New York Education Officials Say State Tests Have Become Easier In Past Four Years.
The New York Times (7/20, A18, Medina) reports that education officials in New York say that the state’s standardized tests have “become easier to pass over the last four years.” They plan to “recalibrate the scoring for tests taken this spring.” Researchers from Harvard analyzed the scores and compared “them with results on national exams and” high school graduation exams. They found that students who passed the state exams had less than 50 percent chance of passing the graduation exams. They also found that “the New York state exams have become even easier in comparison with the national exams.” In 2007, for instance, “students who received the minimum score to pass the state math tests…were in the 36th percentile of all students nationally, but in 2009 they had dropped to the 19th percentile.”
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In the Classroom
New Calculation Shows Improving Graduation Rate In Maine.
The Kennebec (ME) Journal (7/20, Stone) reports, “Newly released data” from the Maine DOE show that the state’s “high school graduation rate dipped” by about three percentage points “between the 2007-08 and 2008-09 school years.” But, “the 2007-08 rate was calculated using a formula that takes into account those who took more than four years to graduate but still received conventional diplomas.” The newer formula used to calculate the 2008-09 graduation rate, however, “highlights only the percentage of students who graduated in four years or fewer, or who completed their coursework during a summer session after their fourth year.” School officials say that because of the difference in calculation, “it’s unclear whether fewer students are graduating.”
Critics Say Texas’ Dropout Data Is Inaccurate.
The AP (7/29) reported that according to a report by the Texas Education Agency, “the state dropout rate declined by almost 11 percent over the last year, but critics say the data being used is flawed and doesn’t accurately reflect what’s going on in Texas schools.” The Intercultural Development Research Association looked at “the number of students who enrolled in 2005 and finished in 2009″ and found Texas’ dropout rate to be 31 percent. But Texas, which recently adopted the national dropout definition, “still uses a series of ‘leaver’ codes to account for students who don’t finish school but aren’t necessarily considered dropouts.” Included in these numbers are “students who leave school to pursue an associate’s degree or who were removed by Child Protective Services.”
Ed-Tech Implementation In K-12 Schools, Colleges Slowly Increasing, Survey Shows.
T.H.E. Journal (7/19, Aronowitz) reported that according to an education technology survey recently released by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), “American primary and secondary schools and colleges are definitely showing progress in ed tech implementation,” but at a slow rate. There are “five primary areas of technology” that according to the SIIA show “institutional progress.” They include “ease of access, availability of 21st-century tools, differentiated learning, assessment tools, and enterprise support.” The survey was created “to track how well the aggregated nationwide education community was progressing towards” goals in those areas. Findings for 2010 indicate an improvement in overall progress “over 2009 in four of the five areas measured.” Still, the average improvement “was less than one percent.”
Summer School Attracting Students For “Third Semester” Of Credits.
The Chicago Tribune (7/20, Malone) reports on the “third semester” for high schools, otherwise known as “summer school.” While it “was traditionally seen as remedial operation,” now “many students choose to hit the books in June and July so they can rack up extra credits…or learn the ropes before starting freshmen year.” In addition, some high schools “cater to the new type of teenager with an array of college prep courses.” Popular subjects for summer school are often difficult ones, the report noted, because “some high-schoolers, like those in Illinois, must take more courses to graduate in recent years.” The Times added, “At New Trier Township High School…nearly half of the school’s enrollment” went to the summer session. “The biggest hits are in-depth science courses where teens learn a week’s worth of lessons each day and tackle a week’s worth of homework each night.”
On the Job
Florida Community Foundation Announces $2.5 Million STEM Project For Middle Schools.
WWSB-TV Sarasota, FL (7/20) reports that the Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice on Monday “announced a five year $2.5 million project to jump start improved teaching and learning results” for STEM subjects, in part because “research indicates 15 of the 20 fastest growing jobs require substantial math and science preparation, but Florida’s students trail national averages in both.” The program will affect some 9,000 middle school students in Sarasota and Charlotte counties by “training teachers on new math and science standards” and collaborating “with employers in the community to provide internships.” One such employer is Mote Marine, which has “been working overtime tracking the oil spill with their underwater robots. But Mote president and CEO Kumar Mahadeven has been desperately seeking more workers with skills in science, technology and math, and hasn’t been able to find them close to home.” Foundation spokesperson Terry Hansen pointed out, “Without a pipeline of STEM-educated workers, laboratories like Mote cannot thrive.”
The Tampa Bay Business Journal (7/20) adds that the program will include the Sarasota County middle schools of Woodland, Venice, Laurel-Nokomis and Heron Creek and the Charlotte County’s L.A. Ainger Middle School. The foundation, the “largest community foundation in Florida,” said its project “is not only to benefit the targeted schools and children but also to act as an impetus for community-wide involvement in activities related to” STEM subjects.
Law & Policy
Obey Seeks To Cut Race To The Top Funding By 40 Percent.
