their own, including a two-minute warning.” When the four minutes were up, they gathered “with their teams.” Wallace noted that “when working in groups, they learn interactive skills, including how to convince peers that their answer is correct.”

Several Schools In Georgia Work Way Off Needs Improvement List After Five Or More Years.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (2/8) reports that “for nearly a decade, Atlanta’s Kennedy Middle School” has had poor test scores, low teacher morale, and myriad discipline problems. Now, however, the school “is no longer one of 278 Georgia schools failing to meet student achievement standards under the federal No Child Left Behind Law.” It “is one of 17 Georgia schools that recently worked its way off the ‘needs improvement’ list after five or more years.” To do this, Kennedy focused “on the students who were struggling most and, in some cases,” extended “the learning day to include after-school time and Saturdays.” Said Kennedy principal Lucious Brown, “It felt almost like my 16th birthday when I received my first car. … When you hear those scores and discover you’re off the list it’s awesome, truly awesome.”

History Lessons Vary For Colorado Students.
The Denver Post (2/7, Auge) reported, “If government mandates, No Child Left Behind and the Colorado Student Assessment Program have created lock- step, fill-in-the-blank curricula for math and reading, as some claim, there can be no such complaints about history. On any school day in Colorado, high school history lessons can be as different in content and quality as barbarians are from the Founding Fathers.” According to the Post, “In 1995, Colorado became one of the first states in the U.S. to lay out standards for what should be in those classes. But the standards are broad enough and vague enough that schools have little guidance when it comes to teaching history.”

Some Schools In Kentucky Still Use Paddling As Disciplinary Method.
WHAS-TV Louisville, KY (2/7, Murphy) reported that “Lincoln County Schools, a district about two hours away from Louisville, still uses paddling as a means to punish students who misbehave.” However, parents must first “sign off on the measure” before a principal is permitted to “paddle a student.” Also, “two witnesses must be present during the paddling and a student is usually only paddled once during their tenure at a school.” Said Dan Story, principal of Stanford Elementary, “Anytime we paddle a child we are treating them just like it’s our own child. … We’ve just seen it be very effective when other areas like taking away recess or putting them in detention may not work as a last resort.” WHAS noted that according to “a study by the Center for Effective Discipline…22 states still participate in corporal punishment.”

More Washington State Students Taking AP Classes.
The Seattle Times (2/7, Long) reported, “A decade ago, most Seattle-area high schools offered just a handful of rigorous classes that provided a way to earn college credit while supercharging a transcript. … But in 10 years, the intensive, fast-paced Advanced Placement (AP) classes have skyrocketed in this state.” According to the Times, “In 2008, fully one-quarter of Washington public-school seniors took at least one AP test during their high-school years, compared with 10 percent in 1997.”

Maryland Teacher Integrates Opera Into Lesson Plans.
The Washington Post Magazine (2/7, Ly) reported that four years ago, Mary Ruth McGinn, a teacher at New Hampshire Estates Elementary School in Silver Spring, MD “won a Fulbright fellowship to Madrid to train educators to integrate opera into their lesson plans. … McGinn is back in Silver Spring, helping another second-grade class create an opera, this time at Jackson Road Elementary.” McGinn “keeps in touch with the teachers in Spain and continues to develop training materials for schools there.”

More Early-College High School Programs Drawing At-Risk Students.
The New York Times (2/8, Lewin) reports that “until recently,” early-college high school programs “were aimed at affluent, overachieving students – a way to keep them challenged and give them a head start on college work.” Yet, according to the Times, the goals of North Carolina’s 70 early-college schools include keeping “at-risk students in school by eliminating the divide between high school and college. … While North Carolina leads the way in early-college high schools, the model is spreading in California, New York, Texas and elsewhere, where such schools are seen as a promising approach to reducing the high school dropout rate and increasing the share of degree holders – two major goals of the Obama administration.”

