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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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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.”

The Miami Herald (7/12, McGrory, Tepoff) reported that Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said on Monday that “if the scores stand as they are, dozens of high-performing South Florida elementary schools will likely see their letter grade drop.” The Herald adds that “if there are errors in the FCAT data, the consequences could be serious,” because “school grades determine if a school receives money from the state or federal government, and if students can transfer out.”

The Tampa Tribune (7/13, Ackerman) notes, “FCAT scores were late this year because of computer glitches with NCS Pearson, a testing contractor hired by the state. The company and Smith assured school districts that the scores, while late, would be accurate.”

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In the Classroom
Hawaii Educators Anticipate Poor State Test Results Due To Lost Instructional Time.
The Honolulu Star-Advertiser (7/12, Vorsino) reported that “The annual Hawaii State Assessment scores will be released this week, and many educators are bracing for bad news, saying budget cuts and teacher furloughs are almost certain to have had a negative effect.” In April, when roughly 90,000 “public school students in grades 3 through 8 and grade 10 took the annual assessments,” they already “had lost nearly three weeks of instructional time to teacher furloughs.” In an effort to maximize instructional time prior to the tests, many schools rearranged their schedules and limited “other activities, from art instruction to field trips. Several beefed up after-school tutoring, in hopes of helping struggling students get up to speed.” The Star-Advertiser notes that test scores will be released on Thursday.

Draft Framework Outlines Science Standards Vision.
Erik Robelen wrote in a blog for Education Week (7/12), “As part of a national effort to develop a set of ‘next generation’ science standards for elementary and secondary education, a panel of experts convened by the National Research Council…issued a draft of the ‘conceptual framework’ that will guide the standards. …. In the introduction to the draft framework, the panel explains that the document presents a ‘vision of the scope and nature of the education in science and engineering that is needed in the 21st century.” According to Robelen, “The draft also notes a strong emphasis on engineering and technology.”

On the Job
Milwaukee Public Schools Recalls Nearly 90 Teachers Who Received Layoff Notices In June.
Erin Richards wrote in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (7/12) “School Zone” blog, “Milwaukee Public Schools recalled 89 of the 482 teachers who received layoff notices in June, district officials announced today in a news release.” Of those, “37 K-8 teachers were recalled after a certification review, 13 teachers were recalled to staff the district’s Montessori, IB and language immersion schools, and 13 more teachers were recalled because the district received 13 late resignations.” The district said that “the recalls…were made possible because of late resignations of other staff members and the identification of additional funding sources.” The Business Journal of Milwaukee (7/13) quotes Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent Gregory Thornton as saying, “The teachers may have been on summer break, but we haven’t stopped thinking about them. … We have been vigilant in our search for ways to get educators back into the classroom.”

Law & Policy
Indiana AG Says Charging Students To Ride School Buses Violates State Law.
The AP (7/13, Wilson) reports that on Monday the Indiana Attorney General said that “state law doesn’t allow public school districts to charge students a fee for taking the bus to and from school.” Some school districts throughout the state have “been looking at the fees as one possible way to help them out of a financial bind caused by property tax caps and a $300 million cut in state education spending.” A spokeswoman for AG Greg Zoeller noted that “said official opinions are intended to serve as guidelines for state officials and aren’t legally binding.” But Indiana ASBO executive director Dennis Costerison said that even though the opinion is not legally binding, “it could give ammunition to a parent who decided to sue their school district over bus fees.”

WXIN-TV Indianapolis (7/13, Loncich) reports that in a nine-page opinion, Zoeller wrote, “A public school corporation is not authorized to assess and collect a bus rider fee from a student in order for that student to receive transportation to and from the student’s school to receive a public education.” WTHR-TV Indianapolis (7/13, MacAnally) reports that the AG “pointed to an earlier state high court ruling that found fees for extracurricular activities was okay.” WTVR-TV Indianapolis (7/13) also covers the story.

Corporal Punishment In Memphis Schools Voted Down.
The Commercial Appeal (TN) (7/13, Roberts) reports, “The Memphis City school board on Monday night” voted against “member Kenneth’s Whalum’s wish to reinstate corporal punishment.” The Commercial Appeal notes that “Whalum brought the issue up last month, drawing national attention, including a threat from detentionslip.com, an education news website, to call for a boycott of Memphis if corporal punishment were reinstated.” In 2005, the practice was eliminated in Memphis schools “after research showed that the same children were receiving the punishment repeatedly.” WHBQ-TV Memphis, TN (7/13) also covers this story.

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Safety & Security
Georgia District Proposes Hiring Inmates For Grounds Work At Schools.
The Augusta (GA) Chronicle (7/12, Sparks) reported, “In an effort to save money, the Richmond County School System’s Facilities and Maintenance Department wants to start a county inmate work detail at schools.” The proposal calls for the school system to “hire six inmates and a guard for chores such as grounds and retention pond work, moving heavy items and cleaning stadiums, at a cost of $65,000 for the inmates and guard and $10,000 for vehicle and equipment needs.” The workers would not at any time “be close to students or faculty,” and “the school system would also make sure no inmate workers are on a sex offender list.”

WRDW-TV Augusta (7/13, Thomas) reports that some Richmond County residents are concerned that “the cost savings of bringing in inmate crews could put their children and neighborhoods at risk.” Nevertheless, the Augusta finance committee has already “cleared the idea Monday. It now goes to the Richmond County Board of Education.” The AP (7/13) also covers the story.

School Finance
Massachusetts Awarded $58.7 Million In Stimulus Funds To Help Turn Around Failing Schools.
The Boston Globe (7/13, Vaznis) reports, “Massachusetts will receive $58.7 million in federal funds to help turn around the state’s lowest-achieving schools. … About 100 schools across the state, including 35 designated as ‘underperforming’ by the state, will be eligible to compete for the money.” According to the Globe, “In anticipation of the announcement, Boston and other districts have been putting together funding proposals, which must include adopting one of the school-overhaul plans developed by the Obama administration, such as forcing teachers to reapply for their jobs.” The AP (7/13) reports that “a dozen of the [eligible] schools are located in Boston and another 10 in Springfield with other schools located in Fall River, Holyoke, Lawrence, Lowell, Lynn, New Bedford and Worcester.”

California School Funding System Unconstitutional, Lawsuit Alleges.
The Oakland (CA) Tribune (7/13, Murphy) reports, “California’s substandard school system is depriving students of the opportunity to receive a meaningful education and to meet the standards the state has set for them, a coalition of parents, students and civil rights advocacy groups argued in a lawsuit filed Monday in Alameda Superior Court against the state and the governor. The plaintiffs argue that education is a fundamental right under California’s constitution, and far too many students are failing to read and write at grade level or graduate from high school.” The Tribune adds, “To remedy the problem, the coalition is demanding equal access to preschools, increased school funding, better data systems and an efficient, coherent school finance system that provides more resources to children with greater need.”

The AP (7/13, Chea) reports, “Groups representing low-income families sued the state of California Monday in the second major legal action alleging the government is failing to adequately fund public education. … The plaintiffs, including the Campaign for Quality Education and Alliance for Californians for Community Empowerment, asked the court to declare the current school finance system unconstitutional and force Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger [R] and the Legislature to create a new system that adequately funds public schools.” Schwarzenegger “said he hopes he can work with the plaintiffs to reach a mutually acceptable agreement that puts the needs of students first.” Lesli Maxwell also covered the story in a blog for Education Week (7/12).

Also in the News
Flash Drive With Educators’ Data Missing From Connecticut Teacher Retirement Board.
The Connecticut Post (7/13, Lambeck) reports that last week, the Connecticut Teacher’s Retirement Board sent a letter to teachers throughout the state “warning them that a computer flash drive containing retirement fund data is missing.” The data on the flash drive “is encrypted,” or “scrambled to make it unintelligible to unauthorized parties.” Retirement board official, Darlene Perez, assured in the letter, “We have numerous controls in place so that financial transactions are properly authorized and executed and have enhanced our internal procedures over the physical control of flash drives.” Teachers were not asked “to take any action or change any passwords,” the Connecticut Post notes. Kathy Frega of the Connecticut Education Association “said the union has been in discussions with the retirement agency about this issue and has been assured the data was ‘considered a relatively low-risk occurrence.’”

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NEA in the News
New Jersey Education Association Opposes Lower Property Tax Cap.
Education Week (7/12, Maxwell) reported, “Some education officials in New Jersey are warning that a new legislative agreement that would cap annual property-tax increases could further erode already-tenuous budgets for the state’s public schools.” The deal reached between Gov. Chris Christie (R) and “Democratic leaders in the legislature” this month would “impose a two percent cap on growth in local property taxes that the governor said would deliver ‘long-overdue relief’ to residents who pay some of the highest property taxes in the nation.” Public schools statewide will see an overall “$1.3 billion reduction over fiscal years 2010 and 2011.” Education Week notes that the New Jersey Education Association “has argued vigorously against changing the current” four percent cap on property taxes. In a statement, the NJEA said that “the consequences of the deal” include “deeper cuts in staff …even larger class sizes,” fewer extracurricular activities and higher activity fees.

Kansas NEA Lists Pro-Education Funding Candidates.
KTKA-TV Topeka, KS (7/13, Seabrook) reports that when Kansas NEA President Blake West “returned from this year’s National Education Association Convention,” he was “frustrated by the Obama administration plan to award competitive grants for state education funding.” That is why “he says the upcoming elections are more important now than ever.” KTKA provides a link to the KNEA’s “list of what it calls ‘pro-education funding’ candidates.”

US Expected To Fall Short In Computer Science Education.
Education Week (7/14, Robelen) reports, “National statistics indicate that computing will be one of the fastest-growing areas for employment in coming years, but experts say the US educational pipeline is expected to fall far short in producing college graduates in the field.” Also, “representation of female and minority students among those studying computer science in high school and college is seen as especially low.” Experts say the confusion of computer science with computer literacy is “a major hurdle.” In order “to help address the apparent disconnect between supply and demand, efforts are building to increase access at the pre-collegiate level to high-quality instruction in computer science, a cross-cutting subject that includes elements of math, science, and other disciplines.” Among these efforts are “a new AP course in computer science that is intended to appeal to a broader and more diverse audience than the existing course,” and initiatives from companies such as Google and Microsoft.

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In the Classroom
DC Test Scores Show Mixed Progress.
The Washington Post (7/14, Turque) reports, “After two years of significant gains across the D.C. school system, elementary students lost ground in reading and math test scores this year, a setback to Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee as she seeks to overhaul the city’s schools. The data released Tuesday did reflect encouraging news for middle and high schools, which extended gains in reading and math proficiency on the District of Columbia Comprehensive Assessment System.” Though officials have said the “the three-year record of double-digit growth in secondary schools’ test scores — an average gain of 14 percentage points in the reading pass rate and 17 points in the math rate — surpasses the norm for big urban school districts,” the “dip of between four to five points in elementary scores halts an upward two-year trend.”

Montana District Proposes Sex Education Beginning In Kindergarten.
Fox News (7/13) reported on its website that Montana’s Helena Public School District’s proposal to teach “kindergartners sex education will be up for debate Tuesday evening at a school board meeting.” The proposal “includes teaching first graders that people can be attracted to the same gender. In second grade students are instructed to avoid gay slurs and by the time students turn 10 years old they are taught about various types of intercourse.” The plan has sparked outrage from some in the community like Jeff Laszloffy, of the Montana Family Foundation, who says that it crosses the line between “education and indoctrination.”

Olympic Medalist To Teach Swimming To Baltimore Summer Learning Academy Students.
The Baltimore Sun (7/14, Green) reports that “Baltimore native and 14-time gold medal Olympian Michael Phelps” will give a swim lesson to summer school students in the city on Wednesday. The lesson will “kick off a partnership between the city schools’ Summer Learning Academy and the Michael Phelps Swim School. The swim school will give 60 middle school students up to 20 hours of swim lessons donated by its coaches.

NAEP Scores Improve When Students Are Paid, Study Shows.
Debra Viadero wrote in a blog for Education Week (7/13), “A new study has hit on one possible way to improve 12th graders’ dismal scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress: Pay them to take the test.” Viadero added that the study, authored by Boston College’s Henry Braun and Irwin Kirsch and Kentaro Yamamoto of the Educational Testing Service, involved three groups of students, seniors who “were paid $20 at the start of the test-taking session” seniors who were “offered $5 in advance and $30 at the end of the session if they correctly answered two randomly chosen questions on the test” and a control group that “received no special incentives.” The study found that “both of the monetary incentives spurred students to do better than they might have otherwise, although the second condition, in which part of the payout hinged on the students getting answers correct, proved to be the stronger incentive.”

On the Job
Former Astronaut Urges Educators To Counter Stereotypes, Humanize STEM Careers.
The Chicago Daily Herald (7/14, Daday) reports, “Former NASA astronaut Sally Ride flew into Motorola’s Schaumburg campus on Tuesday in time to headline the company’s 2010 Innovation Generation Network Conference,” and “in doing so…practiced what she preaches: to put a face to the wide variety of scientists and engineers working in innovative fields, who come from different backgrounds, and are of different ages and ethnicities.” Ride told her audience, “Counter stereotypes early, and introduce (these scientists and engineers) as real people…so students can humanize these careers.” Much of Ride’s audience was “educators and Motorola grant recipients,” notes the Daily Herald. The Motorola Foundation “announced this week it has given out more than $7.5 million to promote STEM education programs…across the country.”

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Law & Policy
Survey Shows Texans Want Reform Of Process For Changing Curriculum.
TWEAN-TV Austin, Texas (7/14) reports that the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund (TFN) this week “released the results of its statewide survey into education and curriculum issues in Texas.” In a statement, the TFN said that survey results show “Texans overwhelmingly support reforming the way the state sets requirements for curriculum and textbooks in public schools and reject key ‘culture war’ positions [conservative board members have] taken regarding public education.”

Terrence Stutz wrote in the Dallas Morning News (7/13) “Trail Blazers” blog, “Nearly three out of four Texans want to see curriculum standards for public schools written by teachers and scholars – not the State Board of Education – according to” the poll. Also, 68 percent of the 601 “likely Texas voters” who participated in the poll “said separation of church and state is a key legal principle, but 49 percent also said religion should have more influence in the schools.” The poll also showed that “80 percent want high school students to be taught about contraceptives in health classes and 55 percent oppose publicly funded vouchers to let students attend private and religious schools.” The San Antonio Express News (7/13, Scharrer) reported that “the poll surveyed 972 likely voters and was conducted by Washington-based Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research.” Kate Alexander also covered the story in Texas’ American Statesman (7/13) “Postcards” blog.

Maryland Governor Proposes Waiving AP, PSAT Test Fees.
The Baltimore Sun (7/14, Bowie) reports that Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) “wants to remove the financial hurdles that he says prevent more students from taking the Advanced Placement and PSAT tests by having the state pay for them. … Since the AP test fee is already waived for poor students,” O’Malley’s “proposal would only benefit middle-class and wealthy families who pay $86 for each test.” According to the Sun, “Baltimore City and Prince George’s County already pay the cost for all students in their systems who take the test” and O’Malley “also would have the state pick up the cost of giving the PSAT to all sophomores.”

Federal School Lunch Program Viewed As A Waste Of Taxpayer Dollars.
The Washington Times (7/14) editorializes, “Although the $19.2 billion federal child nutrition program already hands out free or subsidized breakfast, lunch and snacks to 32 million kids,” a bill slated to be considered today by the House Education and Labor Committee “would open up the freebies to millions more” as the “Obama administration has pledged another $10 billion in spending over 10 years.” However, the “school-meal initiative has become a typical government welfare program, riddled with fraud and waste. … Instead of expanding the multi-billion-dollar boondoggle, Congress should think about getting the federal government out of the free-lunch business.”

Many Eligible Students Do Not Participate In Federal School Meal Summer Program. Miami Herald (7/13, Pugh) reported that “for the 19 million students” nationwide “who get free and reduced-cost government-subsidized meals at school, the summer months can also mean an unhealthy vacation from good nutrition.” In 1968, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Summer Food Service Program “was launched in 1968 to address these problems by providing healthy meals from June to August so students in low-income areas are ready to learn when school begins in the fall.” But today, that program “isn’t reaching nearly as many youngsters as it could.” According to data from the Food Research and Action Center, “only one in six eligible students…participated in a summer meal program in July 2009,” about a 21 percent drop from 2001.

Safety & Security
Drug Testing Reduces Students’ Drug Use, Federal Study Finds.
Education Week (7/13, Samuels) reported, “Students involved in extracurricular activities and subject to in-school random drug testing reported less substance use than their peers in high schools that didn’t have drug-testing programs, according a federal evaluation of 4,700 students spread across seven states. The study was funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, a branch of” the Education Department, “and conducted by RMC Research Corporation in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. and the Princeton, New Jersey-based Mathematica Policy Research.” Education Week added that according to the report 16 percent “of students subject to drug testing in the study reported using substances covered by their district’s testing program in the past 30 days, compared to 22 percent of comparable students in schools without the program.”

Also in the News
“Silly Stunts” Help Motivate Students, Educators Say.
The AP (7/13) reported that each year, “school administrators…make local headlines for silly stunts intended to motivate students.” They “do everything from spending the day on the roof to kissing pigs to taking pies in the face to reward students for a job well done.” Diane Cargile, president of the NAESP, “The antics really help ‘motivate and encourage’” students. Barbara Sistrunk, “an assistant principal who jumped out of a plane when the Parent Teacher Association at Greenland Pines Elementary School in Jacksonville, Florida, met their parent participation goals,” such “over-the-top acts underscore a principal’s commitment to the school” and they “grab students’ attention.” For instance, “after Sistrunk’s sky dive,” a student at Greenland Pines “decided to do her science project on what type of fabric makes the best parachute.”

Former Students Using Facebook To Recognize Teachers Decades Later.
The New York Times (7/14, Feinstein) reports, “At a time when public school teachers are being blamed for everything from poor test scores to budget crises, Facebook is one place where they are receiving adulation, albeit delayed. The site has drawn more attention as a platform for adolescent meanness and bullying, and as a vehicle for high school and college students to ruthlessly dissect their teachers.” However, “people who are 20, 30 or 40 years beyond graduation are using Facebook to re-establish relationships with teachers and express gratitude and overdue respect.”

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NEA in the News
“Clinton 12″ Receive NEA “Rosa Parks Memorial Award.”
WBIR-TV Knoxville (7/14, Dreher) reports that “54 years ago…Jo Ann Boyce and the ‘Clinton 12′ made their way to Clinton High School, the first school in the Southeast to integrate.” This month, the Clinton 12 received the NEA “Rosa Parks Memorial Award.” That the award comes from teachers is significant to Boyce, because, she said, “It was the teachers who were the strongest on our side; best pals, best buddies, tried to help us through the whole process in 1956.”

Report Shows Many Districts Expect To Cut Teaching Jobs As Stimulus Funds Run Out.
Education Week (7/15, Aarons) reports, “School districts have used federal economic-stimulus money to help ameliorate the effects of the economic recession and keep their teaching staffs employed, even as their overall budgets decreased. But the looming end of that funding means 75 percent of the nation’s school districts expect to cut teaching jobs in the 2010-11 school year, according to a report published today by the Center on Education Policy.” According to Education Week, the report finds that districts “are worried about the upcoming ‘funding cliff’ when the stimulus funds run out; 60 percent reported when surveyed this spring that their districts had spent or expected to have spent all of the funds received by the end of the 2009-10 school year” and “the stimulus wasn’t enough to stop layoffs-45 percent of school districts reported cutting teaching jobs in the 2009-10 school year.”

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In the Classroom
In New Mexico, A Renewed Push For Career And Technical Education.
The AP (7/14) reported on “one point of view not touted by many educators these days: that having some students focus on a [CTE] track in high school, with no immediate plans for college, is OK.” The article examines the Santa Fe Public Schools, which “acknowledges and encourages students” to pursue technical education. “The district provides three tracks for high school students, depending on whether a student plans to: attend a ‘selective’ college such as private institutions with stringent admission standards; attend a ‘major college (or) university’ such as a state university; or pursue a technical career, community college or the military.” While districts vary in their approach, more New Mexico schools are encouraging “students to choose a career path.” A state education official “said the department encourages schools to focus on seven of 16 national career clusters that are relevant to the local economy.”

On the Job
Chicago Districts Offer Six-Figure Salaries To “Extraordinary Number” Of Teachers.
Chicago Tribune (7/15, Rado) reports, “An extraordinary number of public school teachers in the Chicago region earned $100,000 or more in 2009, straining school budgets and taxpayer wallets and fueling the debate over what teachers are worth and how they get raises.” The highest percentage of teachers taking home six-figure salaries is in the Township High School District 113, with nearly half of teachers earning $100,000 or more. “The highest-paying districts note that they are top performers that get accolades and national rankings, and they need to be competitive to attract top teachers as parents expect.” The Chicago Tribune notes, however,” that “the six-figure salaries highlight disparities that have persisted between rich and less wealthy communities in Illinois.”

Law & Policy
NCLB Impedes Language Preservation Efforts, Native American Leaders Say.
Education Week (7/14, Zehr) reported, “Native American leaders pressed members of Congress and federal education officials this week to provide relief from provisions of” No Child Left Behind “that they see as obstacles to running the language-immersion schools they need to keep their languages from disappearing. As part of a two-day national summit” in Washington, DC “on revitalizing native languages, three founders of immersion schools that are teaching children Cherokee, Ojibwe, and Native Hawaiian contended that some” NCLB “provisions present huge hurdles for language-immersion programs or schools and conflict with schooling rights spelled out in another federal law, the Native American Languages Act.” Education Week added, “In a face-to-face interaction at the summit, the founders of immersion schools petitioned Charles P. Rose, the general counsel of the US Department of Education], to give them a legal interpretation that exempts their schools from having to meet provisions of the NCLB law that require them to test their students in English, particularly in the early grades, and ensure that teachers are ‘highly qualified.’”

Illinois Bill Aims To Curb School Bullying.
The AP (7/14, McFarlan) reported that a new Illinois bill aims to make bullying “a thing of the past” and Illinois “school districts are joining the fight with new anti-bullying efforts that could make schools a safer place this fall. Senate Bill 3266, which took effect June 28, prohibits bullying in public school districts and nonpublic, nonsectarian elementary and secondary schools in the state of Illinois. … SB3266 also says school districts should educate students, parents and staff what behaviors constitute bullying” and the bill “requires each school district to create and maintain a policy on bullying that is updated every two years.”

Ohio Law Calls For Optional Pilot Exercise Program For Schools Next Year.
Ohio’s Suburban News Publications (7/14, Perrin) reported that last month, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland (D) “signed the final version of Senate Bill 210 — the Healthy Choices for Healthy Children Act — into law.” Under the legislation, “the Ohio Department of Education will oversee an optional pilot program that requires K-12 schools to incorporate 30 minutes of physical activity into the school day beyond recess” starting “with the 2011-12 school year.” The Delaware News notes that early versions of the bill required that districts “add the 30 minutes of exercise. But lobbyists from organizations including the Ohio Association of School Business Officials (OASBO) balked at the idea of more unfunded state mandates and they lobbied against the requirement.” OASBO officials Barbara Shaner and Jennifer Economus sent “a March memo to the original bill’s sponsors” which said that “without additional funding, school districts simply cannot afford this mandate.”

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Safety & Security
Teacher Fired Over Drowning Death Of New York City Student.
The New York Times (7/15, Medina) reports, “A teacher was fired and two administrators were disciplined on Wednesday after an inquiry into the drowning of a 12-year-old girl on a field trip found fault with a Harlem school’s planning and supervision of the trip. The girl, Nicole Suriel, a sixth grader, was one of 24 students on a class trip June 22 to Long Beach, on Long Island, from Columbia Secondary School for Math, Science and Engineering, a middle school” in Manhattan. According to the Times, “An investigation by the city’s Department of Education found that officials at the school did a poor job planning the trip and failed to obtain the required

The New York Daily News (7/15, Monahan) adds that “Special Commissioner of Investigations Richard Condon laid out Nicole’s last hours as a series of disastrous mistakes” as teacher Erin Bailey, “the main chaperone, exercised ‘poor judgment’ by allowing kids into the churning ocean off Long Beach without a lifeguard” and there “weren’t specific permission slips, just ‘blanket’ slips from the start of the year that didn’t include swimming” Also, “Assistant Principal Andrew Stillman decided at the last minute not to go, staying behind to do administrative work.” New York City Education Department “officials will demote Stillman to a teaching position and seek to put Principal Jose Maldonado-Rivera on probation, they said.”