The Hill (7/20, Alarkon) reports that House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wisconsin) has proposed cutting the Obama administration’s “$1.35 billion 2011 request for Race to the Top” by 40 percent. Obey pointed out “that Race to the Top received $4.35 billion in the $862 billion stimulus, much of which has yet to be spent.” Instead of funding Race to the Top according to the administration’s wishes, “Obey is proposing a 3 percent increase for the Title I program and a four percent increase for special education aid for 2011.” The Hill notes that Obey’s approach of balancing funds “for reforms with more traditional programs is winning support from teacher unions.” Kim Anderson of the NEA said, for instance, “We fundamentally believe that the government’s role through federal funding is to be a partner to all states…instead of making states have to compete.”
Few “Side Deals” Accounted For In Florida’s Race To The Top Application.
Ron Matus wrote in the St. Petersburg Times (7/19) “Gradebook” blog, “that 14 of the 54 Florida schools districts where both district officials and teachers unions signed on to the state’s $700 million Race to the Top effort also have side agreements with local unions that some say undermine the state’s bid.” But only three of the “districts submitted their side agreements to the state.” Education Department spokesman Justin Hamilton said that “if a state that wins deviates from its application, they will lose funding.” Hamilton also noted “that Florida’s application ‘does discuss side agreements.’” Matus points out that while the application does discuss such arrangements, “it only mentions the three side agreements…that were submitted to the Florida Department of Education.”
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Special Needs
Michigan District Overhauls Gifted Education.
The Jackson (MI) Citizen-Patriot (7/19, Wheaton) reported, “Jackson Public Schools is reworking its elementary school gifted and talented programs,” as under “an expanded team teaching approach, gifted and talented students at some district elementary schools will be taught by multiple teachers – with one of those instructors being a gifted and talented program teacher.” Previously, gifted students stayed “with the same gifted and talented teacher” all day, unless they “were in special classes such as physical education.” The Citizen-Patriot adds, “In March, Jackson Superintendent Dan Evans said that gifted and talented programs would be consolidated into a single elementary school to help the district fill a projected budget deficit.” The new set up will save the district about $130,000 in the upcoming school year by eliminating “two gifted and talented teaching positions.”
School Finance
Some California Districts Shortening School Year To Cut Back On Spending.
The San Francisco Chronicle (7/19, Freedburg) reported that “many California districts are…shortening their school year amid a sustained and draining budget crisis.” A survey by California Watch shows that 16 “of the state’s 30 largest school districts…are reducing the number of days in the academic year” by up to five days. In addition to furlough days, “many districts also will eliminate” teacher work days reserved for “class preparation, staff training, or parent conferences.” School districts expect large savings with the reductions. For instance, “in Los Angeles…cutting the year to 175 days will save $145 million.” And, in the smaller Freemont district, officials “will save $5.8 million by reducing the school year by three days.”
Nebraska BOE May Reduce Special Education Funding To Save $96 Million Over Two Years.
The Omaha World-Herald (7/19, Dejka) reported that the Nebraska BOE is considering budget cuts that would eliminate “state funding for gifted education,” require fewer students to “take the annual statewide writing test,” and eliminate “a textbook loan program for private schools.” In addition, funding would be reduced “for a program that helps disabled people enter the work force and cut it for two new state programs aimed at improving student achievement.” Overall, the proposal represents “a 10 percent cut in state aid to schools,” equal to about $96 million in the 2011-13 school years. “Board members will meet next month to consider the proposed cuts and in September to approve the department budget.”
Minnesota Borrowing From School Districts To Cover Gaps In State Budget.
The Crookston (MN) Daily Times (7/20) reports that for “the second time in six months,” Minnesota’s Office of Management and Budget plans to borrow money from schools “to cover the state’s cash flow problems.” The first loan for nearly $423 million was taken out last winter. “At that time, the law required the state to borrow the money, so state officials said they had no choice.” But, “the law is no longer a mandate,” and “school districts must have reserves that equal at least $700 per student before the state can borrow from them.” The Crookston Daily Times notes that last year, the Minnesota Association of School Business Officials (MASBO) advised districts to “hold money in reserves for financial stability, cash flow and to maintain their credit rating.”
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Also in the News
NBC Hosting Education Summit In September.
The AP (7/19, Bauder) reported that during the week of Sept. 27, “NBC News is convening its own summit with education and political leaders in September to talk about ways to improve schools in light of statistics showing the US lagging in student achievement. The two-day ‘Education Nation’ event in New York will be carried online, and is part of a week of programming concentrating on education issues on NBC News broadcasts such as ‘Today’ and ‘Nightly News,’ and the MSNBC, CNBC and Telemundo TV networks.” Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, “the governors of Minnesota and Tennessee, MIT President Susan Hockfield and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg have all said they would attend, NBC said.”
Mississippi District Settles With Lesbian Former Student Over Discrimination Complaint.
The AP (7/21, Byrd) reports that 18 year-old Constance McMillen, a “lesbian who sued her school district over its ban of same-sex prom dates, has accepted an offer to settle the case.” McMillen, who was represented by ACLU attorneys in the case, will “accept a judgment offer from the Itawamba County School District to pay $35,000, plus attorney’s fees.” The school district also says that it will “follow a policy not to discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender identity in any educational or extracurricular activities.”