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On the Job
Teaching A Less Secure Profession For New Graduates.
The AP (2/8, Watling) reports that “a recession deeper than any since the Great Depression caused a ripple effect that has made employment in” teaching, “a traditionally steady profession, anything but secure for young teachers.” Many veteran teachers “put off retirements that would have opened jobs for new teachers” during the “stock market dive” over the past two years. And in Indiana, “declining tax revenue” was cited as the reason for “a $300 million budget cut across K-12 school districts,” which is forcing forced “many Indiana districts to reduce budgets by absorbing jobs through attrition or laying off teachers.” At a statewide teacher recruitment even in the spring of 2009, 27 school districts attended, “down from 44 districts the year before. At the same time, there were 161 students seeking jobs — up from about 125 in a typical year.”

Law & Policy
Obama Administration To Launch Campaign To Rid Schools Of Junk Food.
The New York Times (2/8, A14, Harris) reports that the Obama administration “will begin a drive this week to expel Pepsi, French fries and Snickers bars from the nation’s schools in hopes of reducing the number of children who get fat during their school years. In legislation, soon to be introduced, candy and sugary beverages would be banned and many schools would be required to offer more nutritious fare.” According to the Times, “To that end, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will deliver a speech Monday at the National Press Club in which he will insist, according to excerpts provided to The Times, that any vending machines that remain in schools be ‘filled with nutritious offerings to make the healthy choice the easy choice for our nation’s children.’”

Experts: Test Score Disparities In Michigan Due To Lack Of Uniform Standards.
The Detroit Free Press (2/8, Higgins) reports, “Experts say wide differences in test scores across” Michigan “are the result of a shocking disparity in how the state’s standards are taught from district to district and classroom to classroom — even in the same building. Some say grade inflation — giving students a higher grade than their work merits — is rampant, meaning many graduate high school without being prepared for the rigors of college.” According to the Free Press, “School funding cuts have led to larger class sizes, school closures and layoffs, all affecting student achievement, particularly in urban districts such as Detroit.”

School Finance
Virginia Race To The Top Efforts Viewed As Modest.
The Washington Post (2/8, Anderson) reports that Virginia “is proposing experiments with teacher performance pay, a modest expansion of charter schools and other steps in line with the Obama administration’s education agenda. But analysts say the state still looks like a dark horse to win a share of Race to the Top funding — an assessment state officials do not strongly dispute.” The Post notes that the Virginia Legislature, “unlike others, passed no bills meant to improve Virginia’s chances in the grant competition.”

Many Schools Facing “Funding Cliff” As Stimulus Runs Out.
The New York Times (2/8, A11, Dillon) reports, “Federal stimulus money has helped avoid drastic cuts at public schools in most parts of the nation, at least so far. But with the federal money running out, many of the nation’s schools are approaching what officials are calling a ‘funding cliff,’” as “the end of the federal money will leave big holes in education budgets from Massachusetts and Florida to California and Washington, experts said.” However, as “the program took shape last year, Education Secretary Arne Duncan and other officials repeatedly warned states and districts to avoid spending the money in ways that could lead to dislocations when the gush of federal money came to an end.”

NEA in the News
Teen Volunteers Teach Parents In Nebraska District’s Math For Moms And Dads Course.
The Grand Island (NE) Independent (2/7) reported that the “Grand Island Education Association (GIEA) is sponsoring” Math for Moms and Dads as “part of its Public Engagement Project.” The event is for parents of “students at Shoemaker and Wasmer elementary schools.” Students from Central City Grand Island Senior High “will teach parents skills that they can then use to help their children at home.” During the event, “students from Central Community College will provide free child care for children ages 2 through second grade.” The childcare will be paid for through “the Public Engagement Project grant that began last year through the National Education Association,” said GEIA president Deb Gnuse.

Opinion: Michigan Lawmakers Should Address Teacher Tenure.
The Grand Rapids Press (2/6) editorialized, “Michigan students deserve the best teachers, not rules preventing bad ones from being removed.” That is why, according to the Grand Rapids Press, the state Legislature must address teacher tenure. “Laws must be changed so that good teachers are encouraged, supported and respected,” the Press asserts, adding, that “roadblocks to removing ineffective teachers must be dismantled.” Furthermore, as “major urban school districts are crafting teacher incentive pay programs based on effectiveness,” the Michigan Education Association “unwise…not to adapt.” The Grand Rapids Press concludes, “The national reform wave is only gaining power. It should sweep Michigan along with it.”

This entry was posted on Monday, March 22nd, 2010 at 1:56 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.