Facilities
Agreement Reached Over Where To Build New Schools In New York City.
Sharon Otterman wrote in a blog for the New York Times (7/14) that the New York City Department of Education “and the city teachers’ union announced a solution on Wednesday to a math equation that had been plaguing them since this spring: how to fit 16 new and expanding schools into space occupied by 19 existing schools. … Under the terms of the agreement, 9 of the 16 schools will open in the promised locations, alongside some of the saved schools” and in “exchange, the union pledged to not sue the city for placing new schools in the closing schools’ buildings, a matter that was left undecided in the lawsuit that could have been challenged.”

Also in the News
E-Education Providers Seek To Break Into Public Education Mainstream.
Education Week (7/14, Gustke) reported, “The for-profit e-learning company K12 Inc. grew 40 percent last year, generating $385 million in revenue by providing virtual courses to 70,000 students across the country” and “Connections Academy, another such provider, generated about $120 million in revenue serving up online courses to some 20,000 students.” According to Education Week, “Experts say for-profit providers of online courses-long seen as an option for home-schoolers and a potential rival to public schools-are breaking into the public education mainstream as more schools mix face-to-face classes and online courses to expand their curricular offerings. With demand for that ‘blended’ approach expected to grow, other players in the online-coursetaking marketplace, such as Apex Learning, Aventa Learning, Compass Learning, and Kaplan Virtual Education, are also seeking business in public schools.”

“Blast Sites” Offer Venue For Cyber Bullying Attacks.
WHBQ-TV Memphis (7/15, Lee) reports, “Cyber bullying is more common than ever with the popularity of what’s called ‘blast sites,’” which “name names and tell tales, usually of sexual exploits.” In Memphis, a blast site linked to Facebook “focuses on several Memphis City Schools and area colleges.” Site administrators, who are anonymous, say that Brutal Weeks “has become a form of entertainment for Memphis students.” Facebook told WHBQ that “it has a very aggressive campaign against cyber bullying sites, including a team that reviews when a page is reported, getting law enforcement involved if necessary.”

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NEA in the News
Teachers’ Unions Contribute More Money Toward Elections In Oregon Than Other States.
The Oregonian (7/14, Hammond) reported, “Teachers’ unions spent far more per teacher to influence elections in Oregon in 2008 than the unions spent in any other state, according to a study released” Wednesday by “the non-partisan education journal Education Next.” According to the Study, “the nation’s two large teachers’ unions and their state affiliates contributed $357 per teacher to elections in Oregon,” while the national average for states stood at $22 “about $22 worth of campaign contributions per teacher.” Most of the campaign dollars spent in Oregon went “to fight ballot measures backed by prolific initiative author and union nemesis Bill Sizemore.” The Oregonian added that “the Oregon Education Association contributed about $5.5 million to a coalition called Defend Oregon that fought a high-profile advertising battle against those measures,” and the NEA “pumped in another $3 million.”

Maryland State Education Association Touts O’Malley, Benefits Of Fair Negotiations Act.
Clara Floyd, president of the Maryland State Education Association, writes in a letter to the editor of the Washington Post (7/15) that “educators across Maryland — and across the country — celebrated Gov. Martin O’Malley’s (D) leadership on public education as he received the National Education Association’s America’s Greatest Education Governor Award” earlier this month. Floyd asserts that in a July 9 editorial, “The Post exhibited a profound misunderstanding of the reasons for the award as well as Maryland’s recently enacted Fairness in Negotiations Act (FINA), which governs collective bargaining in Maryland education.” She points out that “Mr. O’Malley’s budgets resulted in school construction investments more than double those during the previous administration,” and that he was honored by the NEA for providing “leadership, resources and respect for public education.” Floyd added that the Maryland State Education Association believes that FINA “will improve the efficiency of negotiations, allowing school employers and employees to devote more energy to teaching and learning.”

House Committee Approves Child Nutrition Act.
The AP (7/15, Jalonick) reported, “House Democrats are moving forward on first lady Michelle Obama’s vision for healthier school lunches, propelling legislation that calls for tougher standards governing food in school and more meals for hungry children.” On Thursday, the House Education and Labor Committee approved legislation that “would allow the Agriculture Department to create new standards for all food in schools, including vending machine items.” The measure “would also expand the number of low-income children eligible for free or reduced cost meals.”

Nia-Malika Henderson wrote in a blog for the Washington Post (7/15) that the First Lady “offered something of an olive branch and a pat on the back Thursday, releasing her first written statement on House legislation.” In the statement, she congratulated “the House Education and Labor Committee on the successful bipartisan passage of a child nutrition reauthorization bill,” and said, “The President looks forward to signing a final bill this year, so that we can make significant progress in improving the nutrition and health of children across our nation.’”

Jane Black wrote in a blog for the Washington Post (7/15) that the nutrition bill, called the Improving Nutrition for America’s Children Act of 2010, “proposes about $8 billion in additional funding over 10 years for child nutrition programs, including school breakfast and lunch. The programs have been the main focus of Michelle Obama’s high-profile Let’s Move campaign, which aims to end childhood obesity within a generation.”

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In the Classroom
Despite Furlough Days, Student Test Scores in Hawaii Show Improvement.
KITV-TV Honolulu (7/16) reports, “Hawaii public school student test scores went up this past year in every category except one, according to statistics released by the Department of Education on Thursday.” The improvements came “despite schools closing for furloughs 17 times this past school year.” Parent activist Jo Curran said that “the higher test results show a lot of teachers did extra work to help their students learn even with 17 fewer school days.” In addition to the increase in “overall scores…the number of schools that met the AYP standards rose also,” KITV adds.

On the Job
Florida School Grades Delayed For Second Audit Of Test Scores.
The St. Petersburg Times (7/16, Stanley) reports, “Florida school districts have learned that the release of individual school grades will be delayed so that a second company can audit FCAT scores that some superintendents have flagged as suspicious.” The Virginia-based auditing company HumRRO will be performing the second audit of FCAT scores. HumRRO “is a subcontractor for NCS Pearson, the testing giant in charge of scoring the test in the first place. Several school superintendents see [that] as a conflict of interest,” the Ledger adds. In addition to HumRRO, the State Department of Education has also “hired the National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment, also called the Center for Assessment, as an additional reviewer of the results.”

The Orlando Sentinel (7/16, Postal) reports, “Two days after five Florida superintendents asked the state to investigate ‘anomalies’ with this year’s FCAT, 41 other districts said they, too, have concerns with student performance on 2010 state tests.” The “districts say the data shows a decline in the percentage of students making gains — often a bigger drop than could be explained by normal, year-to-year fluctuations.” The Sentinel also noted that “school grades, which local officials expected out next week, won’t be released until the two outside audits are complete. One audit will look at learning gains and the other overall test design, among other issues.”

Workshop Aims To Help Teachers Use Modeling Skills.
The Clarksville (TN) Leaf Chronicle (7/15, Wallace) reports on a recent teacher workshop that was held as part of an effort to improve STEM education. The “workshop spotlighted a method called ‘modeling’ which essentially places the teacher as a facilitating guide to a student’s quest for cause and effect,” and has students learn through “observation and experiment.” Dennis Glass, a veteran educator and long-time teacher for modeling workshops, said that modeling skills are “a life long learning exercise.” Glass said, “We start the modeling approach in seventh grade for our students. There is no reluctance from them in high school because they are used to exploring the perimeters.” Glass also “pointed out the ‘modeling’ approach is especially critical ‘because we’ve had so many scientific discoveries like DNA.’”

Law & Policy
Duncan Pushes For Passage Of Teacher Jobs Bill.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (7/16, Bock) reports, “Missouri’s schools chief joined the nation’s top education official Thursday in support of $10 billion in emergency public school funding” needed to pay teachers. Roughly 3,200 “education jobs could be saved in Missouri with a bill currently under debate in Congress, state Education Commissioner Chris Nicastro said.” Nicastro and US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told reporters during a conference call that the legislation “would help states and school districts across the country save an estimated 100,000 or more education jobs during a tough budget year.” But, they say, “the money should not come at the cost of school reform programs such as Race to the Top.”

Reuters (7/16) adds that the President Obama has threatened to veto the $10 billion teacher jobs measure passed by the House as part of a defense spending bill if the final version contains cuts to Race to the Top and other education reform programs. According to Reuters, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said the proposed legislation would cut $500 million from Race to the Top. According to the NEA, the extra funding would preserve about 138,000 school jobs nationwide.

Advocates Say Improved Test Scores Show Diversity Policy Benefited North Carolina District.
North Carolina’s News & Observer (7/15, Hui) reported that “preliminary results released on Wednesday showed” increased “performance by Wake students in elementary, middle and high school on state exams this past school year, with the racial achievement gap narrowing.” Advocates of school diversity are pointing to the academic gains as proof that “the Wake school board majority…didn’t need to discard the decades-long policy of maintaining socioeconomic balance in schools.” Last Spring, the board majority voted “to eliminate the diversity policy and is now developing a new model designed to send students to schools closer to their homes.” Member John Tedesco said that the test results do not “prove that the assignment model works.” Instead, he says, they prove “that teachers are making it work for our students.”

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Special Needs
Parents Press For “Sustainable” Autistic Education Program In California District.
California’s Sun (7/16, Lovell) reports that “a group of parents” in the Redlands school district are pressing officials to create “a more suitable academic program for their autistic children.” The parents complain that there is currently “no program in the district for children with autism” and that none of the special education options available “are appropriate” for autistic children. “At a board meeting last month, seven parents and advocates” specified what “they want to see for their children: a class free of noisy distractions and confusion, a teacher who has been trained to work with children with autism, lessons in social interaction, and challenging and stimulating assignments.” Until these requests are met, they say they will continue “using the public comment sessions of the city’s Board of Education meetings to voice concerns.”

Safety & Security
“Pools 4 Schools” Provides Swimming Safety Lessons To Schoolchildren.
The Toronto Star (7/15, Monsebraaten) reported, “One of the main barriers to teaching swimming safety to every Ontario elementary school student is the lack of easy access to pools, physical education experts say.” In 2009, British Gas launched the “Pools 4 Schools” program “to solve the costly and time-consuming problem of busing school children to pools for lessons.” The program, “partly funded by the British government, provides 12-metre by 6-metre portable pools that can be assembled in school halls or gymnasiums on a temporary basis.” Now Pierre Lafontaine, CEO of Swimming Canada, is urging school officials in Canada to consider a similar solution.

Also in the News
Some Schools Stock Vending Machines With Healthy Foods.
The AP (7/16, Locke) reports, “Efforts to get empty calories out of students’ hands are being made in almost every state, according to the Centers for Disease Control.” According to the AP, food “in the lunch and breakfast programs must meet nutritional standards to qualify for federal reimbursement, but food sold in other school venues, including vending machines, aren’t subject to those requirements,” however, starting “this fall, one machine is being piloted in a San Francisco high school that will offer full, reimbursable, meals – fruit, vegetable, milk, sandwich.” The AP adds, “Healthier snack machines are showing up all over” as “Jolly Backer, CEO of San Diego-based Fresh Healthy Vending, says the company has machines in 1,700 locations, including schools, across the United States.”

Virginia District’s Nutrition Program Named Best In Nation. Valerie Strauss wrote in a blog for the Washington Post (7/15) that Fairfax County (VA) Public Schools’ “nutrition program was named best in the country by the nonprofit School Nutrition Association. Fairfax’s Food and Nutrition Services Department, the largest child nutrition feeding program in Virginia, was recognized this week for its commitment to creating nutritious and appealing meals to kids, and for the way it has implemented nutrition education initiatives.” Strauss added, “Peggy McConnell, the district’s Food and Nutrition Services director, accepted the award of $25,000 at the association’s annual conference, money that will be used to improve the program.”

Gates Foundation Shifts Focus From Class Size To Teacher Quality.
Bloomberg News (7/16, Golden) reports that while the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s “efforts in global health are widely applauded, its record in America’s schools has been more controversial. Starting in 2000, the Gates Foundation spent hundreds of millions of dollars on its first big project, trying to revitalize US high schools by making them smaller, only to discover that student body size has little effect on achievement.” However, the Gates Foundation “has since shifted its considerable weight behind an emerging consensus-shared by US Education Secretary and Gates ally Arne Duncan-that quality of teaching affects student performance and that increasing achievement is as simple as removing bad teachers, identifying good ones, and rewarding them with more money.”

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NEA in the News
Thirty-Year Teaching Veteran To Head Utah Education Association.
Utah’s Deseret Morning News (7/16) reports that Sharon Gallagher-Fishbaugh, a teacher with more than 30 years experience, “was elected as the new president of the Utah Education Association by fellow educators in a statewide vote in May.” In 2009, Gallagher-Fishbaugh “was named the 2009 Utah Teacher of the Year by the state Office of Education, and” this year, she “was awarded the National Education Association Foundation’s top honor…the $25,000 NEA Member Benefits Award for Teaching Excellence.”

North Carolina District Divided Over School Diversity.
The AP (7/19) reported that integration “came relatively peacefully” to schools in Raleigh, North Carolina’s capital, and almost “50 years passed — mostly uneventfully, at least until a new school board majority was elected last year on a platform supporting community schools.” According to the AP, “The result has been turmoil” as the “superintendent resigned in protest” and a “coalition of residents and civil rights groups filed suit.” In addition, numerous “rallies, news conferences and candlelight vigils” have been organized “against the feared ‘resegregation’ of the state’s largest school district.” The conflict revolves around the Raleigh school board’s decision to dismantle a busing policy designed to maintain the racial and socioeconomic diversity of district schools.

North Carolina General Assembly Forms Study Commission To Examine School Diversity Issue. The Raleigh News & Observer (7/19, Hui) reports, “The bitter battle over Wake County’s move toward neighborhood schools is moving into the hands of state legislators, who could recommend that school districts adopt diversity policies.” The General Assembly has created “a legislative study commission charged with seeing whether diversity helps public schools and whether the state should help it along by changing the way schools are funded.” The commission will look into “what effect diverse schools have on closing the performance gap between white and minority students, as well as the effect on parental involvement and student discipline.” In addition, “the commission will also see how diverse schools do academically compared to schools with homogeneous populations.”

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In the Classroom
Illinois Cancels Most Writing Tests.
The Chicago Tribune (7/18, Rado) reports, “For the second time in less than a decade, Illinois is eliminating the state writing exam for elementary and junior high students, provoking concerns that writing instruction will taper off and fewer students will master the critical skill.” Officials say that “canceling the writing test this year will save $3.5 million at a time when cuts are being forced in a variety of education programs.” The Tribune noted that “a writing exam is not required under federal education law that focuses on testing students in reading and math.” Illinois will keep “the 11th grade writing test…because some universities require a writing exam of applicants.”

Engineering Program For Middle Schoolers Growing In Wisconsin.
The Wisconsin State Journal (7/18, Cotant) reported on the Gateway to Engineering program for middle school students at East High School and Memorial High School. The program, “designed as a bridge to Project Lead the Way Pathway to Engineering” in area high schools, is attracting more students in its third year and, in some cases, creating waiting lists. The program allows children to “do a puzzle cube project, which involved coming up with ways to put together 27 cubes of wood in five sections according to certain rules and creating an isometric drawing and a computer rendition.” They also create robot cars and “take a field trip and design an invention.” The Journal pointed out that the four-day, $100 program has reduced costs “because of grants from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers and a Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics grant from the state Department of Public Instruction.”

Maryland Officials Weigh Environmental Education Graduation Mandate.
Education Week (7/16, Robelen) reported, “Top state officials in Maryland are promoting a plan that would make the study of environmental education a requirement for all students to graduate from the state’s public high schools.” Even though “many schools have long included environmental literacy in the curriculum,” Donald R. Baugh of the Chesapeake Foundation said “that implementation has never reached all schools.” Moreover, he noted “that the proposed new requirement…’provides much greater guidance regarding appropriate high school instruction and requires school systems to provide professional development for teachers to assist them in meeting the requirement.’” The proposal also “gives districts considerable leeway in how they choose to bring environmental education into classrooms,” according to Baugh.

On the Job
Teachers In Virginia Take On Internships Increase Classroom Skills.
The Washington Post (7/19, Gibson) reports on teachers who are working in different jobs this summer “as part of the George Washington University Teachers in Industry Project — a program that has paired 16 middle and high school teachers from Loudoun public schools with seven prominent local businesses for three-week, full-time internships this summer.” Their goal is to back up their teaching skills in STEM classes with “real-world experience.” The teachers are working in “emergency medicine, airport management” as well as a vineyard. The Post notes, “The idea emerged from a group of 40 Loudoun business and education leaders who were convened by the Loudoun Economic Development Commission in 2008 to address the issue of impending workforce shortages resulting from the retirement of baby boomers, and how best to prepare students for the 21st-century workforce.”

Training Program Brings California Teachers To East Coast To Tour Historical Sites.
California’s Imperial Valley Press (7/18, Flores) reported that a group of teachers from Imperial County, California recently toured historic landmarks on the East Coast “on the Imperial Teaching American History (ITAH) Civil War Battlefields Tour 2010 this month. The weeklong trip, which was paid for by federal funds from a bill sponsored by late Sen. Robert Byrd (D) of West Virginia, was sponsored by the Imperial County Office of Education as professional development.” The tour culminated “a year of intensive study and other development training” that included “a six-day summer institute, three days of Saturday technology training, and three afternoons of book seminars.” In addition, the “teachers read important Civil War literature, designed curriculum and wrote lesson plans,” said Michele Soria, the history-social science school support coordinator for ITAH.

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Law & Policy
Georgia District Prohibits Use Of Social Media Websites To Combat Cyber Bullying.
The Augusta (GA) Chronicle (7/17, Sparks) reported that beginning this fall, “blogging or using such social media Web sites as Facebook or Twitter will be prohibited in Richmond County classrooms,” except “when such activity is tied to the student’s curriculum.” Richmond County School System made up the new rule in “response to a new state law on bullying that will go into effect in the 2011-12 school year.” The law will require “school boards to adopt a policy prohibiting” online bullying “in their student code of conduct.” The Chronicle adds that the new law lists bullying as “an act which occurs on school property, on school vehicles, at designated school bus stops, or at school related functions or activities, or by use of data or software that is accessed through a computer, computer system, computer network or other electronic technology of a local school system.”

WRDW-TV (7/19, Calhoun) reports that Richmond County public schools “will be installing a new computer software to help block any social networking websites. When it comes to cell phones, students aren’t even allowed to have those on school grounds, so logging on through your cell phone is really off limits.”

Wisconsin Court Says Teacher E-mails Are Private.
The AP (7/16, Bauer) reported, “Wisconsin government employees can safely send personal e-mail messages on their work computers without worrying that they will have to make them public, under a ruling Friday by the state Supreme Court.” The ruling states that “just because a public employee uses a work computer to send an e-mail, it doesn’t automatically make that message subject to the state open records law.” The AP added, In her majority ruling, Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson noted that “no state has ruled that private e-mails should be subject to open records disclosure.”

Circuit Court To Reconcile Verdicts On Two Student Free Speech Cases.
Pennsylvania’s Express Times (7/18, McEvoy) reported that “in February, panels of judges on the US Third Circuit Court of Appeals considered two separate cases with virtually identical circumstances, but came to opposite decisions.” In one case, a student in the Hermitage School District “a mock MySpace profile of a principal,” calling him various names. “A federal judge ruled that school officials overreacted by suspending [the student] from school.” In the second case, a student in the Blue Mountain school District “described a principal on a fake MySpace profile as a pedophile and a sex addict.” In that case, “a federal judge upheld a 10-day suspension of the student.” Last month, the “Third Circuit court heard testimony in both cases…and will reconcile the two decisions.” The court’s decision “has not yet been rendered,” the Express Times noted.

Federal Food Service Program Underutilized.
McClatchy (7/18, Pugh) reported, “Educators have long cautioned that students can lose much of what they learn in school during the three-month summer vacation” yet the “summer months can also mean an unhealthy vacation from good nutrition.” According to McClatchy, “The Summer Food Service Program of the US Department of Agriculture was launched in 1968 to address these problems by providing healthy meals from June to August so students in low-income areas are ready to learn when school begins in the fall. However, the program, which reimburses sponsors for providing breakfast, lunch and snacks in impoverished neighborhoods, isn’t reaching nearly as many youngsters as it could” as “only one in six eligible students…participated in a summer meal program in July 2009, according to the Food Research and Action Center.”

School Finance
Georgia Teacher Layoffs Widen Financial Stress.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (7/18, Kanell) reported that “as teacher layoffs ripple across Georgia, the cuts mean financial stress among thousands of households, but also trouble for the larger economy. The equation is simple – and circular: Layoffs and pay cuts reduce government costs, but also undermine the spending that produces the taxes that government relies on for revenue.” According to the Journal-Constitution, “The precise impact is hard to calculate” as the “state is cutting jobs while slashing its contributions to hundreds of school districts that make their own cuts.”

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Also in the News
Critics Say Nevada’s Reciprocity, Alternative Certification Rules Discourage Applicants.
The Las Vegas Sun (7/18, Richmond) reported, “When it comes to teacher licensing, Nevada offers reciprocity with many states, which means teachers who are in good standing can move and resume their careers, albeit with certain conditions.” In addition, it offers “an ‘alternative route to licensure’ program to encourage people who have a bachelor’s degree to consider teaching.” But, according to critics, “Nevada’s reciprocity regulations are too rigid to truly encourage the kind of diversity the profession needs,” and the “alternative path isn’t much shorter than the traditional one, which discourages would-be applicants.” State education officials, meanwhile, say they are faced with the challenge of bringing “top teachers to Nevada without lowering the professional bar.”

Battle Over Teacher Tenure Looms As Budget Shortfalls Prompt Mass Layoffs.
Newsweek (7/17, Wingert, Thomas) reported, “Education reformers were feeling optimistic” as “they’ve made real progress in weeding out poor teachers” amid the ongoing Race to the Top federal stimulus competition. However, “reformers have spotted a dark cloud on the horizon” as state “budgets, particularly in badly managed big states like California, New York, and New Jersey, are out of control” and “stimulus money is running out,” which “means teacher layoffs are coming-perhaps more than 100,000 nationwide.” Though in “most states, union contracts or state law requires they be done by seniority, so the newest teachers are pink-slipped, no matter how good they are,” the “Chicago School Board, handpicked by the Windy City’s tough-minded Mayor Richard M. Daley, has interpreted a new state law as giving it the power to fire the city’s 200 most incompetent teachers first.”

Gates Hears Cheers, Jeers At Teachers Convention. The Seattle Times (7/11, Thompson) reported that “Rowdy delegates to a national teachers convention Saturday gave several standing ovations to Bill Gates, whose billions in foundation grants for experimental-education-overhaul efforts over more than a decade have sparked widespread controversy and debate.” But some attendees booed the Microsoft founder, while others walked out on his speech “and led chants afterward of ‘Hey, hey, ho, ho, Bill Gates has got to go.’” The Seattle Times points out that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation “has led efforts to improve education, including charter schools, which while public are largely nonunion and run by autonomous management organizations.” Gates has also supported “linking teacher pay to classroom performance.” In his speech, Gates said that “his foundation is working with teachers to develop a teacher-evaluation system that is fair and will help teachers improve.”

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In the Classroom
New York School Facing Investigation For Alleged Testing Improprieties.
The New York Times (7/12, Gabriel) reports, “New York State’s fifth-grade social studies test was given Nov. 16 and 17″ and after “students completed the test” at Public School 86 in Queens, they “received their test booklets back the next week and were allowed to answer omitted questions.” According to the Times, “Across the country, states and school districts have pursued cases against teachers and principals suspected of cheating to raise students’ scores on standardized tests. Critics of testing point to the pressure on educators to produce results that are used to determine their merit pay, tenure and career advancement.”

Atlanta Schools Cheating Probe Faces Scrutiny.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (7/11, Judd, Vogell) reported that Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Beverly Hall “promised an impartial inquiry into reports of cheating on state achievement tests” and having recused herself, Hall “declared the investigation would be conducted by ‘a respected outside organization.’” The Journal-Constitution added, “Five months later, the investigation remains incomplete, and questions have emerged that challenge its independence. The ‘blue-ribbon’ commission appointed to oversee the investigation is populated with business executives and others who have done business with the school district or who have other civic or social ties to the district or to Hall” and “raising perhaps the most serious doubts, the district has been far more involved in investigating itself than originally suggested.”