CNN (7/21) reports on its website that “the settlement comes after the ACLU sued the school district in Fulton, Mississippi, on behalf of” McMillen after Itawamba Agricultural High School officials told her “she and her girlfriend would be ejected if they attended the school-sponsored prom.” School officials eventually decided to cancel the prom. The ACLU said in a statement that McMillen “suffered humiliation and harassment after parents, students and school officials executed a cruel plan to put on a decoy prom for her while the rest of her classmates were at a private prom 30 miles away.”
USAToday (7/21, Joyner) reports that a federal judge in March “ruled that the district had violated McMillen’s rights.” But, even with the settlement “agreement, school district attorney Michelle Floyd issued a statement Tuesday saying the district ‘believes that Constance McMillen’s rights under the United States Constitution were not violated by any act, omission, policy, custom or practice of the district.’” McMillen, meanwhile, “said she was relieved when she heard about the settlement,” because of the district’s agreement to change its policy. BBC News (7/21), the USA Today (7/20) “On Deadline” blog, and the Baltimore Sun (7/20) “In Good Faith” blog also covered the story.
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In the Classroom
Minnesota Education Officials Discover Two Incorrectly Scored State Test Questions.
The Miami Herald (7/21, McGrory) reports that NCS-Pearson, “the troubled testing company that botched the release of this year’s” Florida state test scores FCAT scores, “is being blamed for problems in Minnesota, too.” According to a Minnesota Department of Education spokesperson, the company “incorrectly scored the state-mandated science tests given to fifth- and eighth-graders.” Education officials in Minnesota noticed that two questions had been scored incorrectly on the state science tests. “Pearson has apologized.”
Bangor Middle School Students Explore Transportation Careers Through Engineering Program.
WABI-TV (7/21, LaVerghetta) reports that middle school students from the Bangor area are checking out engineering and transportation careers through the Maine Summer Transportation Institute offered through the University of Maine. The idea is to get “a new generation of people” interested in the transportation “by land, air, and sea” through the study of engineering. One field trip was to the Maine Maritime Academy in Castine, where participates “even got to jump aboard the US Maine.” The program, funded by the state and federal government, especially focuses on “young women,” and “the program seems to be sparking interest for some students.”
On the Job
Survey Shows Four-In-Ten Teachers In Texas Hold Second Jobs.
The Dallas Morning News (7/21, Stutz) reports that according to “a new survey by researchers at Sam Houston State University,” about 40 percent of teachers in Texas “held second jobs this past school year,” the highest percentage “in the three decades that the study has been conducted.” Of that 40 percent, about two-thirds “said the quality of their teaching would be better if they didn’t have to work another job.” The average number of hours each week the teachers spent at their second job was 15.2. In addition, 56 percent of the teachers surveyed “reported they held a job while on summer break. That figure also was up from the last survey in 2008.” The Dallas Morning News notes, “The average salary of teachers who were questioned in the study was $50,019 a year, a figure that was up nearly $2,500 from two years earlier.”
Nature Museum To Help Bring New Science-Teaching Techniques To Schools In Dallas.
The Dallas Morning News (7/21, Hobbs) reports that the Dallas Independent School District (DISD), the Dallas Citizens Council, and the Dallas Museum of Nature & Science are collaborating on “a new program,” called Leaders in Science, that will bring “fresh material and new science-teaching techniques to schools.” Fifth-grade teachers and some fourth-grade teachers “will have access to a full-time museum staffer who will coordinate the program and make classroom visits.” Teachers “also will receive lab support, collaborate with other teachers, and be able to request various artifacts to enhance learning.” The Dallas Morning News notes that the program addresses the difficulty Texas students have faced in their attempts “to pass the science portion of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills.”
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Law & Policy
More States Poised To Adopt Common Education Standards.
The New York Times (7/21, A1, Lewin) reports on its front page, “Less than two months after the nation’s governors and state school chiefs released their final ecommendations for national education standards, 27 states have adopted them and about a dozen more are expected to do so in the next two weeks.” But even “some supporters of the standards…worry that the rush of states to sign up” they may “not have the money to put the standards in effect” immediately. Still, “the effort has been helped by financial backing from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to most of the organizations involved in drafting, evaluating and winning support for the standards.”
US House Panel Votes To Extend Race To The Top For Extra Year.
Education Week (7/20, Klein) reported, “Advocates for education redesign are encouraged by a US House of Representatives Appropriations panel’s decision to extend the Race to the Top program for an additional year. If the extension makes it into the final spending bills for fiscal year 2011, advocates say, that could mean more states will take the reform-minded steps emphasized in the Race to the Top program, such as revamping their teacher-evaluation systems and lifting caps on charter schools, in order to get a slice of the competitive grants.” According to Education Week, “The additional spending for 2011 would also include $400 million-just $100 million less than the president’s request-to extend the Investing in Innovation, or i3, grant program, which also was created under the recovery act and initially funded at $650 million.”
Lawmaker Says Administration Sought Cut To Food Stamps To Fund Race To The Top. Valerie Strauss wrote in a blog for the Washington Post (7/20), “Here’s how serious the Obama administration is about its $4.3 billion Race to the Top competitive grant competition for school reform: It was, apparently, willing to cut food stamps to keep Race funding intact.” The claim was published “in an interview with Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.) published on the Fiscal Times Web site.” According to Strauss, the rationale was that “this was acceptable because the price of food is lower than it was projected to be when the money was appropriated for the stamps.”
Houston Public Schools’ Use Of Value-Added Data In Firing Teachers Questioned At Hearing.
The Texas Tribune (7/20, Titus) reported that Texas state Sen. Mario Gallegos Jr. (D) questioned Houston Independent School District (HISD) official Ann Best at Tuesday’s “Senate Education Committee hearing” on the use of “value-added data” in grading and firing teachers. HISD, the Tribune adds, “has used the data…to hand out bonuses to educators since 2007.” And this year, Houston’s BOE began allowing the data to “be used in terminations…along with other factors.” But the policy has come under criticism by the teachers union. “Adding to the controversy, the formula remains secret.” But, Best told the Tribune, “the system, which evaluates third- through eighth-grade teachers in core subjects, is just one of three dozen factors used to evaluate teacher performance.”
Safety & Security
President Obama Responds To Fifth-Grader’s Letter Detailing Bullying.
KGO-TV San Francisco (7/20) reported on its Website, “A Philadelphia fifth-grader took her fight against bullying all the way to the White House and President Obama listened. In January, 11-year-old Ziainey Stokes wrote a letter to the president explaining how she had been getting bullied at her former school nearly every day.” President Obama responded to Stokes via a letter which arrived in March, thanking Stokes “for sharing her story” and encouraging “her to speak with her teachers about being bullied.”
WTFX-TV Philadelphia (7/20) reported on its Web site that Stokes “says she started being bulled in the third-grade, when she was called names by classmates at the Belmont Academy Charter School.” Stokes “later transferred schools” and Stokes is now “on a mission to end bullying and wants an organization to help others find voice and urge adults to pay attention.”
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Also in the News
Nineteen Arrested During Board Meeting About Controversial Student Assignment Policy.
The AP (7/21, Baker) reports that 19 people were arrested on Tuesday during a school board meeting in Wake County, North Carolina that was called to address a controversial new school assignment plan. The AP adds that “more than a dozen demonstrators disrupted the meeting by gathering around a podium, chanting and singing against the board’s policies.” At the center of the contention is the school board’s recent decision to focus “on neighborhood schools,” and “scrap the district’s diversity policy, which distributed students based on socioeconomics.” The AP notes that Wake County’s school diversity policy had for years “been a model for other districts looking to balance diversity in schools.” WRAL-TV Raleigh (7/21) notes that “opponents of the policy change” say that the new system “will segregate schools and create pockets of poverty,” resulting “in basically two school systems – one for the haves and one for the have-nots.”
Jobless Teens, Young Adults Waiting Out Economy.
On its website, the Chicago Tribune (7/21, Pugh) examined the impact of the economy on “teens and young adults, short on experience and skills,” who “have been giving up the job search at higher rates than other workers are during this great recession.” The Tribune points out that some “1.3 million workers age 16 to 24 have left the labor force since the recession hit in December 2007,” and “that’s about 6 percent of them.” The overall jobless rate for those that age is 18.5 percent, so “some have gone back to school, some are volunteering, some are joining the military and some are just chilling at home until the economy heats up again.” Economist Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington said that jobless rates for young people of nearly 40 percent in some communities are the equivalent of a crisis.
Teacher May Be Banned From New York City Schools For Cuba Field Trip.
The New York Post (7/21, Calder) reports, “A Manhattan high school history teacher, who resigned under fire after taking students on a spring-break ‘Club Red’ field trip to Cuba three years ago…tried justifying the jaunt by telling Education officials he needed to see Fidel Castro one more time before the dictator died. The shocking revelations are highlighted.” The report from an investigation in to the event was recently released “by the city’s special investigator for schools. It recommends that Nathan Turner – who organized the April 2007 trip for himself and five students of the selective Beacon School on the Upper East Side – never be allowed to work in city schools again.”
The Wall Street Journal (7/21, Banjo) adds that upon returning from Cuba with five students, Turner and the students were detained at the US border but they were eventually allowed to return home. The Journal notes that the decision to ban Turner from the school system comes amid a field-trip policy review by the New York City Department of Education following the drowning death of a Harlem student on a field trip to Long Beach.
Massachusetts Restricts Virtual School Enrollment.
The AP (7/22) reports that the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education “voted Wednesday to cap enrollment for online schools at 500 students and require that 25 percent of those students live in the district operating the school.”