On the Job
Varying Bonuses Offered In Florida Districts Disappoint Some Teachers.
The Orlando Sentinel (7/11, Balona) reported, “Florida schools struggling to emerge from the bottom of the heap have started offering merit pay to teachers.” Some of the bonuses “will be handed out this summer” and will “vary in amount from county to county.” But, “some educators are disappointed that some districts’ bonuses are much smaller than others.” For instance, “teachers in Orange and Polk counties will receive $1,000 and those in Osceola can earn as much as $2,000.” Meanwhile, the Pinellas County school district “couldn’t afford to introduce performance pay,” but “it did give a $300 bonus to educators at low-achieving schools who took on extra job-related tasks.” District administrator Charlene Einsel said that “Not all teachers were thrilled to receive just $300.”

Hawaii To Hire Fewer New Teachers Than In Previous Years.
The Honolulu Star-Advertiser – (7/11, Vorsino) reported that Hawaii “again expects to hire about half as many teachers to fill vacancies for the coming school year…as teachers hold off on retirement or abandon plans to switch jobs because of the uncertain economic picture.” Last year, just 800 new teachers were hired, a contrast to the average 1,500 new teachers hired in previous years. The Star-Advertiser adds that “the trend is being seen nationally, too, and is a dramatic shift from predictions of a few years ago, when educators warned of big teacher shortages as baby boomers neared retirement and college graduates migrated to higher-paying fields.” In Hawaii, “the decline in teacher departures comes as the DOE is trying to beef up its teacher retention and mentoring programs.”

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Law & Policy
Duncan Urges Congress To Increase Education Funding.
The AP (7/10, Blankinship) reported that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, speaking at a forum on innovation in education at Aviation High School in Des Moines, Iowa, urged Congress “to act soon to increase education funding because cash-strapped states can’t wait until the fall to determine if they must lay off thousands of teachers.” The House “has proposed cutting money from Race to the Top and other Duncan initiatives in order to send $10 billion to the states to keep 140,000 teachers in the classroom, and about $5 billion to shore up the Pell Grant program.” Duncan “said he was impressed by students and teachers at Aviation High School and would like to see a hundred more schools like it across the country.”

Duncan Met With Calls For Resignation During Visit To High School In Washington. KPLU-FM Seattle (7/10, Davis) reported that Education Secretary Arne Duncan visited Des Moines, Washington last Friday “to tour a high school in the Highline District, and do a little campaigning” for Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), “who is seeking a fourth term.” Duncan arrived at Aviation High School “to find a few dozen protesting teachers outside the school calling for his resignation.” KPLU notes that “Duncan is leading the Obama Administration’s ‘Race to the Top’ reforms that have angered the teacher’s unions.” Last week, the NEA voted “no confidence” in guidelines for “the $4 billion federal grant program.” According to KPLU, “Duncan criticized the media for being more focused on the conflict between his office and the NEA, which represents most state public school teachers, than examining ‘innovative solutions.’”

Cyber Bullying Now A Crime In Louisiana.
KSLA-TV Shreveport, LA (7/11, Pieper) reported, “As of this week, cyber bullying is now illegal in the state of Louisiana.” State “lawmakers passed a bill that makes” online bullying a crime. “Now, anyone over the age of 18 caught cyber bullying anyone younger could face a $500 fine or 6 months in jail. Kids under 17 caught cyber bullying will have to undergo counseling.” KSLA notes that “stories of online abuse leading to teen suicide in Texas, Vermont, Massachusetts, New York, and California led state lawmakers to take action against the crime.”

Bill Restricts “Job Hopping” For Teachers In North Carolina Facing Dismissal.
Job HopNorth Carolina’s News & Observer (7/10, Bonner) reported, “It will be harder for teachers and other school employees” in North Carolina “who get into trouble to job-hop to another school district under a bill lawmakers approved in the waning days of the session.” Under the measure, “if teachers, principals or other career employees resign before they can be fired, prospective employers will be able to see that superintendents were preparing to recommend dismissal.” Also, “if an employee quits a school job before the firing process is complete, the employee’s license will be suspended for 45 days, pending an investigation by the State Board of Education.”

Special Needs
NASA Education Activities Target Children With Special Needs.
The Orlando Sentinel (7/11, González) reports, “Even as uncertainty looms over the future of US space exploration, NASA staff was in Orlando on Saturday, encouraging children to embraces science, math and technology. NASA educators teamed with University of Central Florida students to entice [youths] with activities such as observing stars in an inflatable planetarium, launching stomp rockets and exploring a ‘robonaut.’” Some parents who attended the event were particularly pleased with activities geared toward special needs children. Sara Aronin, an educator with the UCF College of Education who works with NASA’s Educator Resource Center noted, “Einstein was kicked out of a school because he couldn’t do math. Einstein, today, would have been diagnosed with a learning disability.” Aronin “thinks it is crucial schools and society invest on education in math, science and technology.”

Demand For Special Needs Teachers Expected To Grow.
The Boston Globe (7/11, Carrns) reported, “The sluggish economy, combined with uncertainty over federal stimulus aid, has public school districts cutting back on spending on everything from supplies to staff” yet “over the long term, demand is expected to be strong for teachers who are proficient in math and science, as well as those trained to work with students with special needs or who can speak a language other than English.” The Globe added, “By far,” the “fastest-growing teaching segment is in special needs” as though “growth in student enrollment overall is expected to slow, special education needs are rising, in part because of better and earlier diagnoses of developmental problems.”

School Finance
Obama Administration Urged To Accept Race To The Top Cuts To Save Teacher Jobs.
The Los Angeles Times (7/12) editorializes, “All across the country, the most pressing need in schools right now is to keep as many teachers, janitors, counselors and librarians as possible” and less critical goals include “expanding charter schools and linking teachers’ evaluations to their students’ test scores. So we’re surprised by the tumult over a school-aid package approved by the House last week as part of a larger appropriations bill” which “would provide $10 billion to keep as many school employees as possible in their jobs during the recession, but would do so, in part, by imposing some cuts on the Obama administration’s key education initiative,” Race to the Top. The Times adds, “Even with the reduction in its budget, Race to the Top would have billions of dollars to hand out,” and thus, would President Obama “really undermine desperately needed school funding over a less-than-lethal reduction in the grant program’s coffers?”

California School Districts Seek To Raise Cash With Hollywood Deals.
The AP (7/11, Hoag) reported, “In an era of yawning budget deficits and teacher layoffs, schools in the Los Angeles area are looking at a nontraditional source for some extra cash – Hollywood. School districts from Lawndale to Glendale are seeking to earn thousands of dollars a day from renting their campuses as locations for movies, TV shows, commercials, and even truck parking.” According to the AP, “The money is being used to save teachers’ jobs, upgrade school facilities and replenish districts’ dwindling funds.”

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Also in the News
Scientist Developing Teacher Robots.
The New York Times (7/11, Carey, Markoff) reported, “In a handful of laboratories around the world, computer scientists are developing robots” that are “highly programmed machines that can engage people and teach them simple skills, including household tasks, vocabulary or…playing, elementary imitation and taking turns. So far, the teaching has been very basic, delivered mostly in experimental settings, and the robots are still works in progress, a hackers’ gallery of moving parts that, like mechanical savants, each do some things well at the expense of others.” However, “the most advanced models are fully autonomous, guided by artificial intelligence software like motion tracking and speech recognition, which can make them just engaging enough to rival humans at some teaching tasks.”

NEA in the News
New Georgia Association of Educators President Says Public Education Is Threatened.
The Albany (GA) Herald (7/10, Fowler) reported that Calvine Rollins, a counselor at Bainbridge High School, “said she looked forward to leading the 43,000-member organization as its 26th president.” In order to serve as president of the Georgia Association of Educators, “Rollins took a two-year leave of absence from the Decatur County Schools. She recently returned to Bainbridge after attending the National Education Association Representative Assembly in New Orleans.” Said Rollins, “Public education is being threatened. As president, I’m going to advocate for great public schools, great teachers and to have the funding that our schools need to do our jobs — and that job is to present a quality education for our children.” The Albany Herald notes that she has been “involved with the Georgia Association of Educators since 1988.”

Former Union Board Member Defends Teachers’ “Standing Up For Themselves.”
Seth Goldberg, a former member of the Montgomery County, Maryland, Education Association (MCEA) board wrote in a letter to the editor of the Washington Post (7/11), “Why do teachers standing up for themselves, playing hardball in politics, so gall The Post’s editorial board ['Under the influence,' editorial, July 6]?” He points out that “many people in Montgomery County gather collectively with others whose needs are similar, be it through civic, religious, vocational or identity group affiliation, to have a political voice.” Goldberg asserts that in reality, the MCEA, “like other special-interest groups, is only somewhat — certainly not spectacularly or exclusively — successful either in influencing elections or the decisions of elected officials. Were it otherwise, teachers would not have been forgoing negotiated raises again and again in recent years,” he concludes

Detroit Set To Open Michigan’s First Teacher-Run School.
The Detroit Free Press (7/8, Walsh-Sarnecki) reports that “Detroit Public Schools is set to open its first school without a principal — teachers will be running the day-to-day operations and making all pertinent decisions.” At Barbara Jordan elementary School, teachers will not “have to wait for the central office’s OK to purchase needed items or increase their emphasis on” particular skills as dictated by the central office. The K-4 school “will be the district’s first” led by teachers and will be “open only to students whose parents agree to be involved.” According to teachers union representative Michael McLaughlin, families are “clamoring to get into” the school. Proponents say that “without bureaucracy,” decisions will be made in a timelier manner than at other schools. School staff will make “all the decisions, from lessons to hiring to building repairs.”

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In the Classroom
DC Schools Chancellor Plans To Increase Use Of Standardized Tests.
The Washington Post (7/8, Turque) reports, “D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee plans to significantly expand the use of standardized tests so that, eventually, every D.C. student from kindergarten through high school is regularly assessed to measure academic progress” and teacher effectiveness. The new tests would measure “English language arts and math” skills for K-2 students, “math “pretesting” in third grade before the” state tests, “social studies and science in grades six through eight and core subjects in high school.” The assessments “would be given about every six to eight weeks and at the end of the year, allowing teachers to identify student weaknesses and adjust classroom strategies.”

Georgia Teachers Facing Cheating Probe.
The AP (7/7) reported that about 80 educators from 14 districts in Georgia “are being investigated by the state for possible cheating on standardized tests last year.” According to officials, the “list of educators under investigation could grow as the state waits for another 18 districts to complete their own probes.” The AP noted that teachers “found guilty of cheating could face sanctions up to losing their teaching licenses.”

US Officials Participate In Summer Reading/Obesity Program.
The Christian Science Monitor (7/8, Khadaroo) reports that Education Secretary Arne Duncan took part in a “Let’s Read. Let’s Move” gathering at the ED headquarters in DC, where Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood “brought to life ‘The Little Engine That Could.’” Duncan “joined with him in asking the excited K through 5th-graders questions about the story – and answering their questions about everything from trains to the Obamas.” The program is “designed to combat the learning loss that can occur over the summer, as well as weight gain, and it’s in conjunction with first lady Michelle Obama’s work against obesity. ‘We encourage all youngsters to take on this challenge and read at least five books over the summer months to keep their skills sharp,’ Secretary Duncan said in a press statement.”

High Schools Placing Too Much Focus On College, Teacher Writes.
Patrick Welsh, a teacher at TC Williams High School in Virginia, wrote in an opinion article for USA Today (7/8) that many high schools, including his own, have been focused on sending “as many warm bodies as they could on to higher education regardless of whether the students had the skills or motivation to do rudimentary high school work.” This is unproductive, Welsh argues, particularly when so many future opportunities are anticipated to be middle-skill jobs. “I am the last to say that the liberal arts or learning for the sake of learning are a waste of time and money,” Welsh writes, “but given the nature of the market that is developing, for many kids, the liberal arts, in fact the very idea of a four-year college degree, will be taking a back seat to training geared to the jobs that are coming out of this economy.”

Students Across Southeast Not College-Ready, Report Says.
The Thibodaux (LA) Daily Comet (7/8, McBride) reports, “Across the Southeast, students are graduating from high school unprepared for college.” This is according to a report from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education and the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), which found that “not only do high-school diplomas fail to guarantee college readiness, but most college-preparatory curricula do not prepare students for the rigor of college courses.” In order “to address the problem, the report recommends six steps,” including curriculum adjustments, teacher training and increased academic standards. “Though the report suggests these goals will require collaboration from the governor down through classroom teachers, local education officials say they have already begun some of these processes.”

On the Job
Teachers Observe, Discuss Instruction Techniques In Experiential Training Program.
The Selma (AL) Times-Journal (7/7, Fenton) reported that “more than 20…Selma City Schools teachers, reading coaches, retired teachers and central office employees will spend two weeks of professional development and experiential training at Knox Elementary’s Innovative Academy summer program” For the training, “students from Clark Elementary, Payne Elementary and Knox Elementary attend classes from 8 a.m. until noon.” Trainees will observe the classes, then meet in small groups to discuss “saw students actively paying attention and excited about activities, such as reading excerpts aloud or learning to count. After identifying the methods that engaged students, educators learn a new skill…and add that technique to the lessons for the next day.” The Times-Journal adds that time spent in the training program will “count toward the required 50 hours of continuing education for teachers and the 100 hours for retired teachers to renew certification.”

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Law & Policy
Indiana Schools Could Save $454 Million Annually By Sharing Insurance, Study Says.
The Indianapolis Star (7/8, Schneider) report that Indiana “schools, universities and the state would save $454 million annually if all were on the same health insurance plan, according to a study delivered Wednesday to the State Budget Committee.” However, many “of those savings would come in the form of higher premiums or deductibles paid by school and university employees, or because the insurance offers less generous benefits than some schools currently provide.” The Indiana ASBO “has always supported giving schools the option of switching to the state government’s health insurance program,” according to the group’s executive director, Dennis Costerison. “But, he said, it should be voluntary, not mandated.”

The AP (7/8, Martin) reports that “the analysis — done by consulting company Mercer Health & Benefits LLC and presented to lawmakers on the State Budget Committee Wednesday — found that it would cost public schools and universities about $270 million to get the same level of insurance they’re getting now. Choosing that higher level of coverage would reduce the savings to $180 million a year.”

School Finance
Maryland Governor Promises To Increase School Construction Funding By $1 Billion.
The Washington Post (7/8, Wagner) reports that on Wednesday, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) promised “to spend an additional $1 billion on public school construction if elected to a second term.” Under O’Malley’s leadership, the “legislature has approved almost $1.3 billion in state spending on school construction” since 2007, “about $460 million more than it did under” O’Malley’s predecessor, Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. Ehrlich “is trying to win the job back from O’Malley this fall.” In addition to pledging “to meet a target of at least $250 million” in school spending each year, the governor has “also offered several ideas to make schools more energy-efficient and less costly, including relying more on standardized designs.” The Post adds that O’Malley recently won recognition from the NEA “as the ‘Greatest Education Governor.’ The NEA credited O’Malley with largely avoiding the deep education cuts that other states have endured during the recession.”

Texas District Expects Extra $300,000 From School Fee Increases.
Texas’ Star-Telegram (7/7, Cadwallader) reported, “For the first time in eight years, the Arlington school district will raise fees for transfers, GED tests, musical instrument rentals and other student services.” The 20-30 percent fee increases for the 2010-11 school year are expected “to generate about $300,000 toward a projected $8.4 million budget shortfall for the coming school year.” The Star Telegram noted that “Arlington faces its fourth consecutive annual shortfall, which would again require dipping into the district’s reserve fund, which stands at $70 million. The challenge got tougher last week when the Texas attorney general issued an opinion that school districts must pay teachers their regular step increases next year.”

Dallas District’s Debt Outlook Improves After Spending Cuts.
The Dallas Morning News (7/8, Stahl) reports that “Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services has revised its outlook on the Dallas Independent School District’s debt from negative to stable, saying the improvement was due to recent spending cuts.” In a statement, Standard & Poor’s credit analyst Horacio Aldrete-Sanchez said, “The outlook revision reflects our view of the district’s expenditure cuts, which have resulted in a projected increase to reserve levels at fiscal year-end 2010.” The Morning News notes, however, that “even before the latest outlook improvement, the district was able to tap credit markets with an AAA rating provided by a state debt guarantee program.”

Also in the News
Increasing Graduation Rates Would Improve Economy, Report Says.
The Sacramento Bee (7/8, Gutierrez) reports, “Lowering the dropout rates of minority students in Sacramento would drive $223 million into the local economy through increased spending and home and car purchases, a study released Wednesday found.” The Alliance for Excellent Education study looked at “the 45 largest metropolitan areas in the United States, finding an estimated 600,000 minority students dropped out of the Class of 2008.” It found that “cutting that number in half would generate $2.3 billion in increased earnings nationally for the Class of 2008.” The Sacramento Bee notes the findings specific to the Sacramento area.

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NEA in the News
Van Roekel Suggests Changes For Obama Administration’s Education Policy.
NPR (7/7) reported, “The nation’s two largest teachers unions are holding their annual conventions this week and have been saying some harsh things about the Obama administration’s education agenda.” NEA President Dennis Van Roekel said, “The narrowing of the curriculum, the overemphasis on tests, the labeling and punishment of [school] districts is not working and the students are losing.” Instead, Van Roekel suggests that the administration “reward schools for raising kids’ academic performance, no matter how small; stop relying on tests as a single measure of students’ academic growth; and absolutely stop supporting the use of test scores to evaluate teachers or decide how much they should be paid.”

NEA Endorses US Senate Candidate From Kentucky.
The AP (7/7, Alford) reported that the Kentucky Education Association and the National Education Association are endorsing US Senate candidate Jack Conway (D) of Kentucky. “In a statement Wednesday, Conway said he is grateful for the support of the groups, which have some 41,000 members in Kentucky.” Conway said that if elected, he “will fight to expand early childhood education and improve K-12 and post-secondary education from the bottom up.”

Milwaukee Public Schools Applies for $45 Million In School Improvement Grants.
Wisconsin’s Journal Sentinel (7/7, Richards) reports that last week, Milwaukee Public Schools, which has “all of Wisconsin’s lowest-performing schools,” submitted an application “for $45 million in school improvement grants that the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction is authorized to distribute.” But, according to Vanderbilt University Education professor Joseph Murphy, the prospects for change are unlikely. Said Murphy, “It isn’t like there’s a whole pile of new ideas on the table. … They’re going to ratchet up quality of instruction, they’re going to increase academic rigor, they’re going to get good leaders in there – the pieces of the puzzle have been known for a long time.”

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In the Classroom
Florida District Expects Class-Size Caps Will Cause Scheduling Disruptions.
The St. Petersburg Times (7/7, Buie) reports that school officials in Pasco County, Florida “expect disruptions and disappointment for some students this fall as the district complies with the hard caps on the number of students in each core curriculum class.” For instance, they anticipate “lotteries for certain classes for older students if too many sign up.” And in elementary schools, “students may be moved from one classroom to another if the head count is too high after the first few weeks of school.” Right now, “school Board members are mulling over how to best tell parents about the effects, caused by a combination of shrinking revenue and stricter class-size accounting rules that could kick in this year if at least 60 percent of the state’s voters don’t agree to relax them.”

Summer Program Offers Elementary Schoolers A Variety Of STEM Topics.
The Philadelphia Inquirer (7/6, Lockley) reported on the Science in the Summer program, held in area libraries and “hosted by the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline in partnership with the American Association for the Advancement of Science.” The program, which has been around for over two decades, “is meant to prevent the ‘summer slide,’ when children forget what they learned during the school year, and to give second through sixth grade students a chance to participate in hands-on experiments.” In each county hosting the program, the sessions are different: “bioscience in Montgomery, chemistry in Delaware, genetics in Chester, oceanography in Bucks, and electricity in Philadelphia.” A GlaxoSmithKline official said, “America needs an educated workforce…and we hope that our program will not only spark a lifelong interest in science, but, who knows, one day they may end up working at GSK.” The article also details some of the activities.

On the Job
Chicago Teacher Warns That Layoffs Set Bad Precedent.
The Chicago Sun-Times (7/6, Rossi) reported that 226 Chicago Public Schools teachers “who are not formally attached to a classroom…were laid off June 30, without regard to seniority or tenure, in a new CPS interpretation of the teachers contract. All lost the 10-month pay cushion usually offered displaced and often less-credentialed CPS teachers.” According to the Sun-Times, nationally certified teacher Erin O’Brien was among those laid off, and she “and others predicted the system’s decision to dump expert tenured teachers who advanced beyond a daily classroom could come back to haunt CPS.” O’Brien reasoned that in the future, “teachers may avoid leadership roles if they think they could lose their tenure rights by taking them.”

San Antonio District May Restrict Jeans, Flip Flops In Teacher Dress Policy.
The San Antonio Express News (7/6, Kastner) reported that the San Antonio Independent School District is considering teacher dress code revisions that “would prohibit jeans, T-shirts, shorts and flip-flops.” In addition, “halter tops, spaghetti-strap tank tops and other revealing clothing…would be no-nos.” Jeans are “a big point of discussion” within the district. Some argue that jeans can be worn “in a professional manner.” A spokesperson for the district “said jeans likely would be permitted on Fridays or designated ‘spirit days,’ when students and staff dress in shirts with school or college logos.” The revisions are being considered in “an attempt to provide greater clarity for employees.” The current dress code “simply states that employee dress ‘shall be clean, neat, in a manner appropriate for their assignments.’”

Law & Policy
Districts Implementing “Mutual Consent” Teacher Placement Policies.
Education Week (7/6, Sawchuk) reported, “A handful of districts and two states are doing away with the forced placement of teachers in schools in favor of a system requiring both the teacher and principal to agree to a transfer.” School leaders generally support the policy, because, they say, “they must be able to have a choice in the selection of talent in their building if they are to be held accountable for achievement results.” According to Education Week, “The shift in policy has many implications for teachers, not the least of which is that a process known as ‘mutual consent’ effectively shifts onto displaced teachers the responsibility for seeking out and applying for new positions within the district.”

Experts Say Indiana Policies Undermine Pre-K, Kindergarten Education.
The Indianapolis Star (7/6, McCleery, Gammill) reported, “Indiana does not require children to attend school until they turn 7.” And, “it does not require children to attend kindergarten at all.” But early childhood development experts say that “those policy decisions send” the message to parents that “school isn’t really that important until first grade.” Consequently, just “twenty percent of preschool-age children in Indiana are enrolled in public pre-kindergarten programs — compared with 87 percent in Oklahoma…according to the National Institute for Early Education Research.” Indiana districts do provide preschool to some children — generally those “who will be eligible for special education and for whom preschool is mandated by federal law.” According to state officials, the costs associated with pre-kindergarten are “a significant barrier” to a state-funded program.

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Special Needs
Virginia District Officials In Dispute Over Program For Needy Students.
The Washington Post (7/7, Kravitz) reports that Fairfax County, Virginia, officials argued “Tuesday over the funding provided to programs for the area’s neediest schoolchildren, with Board of Supervisors members accusing public school officials of not considering the impact program changes would have on the students.” The dispute centers on “an $8 million program that extended the Monday school day by two hours at about 20 elementary schools in Fairfax’s worst-off neighborhoods.” Although the Project Excel program has “won admirers” over the years, “many of its key components, including full-day kindergarten, have been phased out over the past decade.”

Safety & Security
Consumer Product Safety Commission Recalls Falling Stadium Light Poles.
The AP (7/7) reports that the Consumer Product Safety Commission “on Tuesday announced a recall of light poles that can crack and fall after 11 of them crashed at stadiums and school gymnasiums over a decade-long period.” The CPSC “said there are more than 2,500 of the affected steel poles installed around the country” which were manufactured “by the now-defunct Whitco Co.” of Fort Worth, TX. The AP adds, “The recall, which urges facility managers to bring in a professional to evaluate the poles and repair them as quickly as possible, affects poles between 70- and 135-feet tall made of steel with a galvanized coating.”

The Austin (TX) American Statesman (7/7, Dexheimer) adds that “Whitco’s poles have toppled in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Mississippi and South Dakota. A few fell at minor league baseball stadiums.” However, “many of the defective structures were located along playing fields at Texas high schools.”