Tom Vander Ark of EdReformer.com writes in The Huffington Post (7/22) that the nation is facing “two very difficult challenges simultaneously–high standards and a fiscal crisis.” Noting the decision made by Massachusetts education officials restricting virtual school enrollment, he asserts that “protecting old ways of doing business is exactly the wrong thing to do.” Instead, “States should be encouraging innovation and investment particularly in areas likely to reach disengaged students.” According to Vander Ark, “anyone can learn anything, anytime, anywhere — except where bureaucrats get in the way.” Nevertheless, he says, online learning, “whether at school or at home, is an unstoppable force.”
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In the Classroom
Detroit Public Schools To Extend Math, Reading Instruction Time.
The Detroit News (7/22, Schultz) reports that Detroit Public Schools is extending “instructional time in reading and math” from between 45 and 90 minutes “120 minutes daily from the kindergarten through eighth grades beginning in the fall.” The move is in line with “the district’s five-year academic plan,” which “calls for struggling ninth-graders to be scheduled back-to-back Algebra I and English Language Arts courses…to strengthen those skills.” It also “aims for a 98 percent graduation rate by 2015.”
The Detroit Free Press (7/21, Walsh-Sarnecki) reported that as part of the plan, some teachers are being trained on “how to include reading comprehension across subjects; others are receiving specific reading comprehension instruction so they can develop new strategies in the classroom.” Also, ninth-grade Algebra I teachers are being trained on “how to use a new handheld electronic system, called TI Navigator, to improve math instruction.”
On the Job
Duncan Announces Launch Of National Learning Registry Initiative.
Ian Quillen wrote in a blog for Education Week (7/21), “US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced an initiative Wednesday to create a National Learning Registry to help organize digital educational resources for teachers and students. In a speech to the National Rural Education Technology Summit, Duncan gave the example of digital artifacts pertaining to the first moon landing in explaining the value of the planned registry.” According to Quillen, “The registry is one tangible initiative recommended by the Federal Communication Commission’s National Broadband Plan, which FCC chairman Julius Genachowski, who also spoke at Wednesday’s event at the National Museum of the American Indian, part of Washington’s Smithsonian Institute, called the agency’s ‘most ambitious plan ever.’”
Baltimore City Schools Chief To Launch Anti-Truancy Initiatives.
The Baltimore Sun (7/22, Green) reports that Baltimore City schools chief Andres Alonso “has vowed to begin new initiatives to combat student truancy after the city’s performance on state tests showed an average achievement gap of 25 percentage points between elementary and middle school students who are repeatedly absent and those who attend regularly. The superintendent said he would focus on student attendance, even if it means deploying central office staff to knock on the doors of students who are chronically absent – which means they miss more than 20 days of school a year.” According to the Sun, “Data taken from the city’s 2010 Maryland School Assessments…showed there was a 15-percentage-point achievement gap in reading proficiency and a 21-percentage-point achievement gap in math between students who were chronically absent and those who weren’t.”
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Law & Policy
Wake County School Diversity Dispute “A National Issue.”
CNN (7/22, membis) reports on its website that “the arrest of 19 protesters at” the Wake County (NC) “school board meeting Tuesday brings the issue of busing and diversity in education into the national spotlight.” In March, the school board voted “to end ‘forced busing,’ a method initiated in the 1970s to promote [socioeconomic] diversity in public schools.” Instead, students will now “go to schools in their communities,” a plan that will leave many “black students in underachieving schools and white students in higher quality schools.” On Tuesday, a group of “nearly 1000 people…gathered at the Raleigh Convention Center and marched to the state capitol” in opposition to the new policy. Attorney Benita Jones noted that the Wake County policy is “a national issue.” She added, “Other school districts are on the edge of their seats, waiting to see what Wake County plans, before they make decisions on whether socioeconomic diversity should be reconsidered.”
Massachusetts Adopts Common Core Standards.
The Boston Globe (7/22, Vaznis) reports that the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education on Wednesday “unanimously approved replacing the state’s highly regarded academic standards yesterday with national guidelines, ushering in a wave of change in classrooms across the state.” As a result, the state will at least need to change its “standardized testing system, MCAS, which bases questions on the state standards. It could also lead to an entirely new test that would be developed by Massachusetts and about two dozen other states using the national standards.” The Boston Herald (7/22, Fargen) reports that with the approval, Massachusetts could “reap…$250 million in federal funds,” but critics say the move could also “lead to the dumbing-down of the state’s curricula.”
DC Adopts Standards. The Washington Post (7/22, Anderson) reports, “The D.C. State Board of Education on Wednesday adopted new national standards for English and math, joining Maryland and more than two dozen states in a groundbreaking effort to establish common expectations for what students should learn every year from kindergarten through high school.”
Utah Students Answer Questions For Commission’s Probe Into Quality Of Education.
The Salt Lake Tribune (7/22, Schencker) reports that the Utah Governor’s Education Excellence Commission “invited a 6-year-old girl, 7-year-old boy, 8-year-old girl and two college students to answer questions Wednesday as part of the commission’s quest to improve education in Utah.” According to the Tribune, “The commission, which has already been meeting for about five months, hopes to improve education by discussing goals and objectives for the short and long-term. The commission” on “Wednesday, they discussed standards, teacher quality and education-business partnerships.”