Facilities
Construction Workers In Chicago Cross Picket Lines To Continue School Project.
WLS-TV Chicago (7/6, Knowles) reported that despite a strike that “shut down job sites across the Chicago area since last week.” Some construction workers crossed “picket lines [Tuesday] to finish a project at a” Naperville High School. “Union officials say a work stoppage would threaten to delay the start of the school year.” Roughly “20 workers on the Naperville project…are striking, but other workers who are not included in the strike had refused to cross the picket line.” Attorneys for the Naperville school district had planned to file “court action Tuesday to get the workers who are not technically part of the strike to get back to work.” If construction workers continue “working every day, school leaders say everything will finish on time.”

School Finance
District Stimulus Spending Difficult To Track.
The Dallas Morning News (7/6, Meyers, Holloway) reported that according to federal rules, school districts “must report whom they’ve paid when they spend at least $25,000 in stimulus funds, but don’t have to say what they’ve purchased.” And, because “few districts break down the purchases, most taxpayers don’t know how their stimulus money gets spent.” Purchases of $25,000 or more can be tracked through the recovery.gov website, though it “offers only vendor names and total spending amounts.”

Also in the News
Later School Start Time Improves Student Performance, Study Finds.
The AP (7/7) reports, “Giving teens 30 extra minutes to start their school day leads to more alertness in class, better moods, less tardiness, and even healthier breakfasts, a small study found.” According to the AP, “The results appear in July’s Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine” and the “results mirror those at a few schools that have delayed starting times more than half an hour. … ‘There’s biological science to this that I think provides compelling evidence as to why this makes sense,’ said Brown University sleep researcher Dr. Judith Owens, the study’s lead author and a pediatrician at Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island.”

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NEA in the News
NEA Delegates Throw Out Business Item Calling For Duncan Replacement.
Stephen Sawchuk wrote in Education Week (7/6) “Teacher Beat” blog that even though US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has received “quite a bit of criticism at this year’s National Education Association Representative Assembly,” NEA delegates on Tuesday dismissed a business item that “would have encouraged President Obama to replace Duncan with ‘a person who is aligned with the interests of the NEA, its members, and especially the students it serves.’” Sawchuk notes that normally, “unpopular resolutions are defeated, but not removed entirely from consideration.”

Ravitch Receives “Friend of the NEA” Award. In another Education Week (7/6) “Teacher Beat” blog post, Steven Sawchuk writes that “education historian and advocate Diane Ravitch” received a “Friend of the NEA” award on Tuesday at the Representative Assembly. After delivering a “speech panning the No Child Left Behind Act, the Race to the Top, charter schools, the ‘privatization’ of public schools, merit pay, and efforts to shift away from seniority and tenure,” Ravitch also received a standing ovation. Sawchuk added, “If this appearance is any indication, Ravitch now views herself as the defender of public education against forces that are bent on destroying it.” Steven Sawchuk also summarized the five-day NEA Representative Assembly in the Education Week (7/6) “Teacher Beat” blog.

San Diego Education Association President Co-Sponsored “No Confidence” Resolution. The San Diego Union-Tribune (7/7, Smolens) reports that Camille Zombro, the outgoing president of the San Diego Education Association, “helped rally labor leaders from across the country to take a position of ‘no confidence’ in the guidelines for Race to the Top competition for federal stimulus money during a national conference in New Orleans.” She also “co-sponsored the resolution calling for the ‘no confidence’ position.” According to the Union-Tribune, “the resolution vote stirred a heated debate among the labor leaders, with some reportedly worried about the political ramifications of such a stance.”

Salt Lake City Teacher To Lead Utah Education Association.
The Salt Lake Tribune (7/7, Schencker) reports that throughout her career, teacher Sharon Gallagher-Fishbaugh “has taught hundreds of Salt Lake City children to love learning, mentored other teachers and earned a slew of prestigious awards.” Starting July 15, she will lead the Utah Education Association (UEA). The Tribune describes the challenges Gallagher-Fishbaugh will face during her tenure. “She’ll have to fight for school funding when there aren’t as many dollars to go around.” And, she will “continue UEA’s battle to urge lawmakers to re-examine recent tax changes that are costing Utah schools hundreds of millions of dollars.”

No Federal Officials Speaking At NEA Conference This Year.
The New York Times (7/5, A8, Dillon) reported that “in a sign of the Obama administration’s strained relations with two of its most powerful political allies, no federal official was scheduled to speak at” the National Education Association’s “convention this month, partly because union officials feared that administration speakers would face heckling.” Some speakers at the convention that opened Saturday in New Orleans have called for Education Secretary Arne Duncan to resign, and NEA president Dennis Van Roekel told attendees, “Today our members face the most anti-educator, anti-union, anti-student environment I have ever experienced.” The Times notes that The Obama administration has so far supported “historic increases in school financing to stave off teacher layoffs,” charter schools, and “the dismissal of ineffective teachers as a way of turning around failing schools.”

NEA Delegates Vote “No Confidence” On Race To The Top. Stephen Sawchuck wrote in the Education Week (7/4) “Teacher Beat” blog that on Monday, “after a protracted debate, delegates to the National Education Association approved a new business item…that takes a position of ‘no confidence’ in the US Department of Education’s Race to the Top guidelines and in the use of competitive grants as a basis for the reauthorization of ESEA.” According to Sawchuck, “the item passed by a razor-thin margin.” While some delegates said that a no confidence vote “didn’t accurately represent the diversity of opinion about the program,” others “felt that it was time for the NEA to come out more strongly against the administration.”

NEA Conference Aids New Orleans Economy Amid Gulf Oil Spill. The AP (7/6) reports that “New Orleans has seen steady convention traffic and a high volume of visitors virtually throughout the 2 1/2-month” Gulf oil spill. Roughly 35,000 hotel rooms “are booked for the weekend because of the [Essence] music festival, spill relief workers, and the National Education Association’s 15,000-delegate conference,” the AP adds.

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In the Classroom
Educators Strive To Keep Pace With High-Tech Cheating.
The New York Times (7/6, A1, Gabriel) reports on its front page, “As the eternal temptation of students to cheat has gone high-tech — not just on exams, but also by cutting and pasting from the Internet and sharing of homework online like music files — educators have responded with their own efforts to crack down.” A number of school are requiring incoming students “to complete online tutorials about plagiarism before they can enroll,” and “anti-plagiarism services requiring students to submit papers to be vetted for copying is a booming business.” Schools such as the University of Central Florida have developed highly monitored testing centers that try to account for as many methods for cheating as possible. “An online tutorial in plagiarism may prove an elegantly simple technological fix,” as research indicates it has “an outsize impact” on the body of students studied. The article also discusses some of the potential root causes of rising plagiarism.

Kansas City District To Group Students By Skill, Not Grade Level.
The AP (7/6) reports that instead of grouping students by grade level, more districts “are grouping students by ability.” Though this “practice has been around for decades,” it “was generally used on a smaller scale, in individual grades, subjects or schools. Now, in the latest effort to transform the bedraggled Kansas City, Mo. schools, the district is about to become what reform experts say is the largest one to try the approach.”

Native American Students In Oklahoma Outperform Those In Other States.
Tulsa World (7/6, Myers) reports that while Native American students in Oklahoma “continue to outperform those in other states…academic progress for American Indian students nationally remains stalled, a new study indicates.” The National Indian Education Study 2009 showed that “gaps in [test] scores among Indian students and white students in Oklahoma also were smaller than the figures nationally,” but “math continues to be a weak area” for students of all backgrounds. The report also showed that “more than a third of American Indian and Alaska Native fourth- and eighth-graders nationally scored below the basic level in math and reading.” And, those scores did not improve much from 2007.

More US High Schools Offering International Baccalaureate Program.
The New York Times (7/3, A1, Lewin) reported on its front page, “The alphabet soup of college admissions is getting more complicated as the International Baccalaureate, or I.B., grows in popularity as an alternative to the better-known Advanced Placement program.” According to the Times, “The lesser-known I.B., a two-year curriculum developed in the 1960s at an international school in Switzerland, first took hold in the United States in private schools” and “it is now offered in more than 700 American high schools – more than 90 percent of them public schools – and almost 200 more have begun the long certification process.” According to the Times, “Many parents, schools and students see the program as a rigorous and more internationally focused curriculum, and a way to impress college admissions officers.”

On the Job
New Center To Help Teachers Make STEM More Relevant To Students.
North Dakota’s In-Forum (7/5, Dalrymple) reported on the Great Plains STEM Education Center at Valley City State University, which is dedicated to training “K-12 teachers how to integrate science, technology, engineering and math and make it relevant to students,” thereby increasing the number that eventually go into STEM-related fields. Don Mugan, director of the new center, noted that “science and math have traditionally been taught as separate subjects, and engineering and technology have been electives.” He said, “If we want kids to get fired up, we have to connect with their lives, which our traditional model does not allow for.” The article noted, “The center will offer workshops to teachers around the state, as well as serve future teachers and make connections with businesses.”

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Law & Policy
Poor-Performing Schools In California Hardest Hit By Teacher Layoffs.
The Sacramento Bee (7/6, Lambert, Reese) reports, “A year of sweeping teacher layoffs at schools around the state has” shown that schools in California “with the lowest test scores — and traditionally the highest numbers of poor and minority students — tend to be staffed with the least experienced teachers.” State “law requires that, in a time of layoffs, teachers with least experience in a district are the first to go.” As a result, teachers in low-performing schools are being cut at disproportionately high rates, as compared to better-scoring schools. “The situation has caught the attention of” Sen. Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), who “”has introduced Senate Bill 1285, which would prohibit districts from laying off teachers at low-performing schools at a higher rate then the district average.”

House Votes On $800 Million Cuts To Cover Teacher Jobs Bill.
Education Week (7/2, Klein) reported that “the US House of Representatives voted” last week “to cut $800 million from key administration initiatives to help pay for an effort to avert teacher layoffs. The legislation-which the White House has threatened to veto-takes aim at three of the administration’s most-prized education priorities” including the Race to the Top program. Education Week added, “The money cut from the education programs would go toward a $10 billion fund aimed at helping states keep what congressional supporters say would be an estimated 140,000 teachers on the job and toward providing nearly $5 billion to help close a major shortfall in the Pell Grant program, which helps low-income students gain access to college.”

The Washington Post (7/3, Anderson) reported that the provision cuts $500 million from the “$4.35 billion Race to the Top reform contest.” According to the Post, Rep. David R. Obey (D), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, “said the cut is necessary to free up money for a new $10 billion fund to help save more than 100,000 education jobs at a time when states and local governments are facing major budget challenges.”

New Oregon Law Aims To Protect Students From Teacher Sexual Misconduct.
The AP (7/2) reported that a new Oregon “law intended to protect K-12 students from sexual misconduct by school employees is expected to reform school districts’ hiring and training procedures and add to their workloads. During a time of shrinking budgets and staffs, school officials say they hope technology can help them handle what is expected to be an influx of personnel information requests about former employees.” According to the AP, “House Bill 2062, which took effect Thursday, defines sexual misconduct for the first time” and it “is intended to end the practice of what has been known as ‘passing the trash,’ in which an educator facing discipline for misconduct may negotiate a deal with a school district to resign in exchange for the district concealing his or her record of misconduct.”

End Of Stimulus Bill May Leave Districts Looking For Replacement Funds.
Vermont’s Times Argus (7/5, Porter) reported that “money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), designed primarily to help schools improve infrastructure, instruction for low-income students and students with disabilities, could also be setting up schools for a problem in 2011 when the funding…starts coming to an end.” Even though the federal government specified that the money should be used “for one-time expenses rather than ongoing needs,” the Times Argus adds that “it isn’t clear how many districts complied – or even how many could comply while still taking advantage of the funding.” Rob Bliss, assistant superintendent for Rutland City Schools, said that “as far as he can tell, schools are using the money for one-time needs and investments,” like integrating “technology into the school curriculum” and funding “staff positions.”

School Finance
Oregon District Presented As Example Of How Not To Cut Spending.
Columnist Elizabeth Hovde writes in The Oregonian (7/6), “As school districts around the state propose cuts of various kinds to live within budgets that are lower than expected, they can learn a thing or two about what not to do from the West Linn-Wilsonville School District.” District officials there have “decided to suspend a beloved Spanish immersion program” in an effort to save money. “The supposed cost savings would come primarily by way of teachers’ salaries, but,” Hovde points out, “if kids who were in Spanish immersion now head into traditional classrooms, the district still needs teachers to keep traditional classrooms within district-dictated class sizes.” She concludes, “Cuts are often unavoidable. How those cuts are communicated and how possible solutions are explored is everything.”

California District Negotiates Agreement On Increased Class Sizes To Balance Budget.
California’s Inland Valley Daily Bulletin (7/4, Woods) reported, “Bonita Unified School District classes this fall will be larger as a result of the balanced budget passed by the Board of Education.” Under a “memorandum of understanding with the Bonita Unified Teachers Association for the next school year,” the district “will increase class-size averages in kindergarten through third grade from 22 to 25 students.” Class size averages for “grades six through eight” will increase “from 31 to 31.5″ students, and high school class size averages “will rise from 31.5 to 32.5.” The Daily Bulletin adds that “the district will have a $10.8 million unrestricted budget, with reserves about $2 million for each of the next three years.”

Also in the News
Online School Registration Rolled Out For Families In Texas District.
The Frisco (TC) Enterprise (7/6, Rush) reports that the Frisco Independent School district “is hoping to alleviate some of the hassle” of school registration “by getting away from the traditional paper forms for the first time and moving the registration process online.” The district plans to “open up registration through the school’s web site…around July 26.” Frisco “is planning on communicating the new process through phone or e-mail soon.” Also, school officials will “hold seven open lab nights spread out throughout the district for people who do not have Internet access or who do not feel comfortable filling out the forms on their own.”

Sixty-Year-Old Completes Elementary School In Texas.
The Dallas Morning News (7/4, Fleck) reported that 60-year-old Antonio Laguna “just completed elementary school” and “was among about 60 students recognized at the 12th annual graduation ceremony of Debes Creer en Ti/Believe in Yourself on Friday evening. The Irving nonprofit run by the energetic Elvia Wallace-Martinez offers a range of classes to help the Latino community.”

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NEA in the News
Illinois Education Association To Endorse Quinn For Governor.
The Chicago Tribune (7/6, Pearson) reports that the Illinois Education Association (IEA) is expected to endorse Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn for governor today, “citing concerns over Republican Sen. Bill Brady’s efforts to cut taxes instead of raising them.” IEA President Ken Swanson “said the endorsement…reflects the union’s desire to get Illinois on a sustainable financial path. Quinn, who became governor after Rod Blagojevich was impeached and removed from office, has unsuccessfully pushed for higher taxes to counter a massive deficit.” The Tribune adds that the IEA’s endorsement “is a big victory for Quinn.”

More California Schools Planting Gardens.
The Los Angeles Times (7/2, Simmons) reports, “While most schools sit like dormant ghost towns during the summer, a few are breaking up the asphalt, planting seeds that will be sprouting edible gardens come September.” Though it “may seem counterintuitive to start new programs in this economic climate” this “groundswell, largely sparked by parent and community interest — and perhaps some inspiration from Michelle Obama’s White House garden — is finding support in all the right places. Ben Ford, chef-owner of Ford’s Filling Station, and Akasha Richmond, chef-owner of Akasha, both restaurants in Culver City, spearheaded the recent work day” at Farragut Elementary School in Culver City “where parents, grandparents, children, chefs and politicians worked to lay the ground for a green space for students.”

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In the Classroom
Duncan Discusses Challenges Facing Children Of Service Members.
The Washington Post (7/1, Hobbs) reported, “Children of military service members face unusual challenges” and numerous “transfers to new schools, sometimes in the middle of the year, and the deployment overseas of a parent for months at a time can cause disruptions and problems at school, parents said. Such problems are familiar to Fort Belvoir Elementary School students — 98 percent of whom are the children of military service members stationed at the US Army base in southeastern Fairfax County [VA].” According to the Post, about a dozen parents “met June 22 with Vice President Biden’s wife, Jill Biden, US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and high-ranking military officials for talks about issues facing the children of service members.”

State Test Results Worry Administrators In Florida.
The Hernando (FL) Today (7/2, Schmucker) reports, “Lower than expected FCAT scores for some schools have education leaders concerned and looking for answers.” As fourth graders, students at Chocachatti Elementary in Florida tested at 87% and 84% in reading and math proficiency, respectively. However, this year as fifth graders, those students’ scores dropped by more than ten percent. Other schools throughout Hernando County, FL experienced similar results. Schools administrators are working to assess the problem. Chocachatti Elementary Princiapal Maria Rybka said, “We didn’t do anything different that would cause that group to jump, so it’s a question of whether it was just something with that group or something that we need to do different. But it is a concern.” Florida Today (7/2, Downs) also covers the phenomena, but highlights example from Broward County.

Teach For America Program Draws Record Number Of Students To Summer School.
The Arizona Republic (7/2, Gordon) reports, “The summer partnership between Agua Fria Union High School District and Teach for America is in its third year, and administrators say the collaboration has drawn a record number of students.” 164 Teach For America corps members are involved with this year’s summer school. “The members team-teach lessons and are critiqued and mentored by 25 Agua Fria teachers labeled ‘highly qualified’ because they meet state and federal standards in their subject areas.” 850 students attend the program this summer.

Georgia School Recognized By American School Counselor Association.
The Gainseville (GA) Times (7/2, Crist) report that Chestnut Mountain Elementary in Georgia “is one of 85 being recognized nationally by the American School Counselor Association as an exemplary model of school counseling.” The school’s guidance counselor, Sydney Holmes, initiated several programs to better the school and the counseling office.

On the Job
Minnesota Teacher Discusses School Co-Op Model With Duncan.
MinnPost.com (7/1, Hawkins) reported, “St. Paul schoolteacher Carrie Bakken recently got a chance to do something most of her peers dare not dream of: schooling US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and his highest-ranking advisers on the topic of education reform. Her message: If the Obama administration is serious about staffing the nation’s schools with better teachers, Duncan might want to think about putting teachers in charge” and to “Bakken’s utter shock, Duncan listened.” According to MinnPost.com, “For the last nine years, Bakken has belonged to a 15-teacher cooperative that literally owns and operates Avalon, a public charter school serving grades 7 to 12″ in St. Paul, MN.

Law & Policy
More Than 80 Groups Vie For Chance To Lead Turnaround Effort At Los Angeles Schools.
Howard Blume wrote in a blog for the Los Angeles Times (7/1), “More than 80 groups will bid for control of eight low-performing schools and nine new campuses that could be not directly supervised by the Los Angeles Unified School District in the fall of 2011.” According to Blume, “The latest bidding process represents a second try at giving other parties the job of running successful schools in the nation’s second-largest school system” and the “fate of more than 35,000 students will be affected, an enrollment that by itself would qualify as one of the state’s largest school systems.”

Failing New York City Schools Likely To Stay Open Due To Court Ruling.
The Wall Street Journal (7/2, Martinez) reports that a New York state appeals court has ruled that New York City did not comply with legal mandates when it decided to close 19 failing schools. According to the Journal, the schools are likely to stay open at least one year due to the ruling, which found that the city failed to comply with a law mandating a detailed account of the school closures’ impact on students.

New York City Schools Chief’s School-Closing Strategy Aims To Kick-Start Education Progress. The Wall Street Journal (7/2, Martinez) reports that New York City schools Chancellor Joel Klein’s school-closing strategy is founded on the premise that students’ demographic profile does not dictate their education outcomes. As an example, the Journal cites a school building in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, which houses two middle schools, each with a student population that is 90 percent black and 10 percent Hispanic. However, though one school has been targeted for closure by Klein due to low performance, the other school is among the city’s better-performing schools.

States, Districts Scramble To Launch School Turnaround Efforts.
Education Week (7/1, Maxwell) reported, “The fast-track effort to overhaul low-performing schools, a centerpiece of US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s school improvement agenda, has state and local education leaders scrambling to prepare and launch aggressive interventions at their most troubled campuses. Within two months, hundreds of low-performing schools targeted for turnaround must make drastic changes-in many cases, replacing the principal and at least some teachers-under new rules for the federal Title I School Improvement Grant program.” However, “at least 16 states, including Illinois, Massachusetts, and Tennessee, were still waiting as of June 30 for officials at [ED] to give final approval to their plans for overseeing scores of school turnarounds over the next three years” and other “states have had since March and April to plan their interventions.”

Special Needs
In Cost-Saving Move, DC Mayor Proposes Returning Special Ed Students To Public System.
The Washington Post (7/2, Turque) reports, “The administration of D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, seeking to whittle the annual $280 million cost of sending special education students to private schools, said Thursday that it will study several options to return as many as possible to the city’s public schools. The options, which officials said they will present to parents in meetings over the next few weeks, include forming public-private partnerships to build new facilities, co-locating ‘schools within schools’ in joint ventures with private operators, expanding special education services in neighborhood schools by establishing separate classes for students who need full-time services, modernizing the city’s special education schools and retraining staff, and offering scholarship-type grants so parents can buy special education services on the open market.”

Massachusetts District’s Special Ed Program Undergoes Independent Review.
The Daily Hampshire (MA) Gazette (7/2, Palpini) reports, “Graduation rates for special education students in the Amherst-Pelham Regional School District outperform the state average but parent satisfaction with the program is low,” according to an independent review. Federal stimulus funds help pay for the study. The report criticized Amherst Schools “for inadequate student transitions between schools and MCAS progress.” Also, “another area of concern was in a category called ‘parent satisfaction’ with their participation in developing their children’s education plan.” Administrators hailed the study as “useful.”

New Jersey School Boards Seeks Property Tax Exemptions For Special Needs Students.
The Record and Herald News (NJ) (7/2, Brody) reports that New Jersey Governor Christie’s “proposal to cap property tax increases should allow school districts waivers for high and unpredictable costs for special education, the New Jersey School Boards Association said Thursday.” Marie Bilik, President of the New Jersey School Boards Association said, “A reasonable cap would take into account expenditures that are clearly outside a local school district’s control.” Parents, teachers, and special ed advocates say the 2010-11 budget already is “taking a toll on services for special needs children.”

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Safety & Security
On-Call Advocates Aim To Prevent Chicago Student Deaths.
The New York Times (7/2, Saulny) reports, “Last school year, 258 public school students were shot in Chicago, 32 fatally, on their way to or from school, traveling through gang-infested territory and narcotics wars on the South and West Sides. In an effort to get ahead of the next killings, the schools conducted an analysis to identify the 250 students most at risk of being shot (by studying profiles of 500 recent victims).” According to the Times, “Since December, each of those students has had an advocate…on call to offer caretaking and support 24 hours a day, seven days a week” and experts “consider it to be perhaps the most intensive safety intervention tried in big-city schools; its results are being watched nationally.”

Facilities
Bank Lends Rhode Island City $5 Million For School Repairs, Despite Junk Bond Rating.
The Providence Journal (7/2, Hill) reports that Washington Trust Co. in Rhode Island agreed to loan Central Falls, RI “$5 million over 10 years for school repairs and renovations, despite the city’s junk-bond credit rating.” Expected state money will be used to repay the loand. The acting Director of the RI Department of Revenue said Washington Trust “really stepped up to the plate, in terms of community service.”

Ohio High School Construction Project Ahead of Schedule.
Cincinnati.com (7/2, Dannemiller) reports that construction is ahead of schedule at Milford High School in Ohio. “The new commons area, ninth-grade wing, cafeteria and music rooms at the Milford High School construction site are starting to look a lot more like rooms.” The construction should be complete in time for the return of students.

Wisconsin School Receives Interest-Free Bonds Through Recovery Act.
The Onalaska Holmen (WI) Courier Life News (7/2, Seaquist) reports, “a million dollars in interest-free bonds will help Onalaska schools pay for capital equipment as well as ease the strain on the district’s tight budget.” A program of the Recovery Act, the Qualified School Construction Bond Program, will provide the money. Larry Dalton, Onalaska’s Finance Director told school board members Monday, “We’re needing to find more money” because the Recovery money isn’t enough. “The ARRA money will help fill district technology needs, purchasing various Internet and data transfer equipment.”

School Finance
Michigan Lawmakers Approve School Budget.
The AP (7/2) reports, “Michigan’s public schools won’t get all of their financial problems fixed with a budget bill that sailed through the state Legislature on Thursday, but at least they’re safe from state aid cuts in the upcoming year. Public schools will get a small $11 per student increase by the end of September, raising the minimum per student foundation grant received from the state to $7,162 a year but still leaving schools below 2009 funding levels.” According to the AP, “The new funding levels will remain intact for the state fiscal year that starts Oct. 1, meaning school districts will fare much better than most state programs in a budget plan that likely will be full of cuts.”

Study: Proposed Title I Overhaul May Hurt Rural Schools.
Mary Schulken wrote in a blog for Education Week (6/30), “Re-upping the Elementary and Secondary Education Act may be a long shot this year, but that hasn’t stopped the drumbeat from rural schools to overhaul the way federal Title I funds for disadvantaged students are allocated. The latest round: A study by a research and advocacy group suggests one talked-about fix would hurt rural schools, not make funding more equitable.” According to Schulken, “The June 25 issue of Rural Policy Matters, published by the Rural School and Community Trust, argues that tying funding to average salaries in local communities is no more equitable than tying it to state spending on education.”

Also in the News
Minnesota Standardized Test Scores Show Mixed Progress, State DOE Data Reveals.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune (7/1, Johns, Howatt, Lemagie) reported, “Minnesota students have not made much progress on state reading and math tests since last year, and the state’s stubborn achievement gap hasn’t budged, according to data released Thursday by the Minnesota Department of Education. On required tests, 66.1 percent of the state’s public school students were proficient in math, compared with 64 percent last year. In reading, 72.5 percent of the state’s students were proficient, up from 72.1 percent last year.” The Star Tribune noted that NCLB “requires that every student in the nation reach ‘proficiency’ by 2014, a goal that many say is impossible” and “Minnesota Education Commissioner Alice Seagren said Wednesday that the state’s progress isn’t sufficient to meet that standard ‘unless we see some extraordinary changes.’”

The St. Paul Pioneer-Press (7/1, Boldt, Webster, Belden) reported, “Minnesota’s concerted efforts to boost students’ math skills seem to be paying off. Students across the state have made gains on statewide math tests over the past five years while reading scores remained stagnant.” The Pioneer-Press added that state DOE data reveals that “Minnesota’s students of color also are making progress, but the state’s wide and persistent achievement gap remains.”

NEA in the News
Pennsylvania Teachers’ Union Official “Thrilled” About State’s Budget.
WTFX-TV Philadelphia (7/2) reports, “The National Education Association is opening its annual convention Thursday in New Orleans.” Pennsylvania State Education Association Treasurer Jerry Oleksiak said “he is thrilled that the latest state budget includes a $250-million increase in funding for schools.” He added, “the Governor from the beginning of his first term has committed to increasing public education funding. It’s the reason the budget was held up for so long last year.” Referring to merit pay, Oleksiak said, “We need is a system that looks at the impact of their entire staff on the school. It’s not about single high stakes tests that are going to determine whether a school is doing well or a teacher.”

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In the Classroom
Federal Grant Provides Chicago Teaches With Cultural Awareness Training.
The Chicago Tribune (6/30, Pevtzow) reports that a cultural awareness program funded by a federal grant allowed 24 Chicago Public Schools teacher to “take a whirlwind tour of multicultural Chicago, listening intently as members of different ethnic groups talked of their history, language and culture through the lens of their own experience.”

On the Job
Virginia Making Strides In Reducing Racial Achievement Gap.
The Fredericksburg (VA) Free Lance-Star (6/30, Sampson) reports the Southern Regional Education Board released a study showing “Virginia’s public school students are making some progress in closing wide racial gaps in academic performance, and the state compares well to southern states on other measures, including high school and college graduation rates.” However, the same study found “the achievement gap for students with disabilities has increased in recent years and the state’s academic standards for eighth-graders appear low and potentially could leave students unprepared for the next grade level.” Also, the report found “Virginia’s public four-year colleges and universities reported that two-thirds of students who entered as first-time, full-time freshmen in 2002 graduated within six years from the institution they first attended” compared to 53% regionally.

Washington, DC Council Approves Teacher Contract.
The Washington Post (6/30, Turque) reports that the DC. Council approved a contract with the Washington Teachers’ Union “that promises significantly higher pay for educators who demonstrate results in the classroom.” Councilman Kwame Brown hailed the contract, calling it “historic.” He added, “We’re going to pay our teachers more. They’re going to be able to serve our classrooms better.” In addition to a 21.6% pay increase, “the contract also calls for a voluntary pay-for-performance system that officials say could add $20,000 to $30,000 to the salaries of teachers who show better-than-expected growth in student test scores and who hit other targets.” A new evaluation and tenure system was also included in the deal.

Hawaii’s Teachers Will Not Be Furloughed This Year, Special Ed Cuts Loom.
The Honolulu Star-Advertiser (6/30, Vorsino) reports that Hawaii’s teachers will not face furloughs after the state’s Board of Education approved an operating budget Tuesday. However, the Board moved to eliminate 400 “mostly vacant positions.” Nearly 230 of these positions are for special education specialists. Last year, Hawaii’s teachers faced 17 furlough days because of “the dire budget situation.” The furloughs “left Hawaii public school students with the shortest school year in the nation and spurred widespread criticism, including from US Education Secretary Arne Duncan.”

Budget Situation In Detroit Leads To Larger Class Sizes.
The Detroit Free Press (6/30, Dawsey) reports that Detroit Public School will see an average of nearly 40 students per class in some grades because of next year’s budget. “Robert Bobb, the state-appointed emergency financial manager, will detail the 2010-11 spending plan at a public meeting Wednesday.” The district’s deficit has grown by $144 million over the past year. “Next year, students and teachers in grades 4 to 12 will see the average class sizes increase by three students.” Unions plan to fight the increase.

Law & Policy
Study Finds Charter School Students Don’t Outperform Those At Public Schools.
The Washington Times (6/30, Wetzstein, 77K) reports a study commissioned by the Institution of Education Science’s showed “middle school students in charter schools in 15 states …generally performed no better in math and reading than other public school students.” Students “in charter schools in urban areas were exceptions – they did better in math than their public school peers – and charter school students were generally more satisfied with their schools, said the study, conducted by Mathematica Policy Research Inc. and released Wednesday.” John Easton, director of the Institution of Education Services at ED, said, “The study adds to a growing body of evidence on thie important policy issue.” But “the outcome…is sure to disappoint education officials who are seeking new ways to improve student achievement.” The Washington Post (6/30, Strauss) also runs the story.

Charter Schools Sometimes Face Same Problems As Public Schools. The Indianapolis Star (6/30, Gammill) reports on the problems faced by parents looking for the best education possible sometimes find charter schools “have abysmal student performance. In short, charter schools are neither inherently better nor worse — and they are susceptible to the same factors that determine the quality of a traditional public school.” University of Indianapolis Researcher David Dresslar said, “There are all kinds of issues that, just like a traditional public school, cause them [Charter Schools] to lag in performance.” Furthermore, Dresslar claims charters with strong leadership and teaching prevail.

Voucher Students Score Lower On Standardized Tests In New Orleans.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune (6/30, Chang) reports, “Charter school advocate Leslie Jacobs published a report Monday highlighting the low test scores of students in the state voucher program and calling for a system to evaluate the participating schools.” Louisiana State Superintendent Paul Postorek questioned the LEAP test used by Jacobs used, given it’s in its first year of use in voucher schools and varies by school. “Nearly half of the Recovery School District’s third-graders scored basic or above on the iLEAP’s English portion, but only 35 percent of third-graders in the voucher program did. The figures for fourth grade English were 48 percent for RSD students and 29 percent for voucher students.”

Georgia District Revising Policies To Ensure Accreditation Remains.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (6/30, Pickel, Matteucci) reports the DeKalb County, GA School Board met Tuesday to revise “a handful of key board policies in an effort to save the system’s accreditation.” Specifically, the board will revisit its policies on purchasing, employee conflict of interest, and whistle-blowing. The region’s accrediting association, the SACS, began “asking questions of” DeKalb County Schools after an investigation revealed a former superintendent, former operating officer, and two others ran “a criminal enterprise” in within the school system.

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Special Needs
ED and DOJ Warn Schools On Accessibility Of E-Readers.
The AP (6/30, Turner) reports that ED and DOJ “sent a letter to college and university presidents Tuesday instructing them to find alternatives” to Kindles and other electronic book readers for blind students if the are used in classrooms. Asst. Sec. for Civil Rights Russlynn Ali said in the letter, “It is unacceptable for universities to use emerging technology without insisting that this technology be accessible to all students.” When asked by the AP, Asst. Sec. Ali added, “The key here is fully accessible, not in-part accessible. Blind users cannot navigate the menu. They couldn’t fast forward or even know which book they were reading.” Four universities have shelved e-readers until they are fully accessible. Only one school district in Clearwater, FL has expressed interest in using e-readers in the classroom. Ali said ED “is monitoring that district to be sure they meet federal requirements,” because the policy also applies to K-12 school, too. USA Today (6/30, Marklein) and T.H.E. Journal (6/30, Schaffhauser) also run the story.

Safety & Security
Grants Provide Pennsylvania School With Wireless Cameras Linked To Police.
Government Technology (6/30, Pittman) reports that Pennsylvania police departments “can increase situational awareness” in schools “by directly linking to Pennsylvania schools’ live video camera feeds” during emergencies. The Murrysville, PA Police Department received “a $100,000 grant from the Community Oriented Policing Services technology program, of which about $45,000 will fund the purchase of OnSite Information Systems Inc.’s Responder Knowledge software” for wireless cameras. Additionally, the cities fire departments and its EMS service will have access to the cameras, too. Tom Seefeld, Police Chief for Murrsville, said that “strict policies will ensure that the software is only used for its intended purpose: emergency response.”

School Finance
Wisconsin School Receives Recovery Funds.
The Lakeland (WI) Times (6/30, Gernetzke) reports that Wisconsin’s Minocqua, Hazelhurst, and Lake Tomahawk School District was awarded $890,000 worth of bonding from the Qualified School Construction Bonds tax credit program that’s part of the Recovery Act. MHLT Finance Manager Jeff Hoegger said, “To get the full amount was a pleasant surprise,’ Jeff Hoegger, MHLT finance manager, said. ‘It’s very good news for the district.” The district will use the funds to construct a new track and field area. Hoegger added, “Another good thing about it is that these programs help stimulate the local economy” and estimated 70% of the work will be done by local contractors.

Officials Concerned About Federal Classroom Technology Funding.
The Denver Post (6/30, Meyer) reports the annual meeting of the International Society For Technology in Education is being held a the Colorado Convention Center in Denver. “An estimated 18,000 educators and more than 400 vendors are attending the convention through Wednesday, with sessions from industry leaders, examples of technology use by teachers and even a playground for robots.” Officials with ITSE are concerned “that the zeal to cut funding will block the advancement of technology in the classroom – specifically the elimination of the federal Enhancing Education Through Technology program that, in part, pays for teacher training and curriculum development” which the Administration cut by $169 million for FY 2011.

Baltimore Schools Apply For $23 Million Worth of ED Grants.
The Baltimore Sun (6/30) reports Baltimore, MD schools “recently filed four applications for about $23 million in grants from the US Department of Education.” The first grant “calls for a Career Ladder that rewards teachers for the amount of professional development they get and their ability to apply what they learn, rather than paying teachers as they get more advanced degrees. The grant would also pay for a data system to track whether the professional development that teachers are getting is having an impact in the classroom.” The other grants seek to foster better childhood development, increase child nutrition and fitness, and to pay for “on-site, two-day reviews of schools every three years.”

California Ranks 23rd In Per Pupil Spending.
The Orange County Register (6/30, Martindale) reports that the US Census Bureau released financial data showing “California ranks 23rd among US states in per-pupil spending on public education, below the national average of $10,259.” During the data based from the 2007-08 school year, California spent on average $9,863 per pupil. NEA statistics point to lower spending during the same period, though the difference is likely attributed to the use of different data sets. For 2008-09, NEA statistics show California spent $8,322 per student, placing the state in 43rd place. “The Census Bureau’s rankings will likely reflect a similar trend when the 2008-09 rankings are released next year.”

Iowa Districts Raised Property Taxes By $130 Million To Pay For Schools.
The AP (6/30) reports that Iowa’s nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency released a report showing “local school districts have raised property taxes by more than $133 million for the upcoming school year.” Republicans blamed Democrats for property tax increase, given the state’s complex formula for funding schools. However, Democrats refute the charge, noting local school districts approved the new taxes.

“North Carolina Uses Lottery Revenues To Retain Teachers.”
The AP (6/30) reports “More teachers and university faculty would stay on the job this fall but some might face furloughs” in the latest version of the budget drafted by the North Carolina legislature. The spending plan “seeks to protect more classroom positions in public schools and University of North Carolina system campuses.” Reallocating revenue from the state’s lottery would allow districts to retain teachers. House Speaker Joe Hackney said the budget had “some really … innovative ways…to keep teachers teaching and faculty members teaching in the universities. There are some new ways to minimize the damages.” Brian Lewis, a lobbyist for the North Carolina Association of Educators, said, “don’t think there should be any (classroom) job losses in the 2010-11 school year.”

Educators Struggle To Tame Cyberbullying Epidemic.
The New York Times (6/28, Hoffman) reports, “Schools these days are confronted with complex questions on whether and how to deal with cyberbullying, an imprecise label for online activities ranging from barrages of teasing texts to sexually harassing group sites. The extent of the phenomenon is hard to quantify,” yet “one 2010 study by the Cyberbullying Research Center, an organization founded by two criminologist who defined bullying as ‘willful and repeated harm’ inflicted through phones and computers, said one in five middle-school students had been affected.” According to the Times, “Affronted by cyberspace’s escalation of adolescent viciousness, many parents are looking to schools for justice, protection, even revenge” yet “many educators feel unprepared or unwilling to be prosecutors and judges.”

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In the Classroom
New Jersey District Applies Computer-Based, Teacher Moderated Language Instruction.
New Jersey’s Star-Ledger (6/28, Rundquist) reports that the Ridgewood, New Jersey school system last year “introduced an interactive computer program” for Spanish classes “in which students listen to lessons on headsets, using a computer mouse to answer questions and a microphone to practice words and phrases.” The computer-based classes are supervised by “a regular classroom teacher.” The district “saved just under $200,000 by cutting three Spanish teaching positions.” Meanwhile, the district paid roughly $50,000 to purchase the Rosetta Stone computer language program. According to the Star-Ledger, “similar change is coming to schools across New Jersey this year as many districts, making cuts in the wake of an $820 million statewide school aid reduction, have targeted elementary foreign language programs.”

Texas High School Students Face Tougher Graduation Requirements.
The Dallas Morning News (6/26, Holloway) reported, “Instead of an easier schedule with no math or science, Texas seniors must now take a fourth year of those subjects to graduate with the recommended diploma required by most universities. The Legislature passed the new requirements five years ago” and Texas districts “knew the Class of 2010 would be the last to need only three years of math and science for the recommended diploma,” yet “they didn’t know how many more students would be in the classes, and in which of several approved fourth-year courses, until students filled out schedules this spring.” According to the Morning News, “Educators are particularly concerned about the ability of some students to pass the extra classes.”

New York Educators Debate Merits Of Raising High School Graduation Standards. The New York Times (6/28, Medina) reports, “When the State Education Department announced five years ago that all students would soon be required to pass five tests to earn high school diplomas in New York, officials applauded themselves for raising standards.” Though the “new requirements do not take full effect until the class of 2012 graduates,” if “they were in place today, New York City’s graduation rate would almost certainly drop after years of climbing steadily. What is not so evident, educators and testing experts say, is whether the higher bar will inspire students and schools to greatness, or merely make them lean more heavily on test-taking strategies.”

On the Job
New York City Principal Helps Turn Around Troubled School.
The New York Times (6/27, MB1, Gootman) reports, “When Pedro Santana arrived as principal of Middle School 391 in the South Bronx four years ago, it was, as he likes to put it, ‘a hot mess,” as fights “were frequent” and only “11 percent of seventh graders had passed their most recent state math tests. Had Mr. Santana fled, teachers and parents would not have been surprised.” However, Santana “is still around, but the school is not the same” as last “year, 59 percent of its seventh graders passed the state math test – below the 81 percent who passed citywide, but enough of an improvement to help the school earn an A on its report card.”

Denver District Using Radio To Reach Out To Spanish-Speaking Parents.
The Denver Post (6/26, Meyer) reported, “Denver Public Schools is reaching out to an increasingly diverse student population through one of the most popular media for Spanish-speakers: radio. The district says it is the first in the nation to produce a commercial Spanish-language radio show to engage parents.” According to the Post, “About 40 percent of the district’s 79,000 students come from homes where English is not the primary language, and many of those students have parents who speak no English at all,” yet “they do turn on the radio regularly.”

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Law & Policy
Texas Districts Sue Education Commissioner Over Minimum Grade Policy.
The Dallas Morning News (6/28, Unmuth) reports that eleven Texas districts with policies establishing “minimum grades of 50, 60 or even 70 for assignments and report cards” will argue in court today “they have the right to boost failing report card grades.” Legislation ending the practice “for classroom assignments” was passed in the state Legislature last year. “Education commissioner Robert Scott told superintendents last fall that it extended to report cards such as six-week grades as well — an opinion the school districts are challenging.” The districts “say that the state is overreaching into what should be local decisions.”

Illinois BOE Votes To Require Bilingual Education In Preschool.
Mary Ann Zehr wrote in a blog for Education Week (6/25), “The Illinois State Board of Education…unanimously adopted regulations that will require all public preschools in the state to identify any children who have limited proficiency in English and provide transitional bilingual education for them. The Joint Committee on Administrative Rules in Illinois will still have to approve the rules for them to go into effect.” Zehr added, “Should the rules go into effect, and I expect now they likely will, it is believed that Illinois will have the most prescriptive rules in the nation for English-language learners in preschool.”

School Finance
Cutting Employee Health Benefits Helps Some Districts Cover Budget Shortfalls.
The St. Petersburg Times (6/27, Catalanello) reported that “for decades, affordable health benefits have been the comfy cushion public education employees could recline on in exchange for otherwise lackluster pay.” But, “as districts eye budget maneuvers that could have long-term implications for teachers and for the districts’ ability to recruit educators,” some are looking at cutting health benefits. This would mean “handing over more health insurance costs to their employees.” In Hillsborough County, Florida, for instance, “the district is facing a $20 million shortfall…next year.” Keeping health benefits as-is “in 2011 could cost $29 million alone.” Now, a “fully paid premium option for single coverage” that “once had no deductible,” now “comes with a $1,000 deductible.”

Survey Shows Most Pennsylvania Districts Cutting Instructional Staff.
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (6/27, Weigand) reported, “School districts are taking drastic measures to balance budgets socked by falling tax revenue, skyrocketing pension obligations and uncertain state and federal funding.” School districts’ deadline for passing a balanced budget is Wednesday. Jay Himes of the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials said school budgets this year are “probably the worst in two decades in terms of schools having to deal with both revenue declines and cost increases.” The Tribune-Review lists four causes of the budget crunch faced by school systems and also describes measures that some school boards are taking to reduce their budgets. “A survey of more than half of the state’s 500 school districts conducted by the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials and the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators found two-thirds will cut instruction staff in 2010-11″ and that “at least 69 percent planned to use reserve funds to balance their budget.”

Pennsylvania’s Standard Speaker (6/26, Nissley) reported that the survey also showed that throughout Pennsylvania, “school districts collectively lost $343 million in local revenues as a result of the recession.” Himes said that “using reserve funds is extremely risky,” because “there are concerns about soaring pension contributions and cuts to state and federal funding in the next two years.”

Voter-Approved Education Measures Further Strain Washington State Budget.
Chris Grygiel wrote in the Seattle Post Intelligencer (6/27) “Seattle Politics” blog, “Washington state’s budget situation gets bleaker the further out one looks. And to a certain extent, voters have only themselves to blame.” About one quarter of the state’s $8.1 billion shortfall “is due to anticipated costs of restoring money to two voter-approved initiatives…that mandated reduced class sizes and automatic teacher raises pegged to inflation.” While lawmakers “could opt not to pay for the education measures,” they would still have to replace about $2 billion in federal stimulus funds, “fund pensions for state workers above the current base assumptions” at a rate of “700 million in 2011-13 and $1.2 billion the following two years,” and they would have to “pay for Basic Education improvements lawmakers signed off on this year.” Grygiel concludes, “No wonder Gov. Chris Gregoire has floated the idea of having companies pay for naming rights to highways and rest areas.”

Also in the News
Some Educators Recognizing Multiple Valedictorians.
The New York Times (6/27, Hu) reported, “In top suburban schools across the country, the valedictorian, a beloved tradition, is rapidly losing its singular meaning as administrators dispense the title to every straight-A student rather than try to choose the best among them. Principals say that recognizing multiple valedictorians reduces pressure and competition among students, and is a more equitable way to honor achievement, particularly when No. 1 and No. 5 may be separated by only the smallest fraction of a grade from sophomore science.” However, “some scholars and parents have criticized the swelling valedictorian ranks as yet another symptom of rampant grade inflation, with teachers reluctant to jeopardize the best and brightest’s chances of admission to top-tier colleges.”

Youths Face Worst Summer Hiring Season Since 1969.
In a column for the Riverside Press Enterprise (6/26), Steve Rosen wrote, “This is the worst start to the summer hiring season for teens since 1969,” according to experts, and “though part-time openings are expected to pick up this month and next, many youths will still come up empty.” Rosen advised high schoolers to “look for off-the-beaten-path opportunities,” noting that “outdoor jobs involving heavy labor or behind-the-scenes jobs in warehouses or in retail inventory are typically not as sought after by teen job-seekers.” Alternately, he wrote that high schoolers should consider becoming entrepreneurs and going into business for themselves. Rosen also advises youths to “find a mentor” whom they can shadow, find a place to volunteer their services, or “work on a family project.”

NEA in the News
Pay Agreement Promises To Try For More Teacher Rewards After Economy Improves.
The Lawrence (KS) Journal World (6/27, Diepenbrock) reported that a “tentative agreement reached last week between Lawrence teachers and school board negotiators included salary raises for a limited number of teachers and a promise to try to reward more teachers once the economy turns around.” Negotiators for the schools board “said the $4.6 million in cuts for the 2010-2011 school year restricted their ability to offer raises, mostly to teachers who completed more graduate course hours in the last year.” Wade Anderson of the Kansas National Education Association noted, “There has been an acknowledgment on the part of both sides in most places that these are extraordinary times.” Throughout the state, “districts have cut $300 million in the last two years.” Anderson also said that “he was expecting the worst on salary offers, but he has been ‘pleasantly surprised so far.’”

Massachusetts District To Reconsider Condom Distribution Policy.
The AP (6/25, Johnson) reports that Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) “used his bully pulpit Thursday to call the superintendent of a Cape Cod school district and urge her to revise a new policy allowing even elementary school students to receive free condoms without the knowledge of their parents.” Provincetown school district “officials later said the policy would be revisited.” According to the AP, Patrick said he “objected not only to the age of the students covered by the policy, but also to a provision prohibiting their parents from being told about any request for prophylactics – and from having their objections overrule a distribution.”

FOX News (6/24, Barnes) reported that Provincetown’s school health advisory committee proposed the distribution policy because committee members were “worried that children were becoming sexually active at ever younger ages, and…believed protection was the best policy.” According to Fox News, “the proposal had been on the agenda for weeks” before it was unanimously approved by the school board June 8. Before that meeting, “it had been discussed in open session and on local cable channels.” Superintendent Beth Singer said that “even after passage…she had only one phone call — from a parent who wanted to know when it would go into effect so she could talk to her kids about it.”

ABC News (6/24, James) added that “because school officials felt strongly that those who are sexually active should have protection, they had no ‘opt out’ clause for parents.” Provincetown’s only elementary school currently “serves children in pre-K to grade 6.” Singer, who wrote the policy, pointed out that “it is possible to have a young teenager in the sixth grade. So the school committee didn’t want to eliminate anyone to having access for whom it was relevant,” she added.

The New York Times (6/25, Goodnough) reports that Singer said “a revised policy would probably include more specifics about how to handle a condom request from an elementary school student — though she added that she was not anticipating any such requests.” However, the part of the policy that would give students access to “condoms even if their parents object, may not change,” because, Singer said, “withholding birth control from a student who is sexually active ‘really is not helpful.’” The Boston Globe (6/25, Nicas) and USA Today (6/24) also covered the story.