Congress Urged To Reauthorize Child Nutrition Programs.
Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, writes in an op-ed for The Hill (7/22), “Right now, Congress has the chance to play a starring role in ending childhood obesity. By passing the reauthorization of the school lunch and other child nutrition programs, which is currently languishing without a date for a vote on the Senate floor, Congress can get junk food out of schools.” Wootan adds, “Unlike the many controversial issues in Washington, child nutrition is bipartisan, won’t add to the deficit and is popular with voters.”
Special Needs
Green Bay School District Sees Drop In Percentage Of Special Needs Students.
The Green Bay (WI) Press Gazette (7/21, Zarling) reported that “nearly one in five students in the Green Bay School District was considered in need of special education a few years ago.” Now, as a result of refined screening method and early intervention, “the number of special education students decreased from about 20 percent in 2003-04 to 15 percent in 2009-10,” compared to an average one-percent drop throughout the state. Green Bay schools started using “a checklist and data to evaluate students” and determine which students “clearly [need] help,” said Jerry Wieland, special education director for the district. Schools also worked to improve intervention methods and they now offer intervention to students beginning at age 3, he added.
School Finance
Report Says Spending In California Classrooms Dropped As Overall K-12 Funding Rose.
The AP (7/22, Thompson) reports that a report released Wednesday by Pepperdine University shows that “spending in California classrooms declined as a percentage of total education spending over a recent five-year period, even as total school funding increased.” Overall “K-12 spending increased…from $45.6 billion to $55.6 billion statewide” in the five-year period ending June 30, 2009. This was “before budget cuts led to nearly 16,000 teachers losing their jobs for the 2009-10 school year.” The study found that school “administrators, clerks and technical staff” received “more of the funding increase,” while less of the money went toward teachers, aides, and classroom materials.
Also in the News
Fordham Institute Releases Comparison Of Common Core, State Education Standards.
CNN (7/22, Holland) reports that “so far 26 states have signed on to the national Common Core Standards.” Mike Petrilli, Vice President of the Fordham Institute, a think tank, said that the Common Core standards “have avoided the debate about the federal government pushing standards on the rest of the country” because they “are part of a state-led effort.” On Wednesday, the Forham Institute “released results of its study comparing the standards-of-learning of all 50 states and the District of Columbia with the Common Core Standards that have been proposed for the whole country.” California, DC, and Indiana “received the highest marks in English language arts with more stringent standards than the national recommendations,” but “in mathematics, there were no states that had standards that were clearly better than the Common Core Standards.” The Dallas Morning News “Education Front” blog (7/21) and the San Francisco Chronicle (7/21, Tucker) also covered the story.
Virginia BOE President Says Virginia Is “Wise” Not To Adopt Common Core. In a letter to the Editor of the Washington Post (7/21), Eleanor Saslaw, president of the Virginia Board of Education, wrote, “regarding Kristen Amundson’s July 11 Local Opinions piece, ‘National education standards: The right answer for Virginia,’” that “in taking Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) and the Virginia Board of Education to task for not adopting the Common Core national education standards, Ms. Amundson ignored recent actions to strengthen Virginia’s Standards of Learning (SOL).” Saslaw notes the merits of the system. “Given the uncertainties surrounding the Common Core,” she concludes, “Virginia is wisely moving forward with an accountability program that has made the commonwealth’s public schools among the highest-achieving in the nation.”
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NEA in the News
Report Says Common Core Alone Not Likely To Improve Quality Of Education.
The Grand Rapids Press (7/22, Murray) reports that a new report from the Michigan Education Association’s research arm, the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice , “pokes holes in the theory that national standards will…boost academic achievement.” William Mathis, “managing director of the Education and the Public Interest Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder,” wrote in the report that if “both the in-school and out-of-school influences on test scores” are addressed, “common core standards are not likely to improve the quality and equity of America’s public schools.” While he “recommends that work in the standards continues,” he suggests that they be used “only as a low-stakes advisory and assistance tool for states and local districts for the purposes of curriculum improvement, articulation and professional development.”
Valerie Strauss wrote in a blog for the Washington Post (7/21) regarding whether “the proposed national math and English-language standards are ‘clearly superior’ to those standards in most of the states.” The report authored by William J. Mathis, “released on the same day as the Fordham assessment of state standards, gives this answer: Not really.” Strauss pointed out, however, that the “Obama administration clearly wants states to adopt common standards” and any “state wanting Race money would be silly not to join” the common standards initiative, “and so most of them are — whether they have any impact or not.”
One-In-Five New York School Districts Require Immigration Paperwork For Enrollment.
The New York Times (7/23, A16, Bernstein) reports that about “one in five school districts in New York State is routinely requiring a child’s immigration papers as a prerequisite to enrollment, or asking parents for information that only lawful immigrants can provide.” The Supreme Court ruled years ago “that immigration violations cannot be used as a basis to deny children equal access to a public school education,” and the New York Civil Liberties Union, which provided data on the issue, “has not found any children turned away for lack of immigration paperwork.” Still, it warned that the requirement is likely to discourage some parents from enrolling their students in school for fear of being “reported to federal immigration authorities.” While some states — “including Maryland, Nebraska and New Jersey” — have tried “in recent years to halt similar practices,” the New York Education Department has not taken steps “to address the issue directly.”