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In the Classroom
Computer-Based Summer School Program Targets Students’ Weakest Skills.
The St. Petersburg Times (6/25, Solochek) reports, “Each summer, the Pasco County School District offers two-week courses for students to make up lost credits from the school year.” This year, a computer program called NovaNet is being offered at four high schools “for 10 days this summer.” NovaNet “allows…students to work at an independent pace on the topics that vex them most.” The courses are “divided into modules of eight chapters, all aligned to state standards.” At the beginning of each module is “a pretest that identifies which skills they already have mastered and which require more attention.” Students say that “the computerized lessons, with help from an instructor and three student tutors from the International Baccalaureate program, [make] the material more accessible.”

After Weeks-Long Delay, Florida Schools Will Finally Receive State Test Scores.
The Miami Herald (6/25, Sampson, Mcgrory) reports that schools in Florida will finally receive “the FCAT scores that allow them to plan for next school year.” NCS Pearson, “the company that administers and grades the tests,” will have to pay a $3 million penalty “for tardiness — with more punishment on the way.” The Miami Herald adds that “FCAT scores are an important factor in deciding whether a student moves on to the next grade, gets placed in remedial courses, and ultimately whether he or she graduates.” In addition, the scores are “critical in determining the letter grade assigned annually to individual schools.” The Herald further explains the penalties NCS Pearson faces for delivering the scores several weeks later than the date indicated in its $254 million contract with the state.

Arizona Elementary School District Adding Extra Science Courses Over The Summer.
The Arizona Republic (6/25, Gordon) reports, “Tolleson Elementary School District is offering extra science courses this summer” that “about 10 percent of the district’s pupils” will be attending. The courses include “hands-on learning” that “engages students and introduces them to concepts that aren’t taught until high school or college,” educators said. Grant funding “went to pay teachers for the summer-school program, provide a science club throughout the year and contract with the Arizona Science Center to offer summer-school workshops. The workshops are embedded professional development for teachers,” the Republic notes.

Successful STEM Mentoring Program For Girls Being Expanded.
The Gary (IN) Post-Tribune (6/24, Lavalley) reported, “Discoveries Unlimited’s pilot program pairing middle school girls with mentors in the STEM fields…was such a success, it’s being expanded.” The non-profit “paired 17 Valparaiso girls with mentors for the first time in January,” and “will have 30 girls when it starts up again in the fall, including 13 who are returning from the last session.” Officials said “the pilot featured monthly events for the girls and their mentors, with the goal of giving the girls new experiences and sparking their interest in the STEM fields.” Through the ongoing program, “girls can switch mentors until they find someone in a field they are most interested in, and maintain that relationship through college, when they can intern and find full-time jobs with businesses involved in the program.”

Elementary Schools In New York Adopting Digital Curricula.
T.H.E. Journal (6/24, Nagel) reported that in New York City, 21 “elementary schools…are adopting digital curricula for the 2010-2011 school year.” The schools this fall will begin “shifting to a digital platform for math and reading designed for 1:1 classroom environments.” The platform, called Time to Know, “provides an interactive core curriculum targeted toward grades 4 and 5, along with collaborative tools designed to support group activities and discussions; various summative and formative assessment capabilities; interactive lesson planning with content previews; and a range of real-time classroom management utilities.”

On the Job
Five Utah Schools To Test Teacher Performance Pay Program.
The AP (6/24) reported, “A pilot program at five Utah schools will give teachers the opportunity to earn up to $2,000 more for improving student performance, parent satisfaction and giving quality instruction. … The program will cost $300,000 a year, drawing criticism from some who say it is not the best use of state money during difficult budget times.” However, “some say the program is the first step in spreading performance pay statewide.” The AP added, “The five schools’ plans reward 40 percent of the pay based on instructional quality, 40 percent based on student achievement and 20 percent based on community satisfaction.”

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Law & Policy
Parents File Suit Challenging Move To Cut Education Funding In Missouri.
The AP (6/25, Blank) reports that three parents of children in the Kansas City school system filed a lawsuit last week, “challenging a school funding maneuver by Gov. Jay Nixon.” The parents say that “Kansas City schools are due an extra $3 million from Missouri.” In an effort to “spread the pain of a $43 million state funding shortfall in basic aid to school districts,” state “lawmakers approved a bill this spring that shielded about one-quarter of school districts from the cut.” The governor, however, “ordered his administration to ignore the legislation.” Funding was, instead, cut equally among the state’s 523 school districts. Nixon contends that “it was unconstitutional for lawmakers to change school funding policies in a state budget bill.” The parents say that “Nixon’s order to ignore lawmakers cost their schools $3 million.”

School Finance
California Awarded $416 Million Turn Around Failing Schools.
The AP (6/25) reports that California “education officials say the federal government has awarded $416 million to California to turn around dozens of its lowest public schools. Jack O’Connell, the state superintendent of public instruction, said Thursday that California received the money from the US Department of Education School Improvement Grants program.” The AP notes that “school districts can apply for grants of $50,000 to $2 million to turn around 188 ‘persistently lowest achieving schools’ that state education officials identified in March.”

Alabama Schools Chief Says Oil Spill Reimbursement Is Critical To Education Funding.
WVTM-TV Birmingham (6/24, White) reports that State Superintendent Dr. Joseph Morton “reminded state board members” this week that the Gulf oil spill “is a critical issue” for education funding in Alabama. On Thursday, Morton told state board of education members that “he stands by his decision earlier this month to add up what the spill is costing the Education Trust Fund and send BP the bill.” He also warned that the impact of the spill “will be felt in this budget year, which ends September 30th, and in the next one,” and that “without reimbursement from BP, that could mean” further cuts to school funding.

Some School Budget Cuts Restored In Massachusetts District.
The Boston Globe (6/24, Roy) reports, “An additional $185,000 will be transferred to the school department budget from” Medford, MA’s “dwindling free cash account in fiscal 2011, Medford Mayor Michael McGlynn announced on Wednesday.” According to the Globe, “Superintendent Roy Belson previously announced 29 school positions have been eliminated, including 22 through layoffs, 13 of them school department secretaries. … The additional funding does not affect the number of school department layoffs, which remains at 22, although the amendment does restore one position while introducing four others (two part-time).”

Also in the News
Dallas All-Boys School Named For President Obama.
Tawnell Hobbs wrote in a blog for the Dallas Morning News (6/24), “The Dallas school district’s planned all-boys school will be named for President Barack Obama, trustees decided in a split vote at tonight’s board meeting. The school will be housed in the building that had been B.F. Darrell Math, Science, and Technology Vanguard, an elementary school in southern Dallas.” According to Hobbs, “Several trustees voiced concerns with the naming, including that Obama didn’t meet the age requirement and the submission was late.”

NEA in the News
Michigan Teachers Rally At Michigan Capital To Protest School Cuts.
The Detroit Free Press (6/25, Bell) reports that “more than 3,000 public school teachers and support personnel” rallied in Lansing, Michigan Thursday “for a union rally to celebrate public education and protect school funding.” Participants “waved signs declaring ‘Enough is Enough’ and ‘Stop the Attacks,’ aimed at state lawmakers whom they criticized for allegedly scapegoating school employees for government budget woes and under-funding K-12.” They argued that “chronic budget battles in Lansing are…a distraction from the mission of education.” Said Michigan Education Association President Iris Salters, “Over the past year, our public schools have been held hostage by a Legislature that has done nothing but cut.”

WWJ-TV (6/25) quotes Salters with saying, “You can’t run your own household budget if you don’t plan appropriately, and (state lawmakers) have not planned appropriately to fund education in this state. They have shortchanged the children, the community, and the school employees.”

WPBN-TV Traverse City, Michigan (6/25) notes that the rally’s focus was to “find solutions to the current school funding crisis and to show the support of the concessions in salaries and benefits school employees have made over the years to try to help with the budget crisis.” Focusing on the Northern Michigan teachers’ participation in the rally, WPBN adds that “more than 75 Northern Michigan teachers packed two charter buses” to attend. “‘We’re pretty excited about this, we’ve got people, we’ve got teachers, support staff, their children, we’re going down to Lansing,’ said Bob Kwiatkoski, of the MEA in Petoskey.”

WJBK-TV Detroit (6/25, Skubick) reports that 5,000 MEA members participated in the rally. They “heard from the man that the MEA has endorsed for governor and Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero called for government off the backs of teachers with programs such as No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top.” But, on the other side of the argument, the state Senate GOP leader, Sen. Mike Bishop, told WJBK, “For anybody to come up here and suggest that we don’t prioritize the school community is outrageous. … They might want to take that and get out of Dodge quick.”

State Coalitions Vie For Federal Funding To Develop New Academic Tests.
The AP (6/24, Blankinship) reports, “Two big coalitions of states are competing” for up to a total of $160 million in federal grants “to create a series of new national academic tests to replace the current patchwork system. In the current system, every state gives a different test to its students” and in “some states, passing the exam is a graduation requirement.”

Education Week (6/23, Sawchuk) reported, “At least three state consortia will vie for $350 million in federal financing to design assessments aligned to the recently unveiled common-core standards, according to applications submitted today to the Education Department. Education Week noted that the competition aims to encourage “states to band together to create measures of academic achievement that are comparable across states. Two consortia — the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium, which consists of 31 states, and the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, which consists of 26 states — will compete for the bulk of the funding, $320 million, to produce comprehensive assessment systems.” Meanwhile, an alliance of “12 states appears to be the only contender for a smaller, $30 million competition earmarked by the Education Department to support specific exams aligned to high school grades or courses.”

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In the Classroom
Chicago Students Make Modest Gains On State Test.
The Chicago Tribune (6/24, Ahmed) reports, “State test scores for elementary school students in Chicago Public Schools rose about two percentage points this year, according to preliminary data released Wednesday.” Student showed the largest gains in science, “with a 3.6-point increase.” Reading, meanwhile, “showed the smallest increase, lifting half a percentage point from 2009 levels.”

WBBM-TV Chicago (6/23, Carlson) reported that overall, “nearly 72 percent of students now meet or exceed state standards,” which represents “a 1.9 percent increase from last year, and a 30 percent increase from 2002.” WBBM notes that “The timing of this good news is ironic. Despite the improvements, the threat of teacher layoffs is still looming as CPS struggles to fill a $1.2 billion budget deficit.”

WFLD-TV Chicago (6/24) reports that in an announcement about the test scores on Wednesday, Mayor Richard Daley (D) “attributed the improvement to the continued focus on teaching.” WFLD notes that test scores in Chicago public schools “have been steadily rising since 2002.”

Fewer 16-Year-Olds In Illinois Getting Driver’s Licenses. The Chicago Tribune (6/23, Gregory) reported, “Fewer 16-year-olds in Illinois are getting their licenses” and the “easy explanation for the decline is Illinois’ tougher new teen licensing requirements, started in 2006. But it’s clear that’s not the only reason.” According to the Tribune, in June 2006, “Illinois lawmakers doubled the number of hours – to 50 from 25 – of adult-supervised driving required before a driver with a learner’s permit could get a license” and the “next year, the number of 16-year-olds with licenses dropped by nearly 5 percent – to 74,675 from 78,250 – even though the state’s teen population increased.”

Program Offers Middle Schoolers Chance To Test Software On Space Station Robots.
The Boston Globe (6/23, Travaglini) reports on “Salem CyberSpace, a program offered through North Shore Community Action Programs, Inc.” that “has been awarded a NASA grant to bring a summer robotics program to middle-school-aged kids,” according to officials. “Up to 20 youths will be chosen to participate in the free 5-week program and learn from mentors from MIT while working on computer programs controlling robots just like the ones aboard the International Space Center. The winning team that creates the best computer program will be able to test their software on one of the robots on the Space Station while talking with the astronauts on board.” The Globe notes, “This is the first year NASA has offered such a grant. … The agency partnered with MIT in applying for the grant and is one of only four groups in the state to be awarded the monies.”

Gulf Oil Spill A “Potential Gold Mine” For Real-World STEM Lessons In The Classroom.
Noting the ongoing disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, Eric Clayton writes in District Administration (June 2010) that “the foundations for future disaster-aversion could be built” through STEM education. In fact, the current disaster presents an opportunity for educators “to stretch out their hands and seize this potential gold mine of ‘real-world problems,’” Clayton writes. Francis Eberle, executive director of the National Science Teachers Association, said, “Students may be hearing their families talk about the oil spill…and they’ll have some awareness of it, so the opportunities in the classroom are pretty extensive.” Eberle describes some of “the numerous issues to tackle in the classroom,” adding that the exercises teaches that “part of the reason to pursue science is to answer questions and solve problems.” Clayton also addresses the broader issue of boosting STEM learning in the US, writing that “extracurricular opportunities” and cultural backing are important factors.

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On the Job
Program Allows Teachers Chance To Spend Time In Supreme Court.
The AP (6/23, Sausser) reported that a “group of 30 social studies teachers from around the country… got a behind-the scenes look this week at the Supreme Court as part of the Supreme Court Summer Institute for Teachers.” The program, which aims to “demystify the court for teachers,” includes classes on “subjects ranging from choosing the court’s docket to nominating a justice.” The AP added, “In addition to classes, the teachers toured the Supreme Court on Friday and met in a closed-door session with court clerks.” The summer institute “is partially paid for by the Supreme Court Historical Society,” and “many of the teachers are sponsored by their school districts or local bar associations and only have to pay their hotel costs.

High School Puts Off Hiring Teachers Due To Delayed State Test Results.
The St. Petersburg Times (6/24, Solochek) reports that “the weeks-long delay in Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test results” has put some school financial decisions on hold. At Wiregrass Ranch High School, for instance, “eighth-grade math results will guide how many algebra instructors” are needed. Also, “tenth-grade reading outcomes will show whether the school should hire extra reading teachers, or whether it can bring in more educators in specialty areas such as Spanish.” The St. Petersburg Times notes that initially, testing contractor NCS Pearson’s “inability to match students within testing databases seemed a minor inconvenience to Pasco school officials,” as “key results, for third-graders and high school seniors, had arrived on time.” Yet, “as time has worn on, schools — particularly high schools — found themselves impeded by the lack of data.”

Portland, Oregon Schools Chief Recommends Eliminating 10 Percent Of Teachers.
The Oregonian (6/24, Hammond) reports, “Portland’s elementary and middle schools would lose their entire physical education program and the high schools would lose 10 percent of their faculty under Superintendent Carole Smith’s plan to deal with a $19 million cut in state funding for next school year.” Overall, 178 teaching positions would be eliminated from Oregon’s largest school district — “66 from elementary and middle schools, primarily from physical education; 60 from high schools; 38 from special education; and 14 from English as a second language.” In addition, Smith “proposes cutting 25 positions from the district’s central office.” According to the Oregonian, every district in the state “is being hit with a 9 percent cut in state funding for the coming school year.”

Law & Policy
San Francisco School Board Bans District Travel To Arizona.
Jill Tucker wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle (6/23, Tucker) “City Insider” blog, “The San Francisco school board jumped on the ‘Boycott Arizona’ bandwagon Tuesday night, banning all district travel to the southwestern state.” The move was in response to Arizona’s new “immigration laws aimed at identifying and deporting illegal residents. Critics, now including San Francisco school officials, believe the new laws encourage racial profiling.” Other “Arizona boycotters” include “San Francisco city, Los Angeles, Seattle, and San Diego [and] professional organizations across the country.” Tucker notes that Arizona also has banned “public school ethnic studies courses as well as a statewide push to reassign English language teachers who have heavy foreign accents or bad grammar.” Some university professors nationwide argue that “the accent policy…would target Latino/Latina educators, the ones most qualified to teach English learners.”

Many Immigrant Families Leaving Arizona.
The AP (6/23, Myers) reported that many illegal immigrants living in Arizona are making plans “to escape the state’s tough new law that cracks down on people just like them. The law’s stated intention is unambiguous: It seeks to drive illegal immigrants out of Arizona and to discourage them from coming here.” Though there “is no official data tracking how many are leaving because of the new law,” anecdotal “evidence provided by schools and businesses in heavily Hispanic neighborhoods and by healthcare clinics suggest that sizable numbers are departing.”

Illinois Considers Adoption Of Unified National Standards For Math, Reading. The Chicago Tribune (6/24, Malone, Reporter) reports, “Illinois schoolchildren should be able to tell time by the end of first grade and know how to calculate probability by middle school graduation under a plan that would create unified national standards for math and reading instruction.” If approved by the Illinois State Board of Education, which will decide the matter today, “the grade-by-grade guidelines could be rolled out to local classrooms as soon as this fall, officials said. They would replace the state’s current expectations that researchers have criticized as both scattered and superficial.” The Tribune notes, “The move paves the way for national standardized tests, as soon as 2014, to determine how kids measure up in states that adopt the voluntary benchmarks.”

School Finance
Rural Alabama District Faces State Takeover Amid Fiscal Woes.
The AP (6/23) reported, “The rural Coosa County [Alabama] school system has been turned down in its usually routine request to borrow more money from a local bank, possibly leading to the first state takeover of a system’s finances in Alabama since 2001″ According to Superintendent Dennis Sanford, “the system, with 1,350 students and 105 teachers in a high school, middle school and elementary school, does not have enough money in the bank to pay teachers and staff during August and September.”

Also in the News
Students Taste, Rate Potential School Meal Offerings With “Sound Nutritional Value.”
The St. Petersburg Times (6/24, Lehman) reports, “On Wednesday morning, 175 students from across Hillsborough County showed up at Strawberry Crest High School in Dover to rate 22 potential offerings for the coming school year’s menu.” After tasting “each dish, they could circle one of three smiley faces: Love It, Like It or Dislike It.” Offerings included “pizza with whole wheat crust and lean pepperoni, earned positive reviews.” MaryKate Harrison of the district’s student nutrition department “said the expo was a good opportunity to interact with the school’s ‘customers’ and present them with healthful options. It’s modeled after a program that started in Orange County.”

WTSP-TV St. Petersburg (6/24, Mascarenas) reports that students sampled “main entrees [that were] a bit out of their comfort zone such as teriyaki beef dippers with oriental brown rice, maple turkey sausage wrapped in whole grain pancakes, cheese tortellini with marinara sauce, and curry chicken with oriental brown rice.” High-scoring foods “will end up on the school lunch menu.” Said Harrison, “We’ve prescreened them and know they have sound nutritional value and pricing is right in the ballpark for us.”

NEA in the News
Jennings National Education Association Votes No Confidence In School Board.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (6/23, Bock) reports that Jennings National Education Association (JNEA) members have voted “no confidence in the School Board, saying the district” would eventually be taken over by the state. The JNEA “says the board has ignored many of the recommendations of a state audit released last summer that critiqued administrative costs, accounting practices and spending.” The audit said that Jennings ran “annual deficits of $3 million for four years. For the coming school year, the deficit is projected at $1.4 million, Chief Financial Officer Michael O’Connell said.” The district is “eliminating 30 positions, including 18 teachers and one administrator,” and it “has frozen most salaries, and all district employees will take two furlough days in the coming school year.” Still, said JNEA President Mike McMurran, members “take issue with administrators who received pay raises.”

Study Shows Small New York City High Schools Boosting Student Achievement.
The AP (6/23, Matthews) reports, “New York City under Mayor Michael Bloomberg has systematically shut down large, failing high schools and replaced them with small schools, many pegged to themes like the fashion industry or the business of sports. A new study funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – which has invested more than $150 million in New York City schools – suggests that the small schools have succeeded in boosting graduation rates for the city’s most academically challenged students.” According to the AP, “proponents say small schools can provide one-on-one support to struggling students, and the specialized programs are supposed to improve students’ motivation by enticing them to apply to schools that match their interests.”

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In the Classroom
School Board In Florida May Hire Long-Term Substitutes To Comply With Class-Size Rules.
The Naples Daily News (6/23) reports that the Lee County School Board, “faced with an ailing budget due in part to requirements of the state class size amendment,” is “now contemplating using…substitutes to” meet Florida’s class size this fall. The “long-term substitute teachers, those placed in a class for one month or more,” would “receive higher pay than short-term subs.” But, the County school system would “not have to pay benefits to those teachers.” The long-term substitutes would be placed as co-teachers in classrooms with large numbers of students and “could stay on as long as needed – until a student moves out of the class, or until voters have their say on whether to reverse the class size amendment.” The Naples Daily News adds that the district has set aside “$5 million in the 2010-11 budget to cover the hiring of permanent teachers, in the event that voters uphold the class size amendment.”

School’s Graphic Communications Program Earns PrintED Accreditation.
The Gwinnett (GA) Daily Post (6/23, Darenberg) reports that the graphic communications program at Maxwell High School of Technology “has earned PrintED accreditation,” and students enrolled in the program “will benefit as they learn from courses that meet industry standards” as a result. “The PrintED accreditation program is based on industry standards and administered by the Graphic Arts Education and Research Foundation,” and “grants accreditation to institutions that have met industry standards for communications courses of study at the secondary and postsecondary level.” The school “will open this August as a charter school,” following the state Board of Education’s recent approval of the school’s petition to that end. “The school will have flexibility to allow more students to earn dual enrollment credits and graduate with business- and industry-recognized credentials.”

Case For Single-Sex Classrooms Analyzed.
Newsweek (6/22, Ellison) reported, “With male academic achievement declining by almost every measure, and their scores possibly dragging down national averages, administrators are taking a fresh look at same-sex classrooms and the concept that boys and girls might do better when they’re apart. … Regardless of the mixed research, the interest in single-sex classrooms shows just how desperate teachers and administrators are to find a cure to the oft-lamented ‘problem with boys,’” as by “just about every metric, boys are, and have been for perhaps a decade, lagging tremendously behind girls in terms of academic achievement.” Ellison added, “Ultimately, figuring out what method is best for boys and girls may mean identifying and tearing down gender stereotypes where they begin-with the kids themselves.”

KIPP Students Outscore Public School Peers, Report Says.
The Washington Post (6/22, Turque) reported, “Middle school students in the Knowledge Is Power Program, a charter school network with a major footprint in the District and other cities, significantly outperform their public school peers on reading and math tests, according to a new study. But the report, from Mathematica Policy Research, to be made public Tuesday, is unlikely to resolve debate over what is behind the network’s success” as critics “say that the program benefits from highly motivated parents seeking alternatives to ineffective public schools and that KIPP often winnows out students who don’t fit its program.” According to the Post, “The study, which KIPP commissioned, comes as the Obama administration is promoting the spread of strong charter schools as a strategy to improve urban education.”

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On the Job
Arizona District Developing Own Integrated Teacher Evaluation System.
The Arizona Republic (6/23, Faller) reports that the Scottsdale Unified School District is developing an evaluation system “that will use a model of student growth rather than test scores to evaluate how well a teacher has performed over the school year.” The district “will use several kinds of data to mark a student’s progress, such as AIMS scores, benchmarks and other types of assessments, but not subjective criteria such as grades or homework.” Professional development will also be a component of the system. John Wright, president of the Arizona Education Association, pointed out that the purpose of the system is not “to catch somebody failing, but to assess performance and find opportunities for improvement.”

District Officials Asked To Renegotiate Educator Contracts To Save $10 Million.
The Providence (RI) Journal (6/23, Marcelo) reports that Providence school officials say that the system “does not have the money to cover contracts for principals, teachers and other school staff, after saying last year that the contracts were affordable.” Now, the City council is asking that the school department renegotiate the contracts, as the school budget faces a more than $10 million budget deficit. School Finance Officer Matthew Clarkin said that “the district has been able to cut what was an even larger current-year deficit with a freeze in purchasing and other cost savings, but that the remaining $10.3 million would have to come out of the city’s rainy day fund.” The Providence Journal notes that the teacher and administrator contracts account for “about half of the department’s projected $12-million budget shortfall for next year.”

ProComp Program May Have Boosted Teacher Selection, Retention In Denver District.
Stephen Sawchuk wrote in a blog for Education Week (6/22), “Denver’s ProComp pay program may have helped attract more-effective teachers to the district and boosted retention in hard-to-serve schools, according to a report on the much-discussed system released recently by the University of Colorado at Boulder. Teachers opting into the program also appear to be slightly more effective on the whole.” According to Sawchuk, “Researchers compared each student’s results with those of other students with similar achievement histories and traced the data back to the students’ teachers” and the researchers “also examined value-added data linked to specific teachers.”