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In the Classroom
Several Schools In Maryland District See Pass Rates On State Tests Above 90 Percent.
The Baltimore Sun (7/23, Burris) reports that several schools in Howard County, Maryland “posted passing rates of at least 94.5 percent” on state standardized tests this year. Bushy Park Elementary School, for instance, “saw 100 percent of its fifth-graders pass reading and math and had at least 97.2 percent of its third- and fourth-graders pass the subjects.” According to Bushy Park Principal Deborah Jagoda, results such as those at her school show that “the 100 percent mark [is] not only realistic but also attainable.” The Baltimore Sun notes that throughout the district “at least 90.1 percent of” elementary students earned “passing marks in reading and math, while its middle schools have at least 84.5 percent of its students passing in both subjects.”
Education Officials Look Into Extreme Decline In Maryland School’s Test Scores. The Baltimore Sun (7/23, Green) reports that at the request of Baltimore schools Chief, Andrés Alonso, state education officials are looking into “possible testing violations at” Abbottston Elementary School in Northeast Baltimore, where “in some cases 100 percent of students passed annual reading and math exams last year but where scores plunged by as much as half this year.” This is the second time in one year that a “nationally acclaimed school in the city” is being “investigated for violations on the Maryland School Assessment test,” according to the Sun. Alonso refused to “comment on whether he believed the school had cheated in previous years, saying that it was unfair to draw such conclusions about a school without facts.” But he did say that “Abbottston was one of a handful of schools that were ‘blanketed’ this year with central office monitors during MSA testing.”
Tennessee Officials Expect Drop In Student Test Scores.
The Commercial Appeal (TN) (7/23, Silence) reports, “At a news conference at the University of Memphis Thursday, state and local leaders warned the public to be prepared for a big drop in achievement test scores” as a result of “Tennessee’s new, tougher academic standards.” Gov. Phil Bredesen (D) said that it may take “a few years” for students to adjust to the new standards, “but it’s necessary to prepare them to compete nationally and globally.” Bredesen said that he first discovered that a change was needed “a few years ago when…about 85 percent of Tennessee eighth-grade math students were considered ‘proficient’ in the subject according to state standards, but only 21 percent were considered ‘proficient’ by national standards.” Next week, “state education officials will meet…to decide what scores will now be considered ‘proficient.’”
Colorado School In Partnership With School Of Mines.
The Aurora (CO) Sentinel (7/23, Goldstein) reports, “The lessons at the Cherry Creek School District’s Institute of Science and Technology will begin before any student reaches their classroom.” The school will be adorned with instruction-related designs on hallway walls, windows, and in classrooms. It also will have “an ‘energy dashboard,’ a visible meter that will allow students to track the building’s power consumption.” And, its rigorous curriculum will be drawn, in part, from “from the Colorado School of Mines.” Through the partnership, “the new school will include guest instruction from local corporations and will integrate college-level instruction,” with “professors in specialized topics [teaching] classes.”
On the Job
Some Atlanta-Area Districts Turn To Online Teacher Training To Save Money.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (7/23, Coffee) reports that faced with tightening budgets, school districts in the Atlanta area are using technology and on-the-job training more often “for teachers and administrators.” Barbara Leutz, director of professional learning in Cobb County, Georgia, noted that online classes for teachers are less expensive than face-to-face sessions. They are also convenient, allowing educators to participate in “embedded training in the classroom.”
Layoff Notices Go Out To 400 Chicago Teachers, 200 Support Staff.
The Chicago Sun-Times (7/23, Ihejirika) reports, “The first round of the long-anticipated, school-based layoffs by Chicago Public Schools to deal with a record $370 million budget deficit will claim 600 staffers by week’s end. Notices began going out Wednesday to 400 classroom teachers and 200 educational support personnel, a CPS official said.” According to the Sun-Times, “The notifications — actually confirmations of the layoff-possibility notices CPS and other districts were required by law to have sent teachers earlier this summer in the face of an Illinois cash crunch — come as the district and Chicago Teachers Union prepare for budget talks that start Friday.”
The AP (7/23) adds that the layoff notices “come as the district and Chicago Teachers Union prepared for budget talks that start Friday. The system’s head of personnel, Alicia Winckler says this week’s layoffs are mostly the result of an increase in high school class sizes – to 33 students – and cuts to bilingual education and world language classes.” The AP adds that Chicago School CEO Ron Huberman “recently said system-wide layoffs could exceed 1,200 by Labor Day, but Winckler, says the number could exceed 1,500.” WFLD-TV Chicago (7/22) also covered this story on its Website.
Law & Policy
Texas Education Commissioner Dismisses Criticism Of School Rating Guidelines As “Politics.”