Elementary School Arts Program To Be Partially Restored In Los Angeles District.
Howard Blume wrote in a blog for the Los Angeles Times (6/22), “Los Angeles Unified School District officials are expected to restore $5 million to elementary arts programs that were cut in half as part of efforts to balance next year’s budget, The Times has learned. The restoration comes amid ongoing pressure from arts groups and powerful local philanthropists to spare the programs, but Supt. Ramon C. Cortines said his decision was unrelated to these entreaties.” Cortines “said he made the move because recent financial projections regarding this year’s $640-million deficit proved slightly better than expected.”

Law & Policy
Massachusetts BOE Proposes Rules For Principals Reporting Bullying Incidents.
The AP (6/23) reports that Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) “signed an anti-bullying law last month that requires teachers to report any bullying they are aware of to principals and called on the” state BOE “to design procedures that principals should follow.” The BOE’s “proposed rules would require principals to notify the parents of the alleged victims and perpetrators of bullying. Principals must” determine “whether the allegations are serious enough to report to police for possible criminal investigation.”

Kansas Would Face Up To $10 Million In Special Education Costs Under Medicaid Law.
KTKA-TV Topeka (6/22, Seabrook) reported that “school districts will no longer be able to claim Medicaid for Attendant Care Services” under a federal law that goes into affect July 1. “The Kansas Health Policy Authority says if Medicaid pays for those services for children in a school setting, it must also pay for those same services on a statewide basis for all qualifying children, regardless of the setting.” That would cost the state “an additional five to ten million dollars” from the Medicare General Fund. “The Kansas Health Policy Authority is meeting to look at alternatives to the change.”

Special Needs
New Jersey Budget Proposal Would Restore Funding Programs For Students, Disabled.
The Philadelphia Inquirer (6/22, Lu, Rao) reported, “Democratic lawmakers reached a compromise” with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) “on a state budget Monday that will restore $74 million to programs that help students, the poor, and the disabled. Christie said the budget remained true to the principles he outlined in his budget address in March, among them that spending be kept within the state’s means and that fiscal order be restored without raising taxes.” According to the Inquirer, “The compromise budget would restore $1 million to the popular NJ STARS tuition program, allowing this fall’s freshman class to receive assistance for college tuition.”

Facilities
Two Hundred School Construction Projects Under Way In Denver-Area Districts.
KUSA-TV Denver (6/23) reports that in 2008, Denver voters “approved a $454 million bond issue for work at every single school building in the district.” In addition, the Aurora and Cherry Creek school systems “also had their respective ballot initiatives approved.” Together, all three districts’ “construction projects [total] $873 million over a five-year period.” Most of the “200 projects in the works…have to be completed in the time from when students leave for summer vacation to when they return in the fall.”

Also in the News
SkillsUSA Student Leadership Conference Underway In Missouri.
The St. Petersburg Times (6/23, Miller) reports that “while many students are off enjoying some lounging time, Dominic Anger and Scott Schwirian have been making the weekday trek to Marchman Technical Education Center.” The two students are representing Florida at “in Kansas City, [Missouri], at the 46th annual SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference” taking place until Friday. “Formerly known as VICA, SkillsUSA is a national nonprofit organization that promotes partnerships between students, teachers and industry to help develop a skilled work force.” After placing second in a regional SkillsUSA competition and first in state in their divisions, Anger and Schwirian earned the right to represent the state of Florida.

Teen from Maine Develops E-Coli Detecting Biosensor.
WABI-TV Bangor, ME (6/22, Pelletier) reported on Rebecca Ye, a graduate of Bangor High School who was recently “named the US winner of the 2010 Stockholm Junior Water Prize at a competition in St. Louis, Missouri.” Ye won the award for using “microbiology and nanotechnology to create a biosensor to quickly identify E-Coli in water.” She will now travel “to Stockholm, Sweden where she will compete against national winners from more than 30 countries for the International Water prize.”

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In the Classroom
Distance Learning Network Brings Lessons From NASA To Fifth-Graders.
The St. Petersburg Times (6/10, Ritchie) reports that recently, students in Juretta Carr’s science classes at Moton Elementary School in Brooksville, Florida, “took advantage of special equipment and a distance learning network…to bring Damon Talley, the Digital Learning Network coordinator at NASA, to the classroom.” The fifth-graders “talked and interacted with Talley just as if he were right in the room with them.” He demonstrated several science experiments for them “for about 45 minutes…asking students what they thought would happen.” Talley’s “lesson reinforced what the students had learned in class and was so new and interesting that everyone was engaged,” the St. Petersburg Times adds.

Students Design, Present Park Buildings For Town Planning Commission.
Maryland’s Gazette.net (6/9, Tierney) reported, “Civil engineering and architecture students from Poolesville High School spent most of the academic year in teams of two, creating designs for a 3.77-acre parcel” of land acquired by the town two years ago, and last week “shared their projects with” Poolesville’s Planning Commission “and fielded questions from board members as well as the town manager and engineer.” The assignments were a component of the Project Lead the Way course the students were enrolled in. “They researched facilities built by towns with demographics similar to Poolesville and followed the town code and master plan to design their projects using professional building design software.” Officials praised the students’ work, both in terms of design and presentation.

Georgia CRCT Results Continue To Climb.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (6/10, Torres) reports, “Georgia students improved in almost all areas of the CRCT this year, with middle school students showing some of the biggest gains, according to statewide results released Wednesday by state schools Superintendent Kathy Cox.” The marks “the second consecutive year of solid gains for the state’s elementary and middle-schoolers. Cox was quick to credit educators across the state, who beginning in 2004 faced a rolling implementation of a new, tougher state curriculum that in some cases caused scores to plummet.”

InSciEd Out Program Aims To Turn Students Into Scientists.
The Winona (MN) Post (6/9, Porter) reported on “InSciEd Out, a science outreach program aimed at elevating student performance and building a new generation of scientists.” The program was developed through a collaboration between Winona State University, Rochester Public Schools, and the Mayo Clinic, as well as teachers, students and parents “to deliver a groundbreaking curriculum that transforms every student into a scientist.” In the case noted in the article, K-8 students “study, calculate, write about and create scientific positions on the zebra fish, as the science-based curriculum is embedded in many facets of their core education.” The Post noted, “Zebra fish are the chosen research tool because they share 75% of their genetic code with humans,” and are relatively easy to study.

High School Group Making Bid For International Automotive X Prize.
Michel Martin reported on NPR’s (6/9) “Tell Me More,” that “a group of students in the West Philadelphia High School Academy for Automotive and Mechanical Engineering are trying to create the car of the future.” The team of students, called West Philly Hybrid X, is competing for the International Automotive X Prize, “an adult-level car design contest with professional auto-manufacturing teams from around the world.” Martin interviewed X Team co-captain Azeem Hill and faculty director Simon Hauger, who discussed the school’s history of developing a hybrid sports car for competitions, and then transitioning to the X Prize competition. Describing the challenges the team faces, Hauger said, “At the end of the day, we’re educators. So hybrid vehicles are very important, and the X Prize is very important. But even more important than that is this idea of engaging urban youth.”

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On the Job
Florida District Hires Consultants For “Value-Added” Teacher Assessments.
The St. Petersburg Times (6/10, Marshall) reports that the Hillsborough County, Florida, school board plans to spend $3.2 on “consultants from the University of Wisconsin” to “use student tests to calculate each teacher’s annual ‘value-added’ contribution to the district.” Hillsborough wants to eventually be able to “use the value-added data — along with principal and peer evaluations — to help decide which teachers deserve tenure, promotions or dismissal.” According to the St. Petersburg Times, “the university’s Value-Added Research Center in Madison” already “performs such calculations for New York City, Chicago and Milwaukee schools and several states.” The contract will be funded through a “seven-year, $202 million partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.”

North Carolina Teacher Headed To Space Camp.
The Fayetteville (NC) Observer (6/10) reports, “A teacher at Irwin Intermediate School on Fort Bragg will spend 10 days at a space camp starting Friday. Kelli Charles, a math and science teacher, was one of 220 teachers from 17 countries chosen to participate in the all-expense paid Honeywell Educators @ Space Academy in Huntsville, Ala.” At the US Space & Rocket Center, the teachers “will undergo astronaut training and pick up teaching techniques that will help them re-energize science, math, technology and engineering lessons.”

Law & Policy
Kentucky School Loses Appeal To Keep Site-Based Council.
The Louisville Courier-Journal (6/9, Konz) reported that “the site-based decision-making council” at Frost Middle School in Kentucky has appealed “to keep its authority,” but the appeal “was denied by the Kentucky Board of Education Wednesday. The board voted” unanimously “to uphold Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday’s recommendation that the council be disbanded and its authority transferred to” the “superintendent of Jefferson County Public Schools.” According to the Courier-Journal, “Holliday’s recommendation came as a result of leadership audits conducted at 10 of the state’s lowest performing schools, including six in Jefferson County.”

San Antonio School District Considers Changing Policy On School Murals.
The San Antonio Express-News (6/9) reported that “days after a mural by noted artist Vincent Valdez was painted over during restoration work at Burbank High School, many in the school community remain incensed.” On Tuesday, Robert Duron, superintendent of the San Antonio Independent School District (SAISD), “apologized to Valdez.” Also, district “officials say they are working to ensure such a mistake isn’t repeated.” They are currently “considering creating a new policy for whether murals should be painted directly onto walls, which makes them more difficult to maintain than murals on parchment or canvas.”

School Boards Association Developing Policy To Regulate Use Of Social Media.
The Dallas Morning News (6/10, Hundley) reports, “With the growing popularity of blogs, podcasts, Twitter and other online social media, school districts are beginning to develop policies that govern the use of these emerging technologies.” Now, the Texas Association of School Boards “is drafting new policy language that addresses how employees should use social networking sites, even on their own time and on their own computers.” The new “policy isn’t expected to be finalized until the fall,” but according to the association’s director of policy service, “it will address what’s expected of employees when they’re posting information that could be accessed by students.”

Salt Lake Tribune: Common Core State Standards Are Roadmap To Graduation.
The Salt Lake Tribune (6/10) editorializes, “Graduation rates reveal that public schools can be difficult to navigate.” The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers have recently released “a road map to help administrators, educators, and parents keep students out of the ditch.” On Friday, Utah’s Board of Education “gave a preliminary nod to the” Common Core State Standards developed by the two groups. The Salt Lake Tribune Asserts that “by standardizing the grades in which students learn new concepts, the standards assure that students who move to another state are on the same page as their new classmates, not struggling to catch up.” They also “will allow apples-to-apples comparisons of test scores between states, enabling educators to better gauge their progress.”

Press Telegram: Common State Standards Allow For Reassessment Of California Standards. California’s Press Telegram (6/10) editorializes that “for a decade, defenders of California’s K-12 standards in math and English language arts have warded off criticisms and legitimate calls for revisions by citing positive reviews by think tanks and praise for the rigor of California’s standards.” The newly released Common Core State Standards, the Press Telegram asserts, offer “an opportunity for an overdue reassessment.” The state’s “21-person Academic Content Standards Commission” will “study the common-core standards and make recommendations to the state Board of Education by July 15.” The Press-Telegram points out that “the commission’s assessment and state board’s decision will shape the education of the next generation of students.”

Column: Merit Pay Systems Can Be Designed To Allay Teacher Union Concerns.
Daniel Indiviglio writes in a column for The Atlantic (6/10) that incentive “works” yet teacher unions “are vehemently against incentive-based pay” saying “that test scores aren’t a fair indicator of how much a child has learned. … So why not devise an evaluation methodology that answers such complaints?” Indiviglio adds, “It is possible to determine a teacher’s performance by using broader methods of evaluation and taking into account differences in student aptitude.”

Special Needs
California Court Limits Who Can Inject Diabetic Students.
The San Francisco Chronicle (6/9, Egelko) reported, “A state appeals court struck down California school regulations Tuesday that allowed trained staff members to give insulin shots to disabled children with diabetes, saying state law requires the caregiver to be a nurse. The ruling by the Third District Court of Appeal in Sacramento overturned a 2007 agreement between the state Department of Education and the American Diabetes Association.” According to the Chronicle, “That agreement, which settled a separate lawsuit, required schools to train non-nursing employees to test children’s blood sugar, if a child is unable to do so, and to administer insulin whenever licensed nurses are unavailable.”

School Finance
Education Stakeholders In New Jersey Call For Abolition Of Proposed Child Nutrition Program Cuts.
New Jersey’s Time (6/10, Karas) reports that New Jersey “State Sen. Shirley Turner (D-15th) joined…nonprofit leaders for a press conference yesterday at the charity HomeFront, calling for the abolition of proposed state funding cuts for child nutrition programs. … According to a joint press release from the New Jersey Anti-Hunger Coalition, HomeFront and the Mercer Street Friends Food Bank,” New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) “budget proposal includes cutting $3 million in state funding for school breakfast programs and $2.5 million for school lunch assistance. Some schools might decide to scrap breakfast programs considered vital to keep children well fed and attentive in school, said Adele Latourette, director of the New Jersey Anti-Hunger Coalition, who also spoke at the conference.”

Education Law Center Asks New Jersey Supreme Court To Halt School Budget Cuts. WCBS-TV New York (6/9) reported on its Website, “An education advocacy group has asked the New Jersey Supreme Court to restore funding to schools that Gov. Chris Christie has proposed cutting. The Education Law Center, which represents children in the state’s poorest communities, said Christie’s proposal is contrary to the school funding plan approved last year by the state’s top court.” According to WCBS, “Education funding has been before the court for decades” and “justices have repeatedly found that the state has an obligation to do more for the poorest schools.”

DC Schools Chief Facing Ethics Probe Involving Solicited Donations.
NBC Washington (6/9, Orvetti) reported that days after DC schools chief Michelle Rhee “won merit pay provisions in a new contract with the” local teachers union, she “is facing an ethics probe over allegations by D.C. Federation of Civic Associations President Robert Brannum that [she] broke the law by soliciting donations from private foundations that reserved the right to pull their funding if Rhee lost her job.” Overall, Rhee “raised $64.5 million from four private foundations to pay for the pay raises and merit bonuses included in the contract.” But Cecily E. Collier-Montgomery of the Office of Campaign Finance says the “investigation was warranted.”

Online Summer School To Start In Chicago Public Schools.
The Chicago Tribune (6/11, Byrne) reports, “Chicago public high school students will be able to take online courses this summer for classes they failed, in a move Mayor Richard Daley hopes will save money.” Students will be able to use the computer labs 30 high schools throughout the city. “Certified teachers will teach the online classes, but schools CEO Ron Huberman said the district will save money by allowing a single teacher to teach a course to students around the city.”

The Chicago Sun-Times (6/11, Spielman) reports, “In addition to high school students seeking to wipe out F’s, the program will have three other tracks.” They are for “7th- and 8th- graders who need remedial work in pre-algebra and composition to prepare them [for] high school; students who want to knock off core courses” before the fall; and “high school juniors interested in doing independent study in partnership with the Shedd Aquarium, the Art Institute and Broadway in Chicago.”

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In the Classroom
Educators Tamper With Test Scores Amid Pressure To Boost Student Performance.
The New York Times (6/11, Gabriel, A1) reports on its front page that “of all the forms of academic cheating, none may be as startling as educators tampering with children’s standardized tests.” Recent “investigations in Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, Virginia and elsewhere this year have pointed to cheating by educators.” And, according to experts, “the phenomenon is increasing as the stakes over standardized testing ratchet higher — including, most recently, taking student progress on tests into consideration in teachers’ performance reviews.” Another major source of pressure for teachers and students ins No Child Left Behind, “which mandates that public schools bring all students up to grade level in reading and math by 2014.” While “no national data is collected on educator cheating,” some experts estimate “that one percent to three percent of teachers” in the US cheat each year.

Experts Question Effectiveness Of Some Classroom Technology.
The Washington Post (6/11, McCrummen) reports, “Under enormous pressure to reform, the nation’s public schools are spending millions of dollars each year on gadgets from text-messaging devices to interactive whiteboards that technology companies promise can raise student performance.” However, a growing number of experts are arguing “that the money schools spend on instructional gizmos isn’t necessarily making things better, just different. Many academics question industry-backed studies linking improved test scores to their products” while some even “argue that the most ubiquitous device-of-the-future, the whiteboard…locks teachers into a 19th-century lecture style of instruction counter to the more collaborative small-group models that many reformers favor.”

More New York City Students Need Summer School Due To Low Test Scores.
The New York Times (6/11, Medina) reports, “An estimated 21,000 elementary and middle school students scored at the lowest levels on state math and reading exams, New York City education officials said Thursday, meaning that twice as many students in those schools as last year will be required to enroll in summer school. Under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s policy of ending so-called social promotion, students who score at the lowest levels of the state English and math tests must go to summer school or be held back.” The Times notes that the “increased enrollment in summer school comes as the city is facing drastic budget cuts.”

Turnitin.com Helps Teachers Spot Plagiarism.
The Fairfax County (VA) Times (6/10, Hobbs) reported, “With modern technology, students have discovered new academic cheating schemes — some through cellphone cameras, text messages and calculators — but teachers in Fairfax County say they are on to them.” Teachers say that “plagiarism is the most common form of cheating on major assignments.” So, they use websites like Turnitin.com to catch plagiarism. “Schools that have the program ask students to submit electronic copies of their work, which is loaded into the program and checked for authenticity.” When it comes to punishment for cheating offenses, “teachers say they try to handle” it “on a case-by-case basis. Depending on the severity of the case, students can receive anything from a reduced grade or zero on an assignment to suspension or expulsion from school.”

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On the Job
Districts Experimenting With New Teacher Distribution Methods.
The Education Week (6/10, Sawchuk) reported, “With effective teaching a top policy priority, certain school districts, the federal government, and nonprofit groups are renewing efforts to pilot and study strategies for pairing effective teachers with students in low-performing, high-poverty schools.” Current “initiatives differ from earlier attempts to equalize teacher talent by using more sophisticated techniques to identify and target top teachers, including the use of value-added data.” The efforts “include targeted retention strategies, improved professional development, and a focus on the caliber of the school leaders and peers that teachers new to such schools will be working with every day.” According to Education Week, “some of the districts are even working to place whole teams of educators — rather than just individuals — in challenging schools,” which some scholars see as “a promising approach…at a time when individual teacher performance has galvanized much policy attention.”

Fewer Than Expected Michigan School Employees Taking Retirement Incentive.
The AP (6/11) reports, “Fewer Michigan public school employees appear to be taking advantage of a retirement incentive package than state officials had assumed would participate, based on numbers from Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s [D] administration. About 14,000 teachers and other school employees had applied to retire this summer as of late Thursday, Granholm spokeswoman Liz Boyd said.” According to the AP, “State officials were hoping that roughly 27,000 school employees would retire to help trim salary costs for schools across the state.”

Farm Bureau Workshop Gives Teachers Agriculture Lessons To Tie Into Core Curriculum.
KFYR-TV Bismarck, North Dakota (6/10, Kaucher) reported that the North Dakota Farm Bureau held a workshop for teachers on Thursday to help them bring agriculture “into the classroom.” Teachers were given “lessons to incorporate into subjects like English and Math that help children understand how the land and farming affect their everyday world.” Other lessons answered questions of “how bread is produced around the world and how farming ties into different cultural celebrations.”

Law & Policy
Oregon Court Says School Officials Can Search Students For Drugs With Reasonable Suspicion.
The AP (6/11) reports, “The Oregon Supreme Court has ruled that high school students can be searched for illegal drugs without a warrant if school officials have a reasonable suspicion based on specific facts.” The court reasoned that probable cause is not necessary “for a search if officials believe there is an immediate risk of harm from possession of illegal drugs on school grounds.” This the court compared “to police who are allowed to search without a warrant when there is an immediate threat to safety.” The AP adds, “The ruling upheld a juvenile court judge who applied a US Supreme Court standard on school searches because there were no previous Oregon cases that applied.”

Revised Policy Allows Teachers In Arizona District To Use Force To Tame Unruly Students.
The Arizona Republic (6/11, Seligman) reports, “The Gilbert Public Schools governing board unanimously approved modified state recommendations on student behavior management, including when unruly children can be physically restrained or put into seclusion.” The new rules allow “teachers and administrators to use force on a student ‘to the extent necessary to act in self-defense, defense of students and/or in defense of property.’” Should an employee have to use “force on a student,” he or she “must submit a written report to his or her supervisor within 24 hours. The supervisor must then submit a report to the administrator within two working days.” District officials also “modified the state recommendation that calls for a functional behavior assessment and a behavior intervention plan if a student has been restrained or secluded three times during a semester.” Instead, the plans will be provided upon request by the parent.

Oklahoma Governor Approves Five-Point Rating System For Teachers, School Administrators.
The Tulsa (OK) World (6/10, Eger) reported, “Teachers and principals across Oklahoma will soon have to make the grade on a new five-point rating system or risk losing their jobs.” The Oklahoma Teacher and Leader Effectiveness Act “recently signed into law” by Gov. Brad Henry “calls for a new system of evaluating public school educators to be in place no later than December 2011.” The measure received support from the Oklahoma Education Association. According to the World, the bill “was written to strengthen the state’s chances in a federal education grant competition called Race to the Top.”

Lawmaker Proposes $8 Billion In Additional Child Nutrition Program Funding.
The Washington Post (6/11, Black) reports, “With Food Network star Rachael Ray at his side, Rep. George Miller (D-California) unveiled a bill on Thursday that proposes about $8 billion in additional funding over 10 years for child nutrition programs, including school breakfast and lunch. The programs have been the main focus of Michelle Obama’s high-profile Let’s Move campaign, which aims to end childhood obesity within a generation.” According to the Post, “The bill, dubbed the Improving Nutrition for America’s Children Act of 2010, is similar to a Senate bill that is awaiting a floor vote” as it “includes an additional six cents for each school lunch that meets federal standards” but the House bill “also asks for an additional half a cent per lunch to fund nutrition education, which might include student taste tests or redesigning a cafeteria to encourage students to make healthier choices.”

New York Governor Introduces Mayoral Control Bill.
Education Week (6/10, Aarons) reported, “New York Gov. David A. Paterson (D) introduced a bill in both houses of the state legislature yesterday that would give Rochester Mayor Robert J. Duffy command of the city’s 32,000-student school district.” Education Week adds that “under the proposed legislation, which would take effect in July of next year, a nine-member appointed ‘education commission’ would replace the current elected seven-member school board. Five of the commission’s members would be appointed by Mr. Duffy, with the balance selected by the City Council.” This “group would serve as a policy board and” would “‘exercise no executive power and perform no administrative or executive functions,’ according to the legislation.”

Safety & Security
Study Links High School Start Times, Car Wrecks Involving Teens.
The San Antonio Express-News (6/11) reports that a new study “presented in San Antonio on Wednesday at the 24th annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, found that students who had to be at school by 7:20 a.m. in Virginia Beach, Virginia, were more likely to wreck their cars than those who had an 8:40 a.m. start time in nearby Chesapeake, Virginia.” The study was conducted by Dr. Robert Vorona, associate professor of internal medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, who “is quick to say the study doesn’t prove that the earlier bell caused the higher crash rate.” Still, Vorona’s results are “in keeping with the results of a 2008 study in Kentucky that found when one county pushed back the morning bell by an hour, the teen crash rate dropped by 16.5 percent.”

School Finance
Alabama School Chief Plans To Bill BP For Oil Spill Losses.
The AP (6/11) reports, “Alabama’s state school superintendent said Thursday he plans to bill BP for the loss of state education tax revenues caused by the Gulf oil spill and will sue the company if it doesn’t pay.” According to State Superintendent of Education Joe Morton, “the Gulf oil spill’s impact on Alabama’s tourism and fishing industries is hurting tax collections, particularly sales, income and utility taxes that go toward public education.” Morton “said he will use economic experts to calculate the loss each month and will send BP a bill” and if “he’s rebuffed, Morton said he will sue BP on behalf of Alabama’s 745,000 public school students.”

Also in the News
“Diplomas Count” Report Finds Some Improvement In Texas High School Graduation Rates.
The Dallas Morning News (6/11, Hacker) reports, “Texas high school students are more likely to graduate than a decade ago, but more than a third of them still won’t earn a diploma in four years, a new national study found. … ‘Diplomas Count,’ a study released Thursday by the Education Week newspaper, reported that 65 percent of Texas students in the Class of 2007 graduated on time, up from 59 percent in 1997.” However, in “Texas and nationally, big gaps remain among demographic groups” as boys “are less likely to graduate than girls, and blacks and Hispanics are less likely to graduate than whites and Asian-Americans.”