The Dallas Morning News (7/23, Stutz) reports that yesterday, Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott defended the state’s school rating policy of allowing schools “to boost their state ratings by counting some failed students as passing.” He called the criticism “election year politics” and noted, “It is very easy for someone to say they gave students credit for failing.” Still, Scott said that he “will…be open to any changes” to the policy “that the Legislature wants to consider next year.” The policy has recently come under criticism by gubernatorial nominee Bill White (D), who has accused “Scott and his boss, Gov. Rick Perry, of cheating to make some schools look better than they really are.” The Morning News notes that under the policy, schools receive credit “for projected growth in student achievement.”
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Safety & Security
Tennessee Secondary Athletic Association Approves New Concussion Policy.
WKRN-TV Nashville (7/23) reports that “the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association’s board unanimously approved” a “new policy regarding concussions” this week. The rule, aimed at preventing brain damage to players, specifies that “any high school athlete who suffers a concussion or shows any signs of a possible concussion must be removed from the game or match and examined by a doctor.”
School Finance
Fidelity Investments Targets Dropout Rate With Assistance To 11 Middle Schools Nationwide.
The Boston Globe (7/22) reports that Boston-based Fidelity Investments announced this week that “it is working with a volunteer network of the Points of Light Institute to help improve the learning environments in 11 middle schools across the United States.” The company “will design and create College and Career Zones at locally tailored ‘School Transformation Days.’” The program is “Fidelity’s largest employee volunteer effort.”
Utah’s Deseret News (7/23, Farmer) reports that Bryant Middle School in Salt Lake City Utah was one of the 11 schools “selected by the national investment firm.” Fidelity plans “to provide additional computers for the school and hopefully get some more tutors and mentors to meet with students throughout the year.” Bryant and the other 10 schools nationwide were selected by the company based on “criteria such as significant maintenance needs, number of students and proximity to Fidelity regional offices.”
Detroit Public Schools To Sell Bricks From Five Schools After Demolition.
The Detroit Free Press (7/23, Angel) reports that bricks from five “high schools — all slated for demolition — will be preserved and restored for sale to the public to raise money for the Public Schools Foundation, Detroit Public Schools officials said Thursday.” The move, said foundation President Chacona Johnson, will “honor the legacy and history of these schools, while also acknowledging that students deserve facilities that support 21st Century learning.” The AP (7/23) reports that other salvaged items may also be auctioned. “The foundation plans to hire a business to package the bricks for fundraising.”
MLive.com (7/23, Foley) reports on the demolition of Cass Technical High School, which has been “vacant since 2005.” A demolition crew will tear down the building, “above grade utilities, underground utilities, sidewalks, curbs and gutters.” The land will then “be paved and used by the new Cass Tech for parking and athletics.”
Also in the News
Los Angeles Schools Chief To Retire Next Spring.
The Los Angeles Times (7/23, Blume) reports, “Amid persistent budget woes and increasing political pressure, Los Angeles schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines confirmed Thursday…that he plans to step down next spring as head of the nation’s second-largest school system.” In more than two years with the district, Cortines “has presided over relentless program cuts, salary reductions and layoffs caused by the state budget deficit and declining enrollment” and “managed an array of school improvement efforts.” The Times adds, “Insiders have mentioned” incoming deputy superintendent John Deasy, “a veteran superintendent, as a possible successor, although board members said they are keeping their options open.”
The AP (7/23, Hoag) adds that Cortines is “credited with shepherding a school reform plan that turns over the district’s lowest performing schools to charters and independent groups. Critics, however, have claimed Cortines did not go far enough and caved to the interests of the powerful teachers union by recommending that most schools be turned over to teachers’ groups.” According to the AP, “Cortines has also had to deal with fallout from a conflict of interest scandal in the district’s facilities construction department that led to the indictment of a top official.”
In a report on its Website, KABC-TV Los Angeles (7/22, Lara) added that Cortines “says cutting $1.5 billion from the budget, while putting reforms in place, was the biggest challenge he has ever faced. … Many district observers believe the next chief of schools will be Deputy Superintendent John Deasy” who “is expected to arrive at the district Aug. 2.”
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Develop the Skills You Need to be a P-12 Principal or Administrator.
Are you a school administrator, educational researcher, teacher, department chair, supervisor, counselor, consultant, or government employee? You can acquire the high-level skills, knowledge, and critical-thinking abilities that can help you reach your professional goals more quickly. Request free information.
NEA in the News
NEA Political Action Committee Has Spent Less Money This Year Than Last.
Spending New Jersey’s Star-Ledger (7/23, Friedman) reports that even though “the state’s public worker unions are at war with Gov. Chris Christie (R)…they have not ramped up their political spending.” For example, the New Jersey Education Association’s political action committee “spent $234,788 in the first half of this year,” significantly less than the $426,200 it had spent “at this point last year, when there were far more state-level political races.” The Star-Ledger points out, however, that the amount of money “unions spent on media blitzes to go toe-to-toe with Christie over school aid cuts, pension changes and wage freezes” are likely to “show up in grassroots lobbying reports released next February.”