Report Quantifies Utah High School Dropouts’ Impact On Economy.
The Salt Lake Tribune (6/10, Schencker) reported, “A new report released by the Washington, D.C.-based Alliance for Excellent Education on Wednesday shows how much money dropouts in three Utah counties are costing the state. If half of the students who dropped out of the Class of 2008 in Salt Lake, Tooele and Summit counties had stayed in school, they could have earned $18 million more, spent an additional $12 million and invested an additional $4.6 million a year on average, according to the alliance.” According to the Tribune, “The report on the Salt Lake City metropolitan area was among 43 similar reports on areas throughout the country that the alliance released Wednesday in hopes of inspiring improvement.”

New Curriculum Brings Engineering To Students At A Younger Age.
On its front page, the New York Times (6/14, A1, Hu) reports on the Glen Rock, New Jersey, school district, which “now teaches 10 to 15 hours of engineering each year to every student in kindergarten through fifth grade, as part of a $100,000 redesign of the science curriculum.” Similar programs geared toward younger students are cropping up across the US. “Supporters say that engineering reinforces math and science skills, promotes critical thinking and creativity, and teaches students not to be afraid of taking intellectual risks.” The curriculum director for Glen Rock said that initially, many people were skeptical of introducing children to engineering at such a young age. Now, “the engineering lessons have become so popular that children are talking about their projects at the dinner table, and some of their parents have started researching engineering colleges.” The Times describes some of the kindergarten projects, noting that they “take students step by step through the engineering process.”

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In the Classroom
Pre-K Boot Camp Prepares Youngsters For Routines, Expectations Of Kindergarten.
Pennsylvania’s Times-Leader (6/14, Mocarsky) reports that Jennifer Hoffman Dessoye, “an occupational therapist with the Hazleton Area School District” designed “a pre-K boot camp” after noticing that many students entered “kindergarten unprepared to meet increased expectations created by No Child Left Behind standards.” The Times-Leader adds that “the six-week summer course…will take place in a classroom setting and will better prepare students — especially those who might be a little behind their peers — for an unfamiliar routine and expectations. Skills include such things as being able to print the alphabet on a line before entering first grade, Dessoye said.”

More School Friends May Equal Better Grades, Study Suggests.
USA Today /HealthDay (6/13, Preidt) reported, “School friends may play a major role in your teen’s academic success, a new study” conducted by Melissa R. Witkow, an assistant professor of psychology at Willamette University suggests. The study, published in the Journal of Research on Adolescence, “included 629 12th-graders in Los Angeles who filled out a questionnaire and then kept a record of activities such as time spent studying and time spent with school friends and out-of-school friends. Students with higher grade-point averages (GPAs) had more school friends than out-of-school friends.”

Ten-Year Study To Measure Hope, Engagement Of Fifth-Through-Twelfth Graders.
Iowa’s Telegraph Herald (6/13, Becker) reported that in the fall of 2009, “the Dubuque Community School District began participation in [a] national, 10-year longitudinal Gallup Student Poll, which measures hope, engagement and well-being of students in grades five through 12.” Data collected so far shows that “sixth-graders and ninth-graders” in the Dubuque Community district “transitioned well into their new schools based on stable scores from fall and spring. However, student engagement consistently declined as students progressed from fifth grade to 12th grade.” In “a couple more years…the district will be able to identify trends” within the poll data. At that time it will “make changes to improve any area of student hope, well-being or engagement.”

Elementary School Holds Fair To Teach Probability Through Games.
The Richmond (VA) Times-Dispatch (6/13, Lizama) reported on the probability fair held at Hopkins Elementary School in Chesterfield County, Virginia, last week. “Kindergarten to fourth-grade students participated in the fair. Fifth-graders had the responsibility of running the” more than 30 games. “After students participated in the fair, teachers went back to the classroom to make the academic connection to the games as they talked about the probability of winning and whether the games were fair.”

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On the Job
Educators From 17 Countries To Participate In Space Academy Program In Alabama.
The Tampa Tribune (6/13, Frazier) reported that “educators from 17 countries and 44 states” have been “selected to attend the Honeywell Educators Space Academy program under way this week at the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala.” The training “program is designed to help teachers inspire the next generation of explorers by moving beyond the standard math and science curriculum.” Teachers will “spend part of each day during the weeklong camp completing classroom, lab and field exercises, then” they “will undergo real-life astronaut training exercises, such as high-performance jet simulations, scenario-based space missions, land and water survival training, and state-of-the-art flight programs.”

The Springfield (MA) Republican (6/13, Urban) also covered the space program for teachers, noting that “Honeywell Educators participate in 45 hours of professional development as well as an intensive educator curriculum focused on space science and exploration.”

Indiana To Begin Growth Model System Next Year.
The Indianapolis Business Journal (6/12) reported that “an avalanche of data about student performance has been piling up the past decade in public schools and, beginning next year, every teacher in Indiana will have ready access to performance metrics about each of their students.” The system, “called the Indiana Growth Model…will be the ultimate measure of quality, not only of individual teachers, but also of the principals and school districts overseeing them and even the teachers’ colleges that trained them.” Indiana education leaders want “teachers to constantly test students, review the data produced by those tests, then refine their instruction methods accordingly.” Ultimately, “Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) and Indiana public schools chief Tony Bennett want to link these new data to how teachers and principals are evaluated and paid.”

Wisconsin Teacher Licensure Overhaul Gets Mixed Reviews From New Teachers.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (6/12, Hetzner) reported, “Ten years after Wisconsin overhauled its licensure system for public school educators, the first big wave of teachers is set to advance under the rules — and reports are mixed on whether the change has made a difference.” The regulations introduced in 2000 required “that teachers pass basic knowledge and skills tests and receive mentors for their first year in the profession.” In addition, they required “that teachers…demonstrate they had grown enough in their careers to attain a ‘professional’ license.” Some new teachers have seen the rules as “stressful additions to the start of an unfamiliar career with many bugs still left to be worked out.” But “others say they appreciate that they could set their own teaching goals and pursue related professional development activities while also reflecting on their experiences.”

Law & Policy
Education Initiatives Run Into Resistance On Capitol Hill.
Education Week (6/11, Klein) reported, “Two of the Obama administration’s signature initiatives-the economic-stimulus program’s Race to the Top competition and a massive expansion of federal School Improvement Grants-are running into some resistance on Capitol Hill. Key lawmakers charged with crafting a renewal of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act continue to argue that the four models offered in regulations for the $3.5 billion School Improvement Grants are inflexible, unproven, and unrealistic, particularly for rural schools.” Spokesman Peter Cunningham said that even though the Education Department understands “that a lot of the elements of our agenda push people outside their comfort zones,” officials are “trying to be very responsive to all these concerns while at the same time remaining committed to the goal” of giving all children a chance to succeed.

Colorado Alters Teacher Tenure Rules.
The AP (6/12) reported that Colorado “is changing the rules for how teachers earn and keep the sweeping job protections known as tenure, linking student performance to job security despite outcry from teacher unions that have steadfastly defended the system for decades.” According to the AP, “Colorado’s legislature changed tenure rules despite opposition from the state’s largest teacher’s union, a longtime ally of majority Democrats” and Gov. Bill Ritter (D) “signed the bill into law last month. It requires teachers to be evaluated annually, with at least half of their rating based on whether their students progressed during the school year.”

Columnist Says Anti-Obesity Efforts Could Be Administration’s Most Important Legacy.
Neal Peirce wrote in a column for the Denver Post (6/13), “Can we really slim down the next generation of Americans, help our school children shed the extra pounds that could spell lifetimes with high prospects of type 2 diabetes or heart problems?” First Lady Michelle Obama “is trying hard to reach parents with her ‘Let’s Move’ campaign” on a national level yet the “national effort shouldn’t obscure” efforts of individual cities like DC which has “approved some of America’s strictest rules, aiming to curb the overweight and obese conditions that plague no less than 35 percent of its public school children – one of the nation’s highest rates.” Pierce adds that in May, “Michelle Obama released the report of the administration’s Childhood Obesity Task Force, including 70 specific steps” to curb childhood obesity, and “this initiative is so crucial for the nation’s future that if it succeeds, it might just be the Obama administration’s most important legacy.”

School Finance
Atlanta Public Schools Spent Nearly $1.5 Million On Travel.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (6/14, Mckay) reports, “While school systems are cutting jobs or furloughing teachers to shore up withering budgets, Atlanta Public Schools has spent more than twice as much money per student on travel as most other metro districts.” In the 2008-09 school year, “Atlanta spent more than $1.4 million on travel,” or about “$28.77 per student.” This was “far higher than neighboring DeKalb County and more than double per pupil what Clayton, Cobb, Fulton and Gwinnett counties spent on travel, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation found.” School officials in Atlanta “say travel is important so teachers can get the training they need and bring new skills and insights to the classroom. Much of the travel represents teachers going to education conferences,” they said. The Journal-Constitution adds, “Atlanta’s travel tab would cover the annual salary of about 45 teachers, based on an average Georgia starting salary for teachers of about $31,000.”

Majority Of Oklahoma Education Funding To Pay For Health Insurance Premiums.
The Oklahoman (6/12, Bisbee) reported, “In an executive order issued” last week, Gov. Brad Henry (D) “directed the state Education Department to allocate money to the same programs it funded last year,” but with less money. According to State schools Superintendent Sandy Garrett, “the bulk of state dollars appropriated to education would pay for the health insurance premiums of certified teachers and support staff in the 528 school districts across the state.” Consequently, “there [will] very little money left to fund programs,” Garrett said during a press conference last week. Gov. Henry said that due to a “paperwork error,” state lawmakers “approved a budget that failed to include specific allocations for programs. … Without the line items, funding for a network of early childhood education centers and other programs could be cut.”

Also in the News
Rhee Says DC Teacher Contract Is Example For New York City.
D.C. School Chancellor Michelle Rhee writes in an opinion piece for the New York Daily News (6/14), “For two-and-a-half years, the District of Columbia Public Schools were locked in a difficult negotiation of a new collective bargaining agreement with the” teachers union. But, “after announcing a tentative agreement with the union on April 6, last week our teachers voted to ratify the contract by an 80%-20% margin, a resounding endorsement of the proposal.” According to Rhee, “the contract is groundbreaking in many ways, and can serve as a roadmap for other districts – including…the largest and most important public school district in the country, New York City, where teachers have been working without a contract since October.” She asserts that “New York continues to operate under a contract that is much more focused on arcane rules, seniority and job protections than about how to promote better learning outcomes for kids.”

Texas District’s Class Of 2010 Includes Refugees.
The San Antonio Express-News (6/11, Davis) reported on four young refugees who are graduating from high schools in Texas’ Northside Independent School District. “Their families arrived with the help of the Catholic Charities of San Antonio Refugee Resettlement Program and an agreement with the US State Department.” This year, “an estimated 600 students from refugee families attended classes from kindergarten through 12th grade in the Northside Independent School District, facing challenges that included language barriers, repeating grades and assimilation.” The Express News details the experiences of students from Iran, Nepal, and Rwanda.

Study Shows Neighborhood Homicides Impact Student Performance.
The Chicago Tribune (6/15, Shelton) reports, “Neighborhood homicides can have a detrimental effect on Chicago schoolchildren’s academic performance, whether they witness the violence or not, according to a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.” Sociologist Patrick Sharkey of New York University used “Chicago crime reports and the reading and vocabulary assessments of a sample of Chicago children” for the study. He found that “African-American children scored substantially lower on reading and vocabulary tests within a week of a homicide in their neighborhood.” The Tribune adds that the “effect on performance was seen regardless of whether the children were physically harmed, were witnesses to the crime or had merely heard about the violence, the study reported.”

Stephanie Smith wrote in the CNN (6/14, Smith) “What may help children work around violence is the study’s finding that the effect of the violence appears to be transient.” The study showed that “cognitive performance for a child seems” is restored “about a week after the homicide.” Still, “the study cannot explain…how those horrifying images may translate over the long term.”

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In the Classroom
Oregon Students’ Writing Scores Lower On Computer Tests.
The AP (6/14) reported that principals and other officials in Oregon’s Bend-La Pine school district “have puzzled over recent preliminary writing test scores showing students who took the online version of a state writing test scoring lower than students who completed a paper version.” The state began “offering the state writing exam to” middle school students this year. “But the tests have come under scrutiny because some schools around the district and state have reported significant score differences between the online and paper-based tests.” According to Education Week, “the tests used the same prompts and were identical,” and “test scorers are trained to read both handwritten and typed essays.” Students who took the online tests attributed the discrepancy to having trouble “proofreading their work on-screen,” not having access to “spelling and grammar tools,” and writing more quickly on the computer.

Missouri District Opts Out Of Contract To Develop Own Summer School Program.
The Missourian (6/15, McCann, Meuir) reports, “Columbia Public Schools has decided to internally oversee the summer school program this year after previously contracting with EdisonLearning.” The school district will save money by operating its own program. “In addition to financial benefits, there has been more local input and control over the curriculum,” as “staff throughout the district” have been able to make suggestions and recommendations. New programs are being offered, including online classes “at the high school level, and…half-credit classes such as finance and health.” There will also be “elective courses including language, music, art, nature, fitness, cooking, anthropology and photography.” The Missourian notes that “the language class was cut by the school district from the regular academic year, so now it is only offered in the summer.”

Mini-Grants Support “Education-Enhancing Extras” In Connecticut District’s Classrooms.
The Bristol (CT) Press (6/14, Church) reported on the “high-tech” instructional programs teachers in the Southington school system plan to implement next fall with the help of $500 mini grants awarded Thursday by the Southington Education Foundation. The grants are “funded entirely by private donations to pay for education-enhancing extras that are not included in school budgets.” Beverly Skinnon, a first grade teacher at Plantsville Elementary School “is getting four Flip Video cameras for her proposal, ‘Flip for the Good.’ Students will use them to record events and cerebrations and post them online, as well as make “commercials” and interview fellow students and staff members.” Another “project is ‘Digital Storytelling’ at Thalberg Elementary School where students will record moments on film and make them into multi-media productions.” Two “low-tech” projects also received funding. One will “allow kindergarten students to grow flowers using compost made from household waste.”

Google Faces Backlash From K-12 Ed-Tech Officials Over Private Search Feature.
eSchool News (6/14, Stansbury) reported that “a new encrypted search feature that internet search giant Google Inc. rolled out last month is causing problems for schools, which say the service keeps them from complying with the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) and could put their federal e-Rate funding at risk.” The new feature allows for private searches that cannot “be tracked by employers or internet service providers.” This “has angered K-12 education technology officials, many of whom are now blocking access not only to Google’s encrypted search page but also Gmail and Google Docs.” ESchool news notes that the backlash could grow to be an even bigger “problem for Google, which is competing with Microsoft in supplying free software for communicating and collaborating online to schools.”

Denver Public Schools Targets Graduation Rate By Promoting Extra-Curricular Activities.
The Denver Post (6/15, Davis) reports on “a new $7.8 million program” being implemented by Denver Public Schools (DPS) to “promote participation in…extracurricular activities” in an effort to boost the graduation rate by five percent annually. “The first-year goal is to have 90 percent of freshmen participate in at least one activity.” With $3 million in private donations “through the Denver Public Schools Foundation and $4.8 million…from the school district,” DPS will offer “scholarships…to reduce the” athletic activity “pay-to-play fee for low-income students to $10 from $60.” Antwan Wilson, assistant superintendent for post-secondary readiness, “said much of the program will focus on sports because he believes that is where more students will get involved.” The district will also offer tutoring programs as part of the initiative.

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On the Job
Colorado District Offering Medical Insurance To Domestic Partners Of Employees.
The Denver Post (6/14, Illescas) reports that Aurora Public Schools “recently began allowing people who are domestic partners of employees to register to receive medical and dental insurance.” It applies “to same-sex couples as well as heterosexual couples who live together.” Employees opting for the plan, which begins July 1, “must pay the entire premium. The school district pays 95 percent of the medical premium for employees.”

Law & Policy
Immigration Law Creates Uncertain Role For Police In Schools.
Education Week (6/14, Zehr) reported, “Nearly two months after Arizona enacted a controversial law requiring police officers to ask about the immigration status of suspected undocumented immigrants involved in a ‘lawful stop, detention, or arrest,’ educators, police agencies, and advocates are beginning to sort out what the new requirements mean for the police officers who work in public schools.” Some observers say that “the law presents a potential conflict for school resource officers,” as though “police agencies may be compelled to follow the new immigration law, schools are obligated to comply with Plyler v. Doe, a 1982 US Supreme Court ruling that says students’ right to a free K-12 public education did not depend on their immigration status.”

California State Senator’s Plan To Raise Age For Kindergarten Entry Could Save $700 Million Annually.
The San Francisco Chronicle (6/14, Tucker) reports, “Currently, in California, any child who turns 5 before Dec. 2 can enter kindergarten.” However, nationwide, “almost every other state…requires a September birthday cutoff.” Now, state Sen. Joe Simitian (D) is proposing a bill that would move the kindergarten “eligibility date up a month each fall starting in 2012, until it becomes Sept. 1.” The Chronicle added, “By moving up the eligibility date to Sept. 1, estimates show the state probably would save about $700 million annually for 13 years, about $7,000 for each of the 100,000 students who have to wait to start school.” Under Simitian’s bill, “half the money saved by the state” would “be spent on preschool programs to serve disadvantaged children.” The rest would “help cover state budget shortfalls.”

Facilities
High School In Massachusetts Strives To Be Greenest In America.
The Gloucester (MA) Daily Times (6/14, Fletcher) reported, “The Manchester Essex Regional High School (MERHS) green team – led by Eric Magers, a foreign language teacher – want their facility to stand as the ‘greenest school in America.’” Already, the school is one of the three greenest in the state. Last month, MERHS received “a state ‘Green Difference’ award” in recognition of its “efficient design, recycling, composting and waste reduction programs.” The school has “high-efficiency lighting that dims depending on sunlight, low-flow faucets and toilets, a 30kw photovoltaic (solar) power system that provides 40,000 kilowatt hours of clean electricity.” According to Sarah Creighton, “school building committee chairwoman…the $49 million school facility received the highest level of pre-certification under the Massachusetts high performance schools program.”

School Finance
More Alabama Teachers Could Lose Jobs Without BP Reimbursement.
WVTM-TV Birmingham, Alabama, (6/15, White) reports that, according to Jefferson County School Superintendent Dr. Phil Hammonds, more teachers in Alabama could lose their jobs “if BP doesn’t reimburse the State Education Department for lost revenues.” WVTM-TV explains that “the oil spill off the gulf coast” is “having a negative effect on tourism, sending sales tax collections way down for the state.” Said Dr. Hammonds, “If people are going to not be employed because of people not spending money that then that hurts two of our major sources of funding for public education.” Meanwhile, State Superintendent Dr. Joseph Morton is working to come up with a bill to send to BP to recoup revenue losses “to the Education Trust Fund. He hopes to send [the] bill, within the next 45 days.”

Court Upholds New Jersey Governor’s School Cuts.
The AP (6/15) reports that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) “acted within his constitutional authority in ordering school districts to use surplus money to make up for cuts in state aid during the school year ending this month, an appeals court panel ruled Monday. In February, the Republican governor ordered the freeze of $475 million in school aid payments in 2010 by requiring districts to use their excess surplus instead of state aid.” According to the AP, “In addition to the $475 million in cuts this year, Christie slashed education money for the next budget year, which starts on July 1, by nearly $1 billion — $820 million for K-12 schools and $175 million for higher education.”

Also in the News
High School In Dallas Named Best In US.
The Dallas Morning News (6/15, Hacker) reports, “Newsweek magazine has named Dallas’ School for the Talented and Gifted the best high school in America for the third time in four years. Newsweek’s annual list of ‘America’s Best High Schools’ depends on a single measure: the number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate or Cambridge tests given at a school each year (to all students, not just seniors) divided by the number of graduating seniors.” Though some “experts have criticized the methodology as narrow and misleading,” Newsweek “says it ignores scores because high schools can artificially boost their passing rates by letting only top students take the exams.”

Fifth-Grader Raises $70,000 To Aid Birds Affected By Gulf Oil Spill.
USA Today (6/15, Steinberg) reports that “Americans nationwide feel helpless when it comes to aiding the birds smothered in oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.” But Olivia Bouler, a fifth-grader from Long Island, New York, is doing something about it. She “has raised more than $70,000 for the National Audubon Society — a non-profit dedicated to bird conservation — by drawing pictures of birds and sending them to people in the USA and abroad in return for a donation.” Olivia started drawing pictures in May and has since “drawn and painted 150 original pieces.”

NEA in the News
States See More Union Buy-In, Less District Support In Second Round Of Race To The Top.
Education Week (6/15, McNeil) reports that for round two of the federal Race to the Top competition, “states significantly increased buy-in from local teachers’ unions…but made far less progress in enlisting districts or expanding the number of students affected by the states’ education reform plans,” according to an Education Week analysis of 30 applications. Florida and Michigan made great progress increasing union buy-in, which increased in all states by an average of 22 percentage points. In Florida, Education Week notes, Gov. Charlie Crist (R) “vetoed a bill that would have linked teacher pay to student performance and made it easier to fire teachers.” The veto “paved the way for more collaboration between the unions and state officials.” Florida Education Association Spokesman Mark Pudlow said that the resulting plan “more reflected reality” by focusing “on low-performing schools rather than districtwide changes.”

Hawaii Passes Law Mandating 180-Day School Year.
The AP (6/16, Niesse) reports, “A new Hawaii law enacted Tuesday requires at least 180 school days a year as the state tries to shed its reputation for having the shortest amount of instructional time in the nation. The law prevents the state from cutting the school year below 180 days due to budget cuts, which is what happened when teachers were furloughed on 17 instructional days during the recently ended school year.” The AP adds, “In addition to setting a minimum number of class days, the law also mandates annual instructional time” as elementary schools “are required to offer 915 hours a year, and middle and high schools will have to offer 990 hours.”

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In the Classroom
Educators Using Social Networking Platforms As Learning Tool.
Education Week (6/16, Davis) reported, “Just a few years ago, social networking meant little more to educators than the headache of determining whether to penalize students for inappropriate activities captured on Facebook or MySpace. Now, teachers and students have a vast array of social-networking sites and tools-from Ning to VoiceThread and Second Life-to draw on for such serious uses as professional development and project collaboration.” According to Education Week, “Educators who support using social networking for education say it has become so ubiquitous for students-who start using sites like Webkinz and Club Penguin when they are in elementary school-that it just makes sense to engage them this way.”

First, Second Grade Achievement In Baltimore Increases For Sixth Consecutive Year.
The Baltimore Sun (6/16, Bowie) reports, “Baltimore City’s first- and second-graders improved for the sixth year in a row on a standardized test of math and reading, with students scoring better than 50 percent of their peers around the country.” First-grade “scores on the Stanford 10 have increased from the 38th percentile…in 2004 to the 55th percentile this year. Math scores rose during the same period from the 44th percentile to the 67th percentile in first grade.” Meanwhile scores on the Stanford 10 second grade test “rose from the 36th percentile to the 51st percentile in reading and from the 40th to the 61st percentile in math.” School officials said that a boost in pre-kindergarten enrollment was “one of the reasons for better test scores.”

Houston District Investigates Claims Of Teacher Cheating On AP Tests.
The Houston Chronicle (6/16, Mellon) reports that the Houston Independent School District is looking into allegations “that teachers at Wheatley High School helped students cheat on Advanced Placement exams.” According to HISD Superintendent Terry Grier, “two teachers are suspected of letting students use books during the exams this year.”

Districts Selected For Innovation Labs Curriculum Pilot.
WETM-TV Elmira, New York, (6/16, Natario) reports that the Hornell school district and the Greater Southern Tier BOCES have been “selected by the New York State education commissioner to be ‘innovation labs.’” The main element of the labs is a “new curriculum that encourages technology and other new methods of teaching.” If successful, the program could be expanded to other districts nationwide. “New York is one of six states to participate in” the program, which begins this fall.

On the Job
Study Shows Improvements In Chicago’s Teacher Evaluation System.
Stephen Sawchuk wrote in a blog for Education Week (6/15), “Results from year one of a pilot teacher-evaluation system in Chicago show a much broader range of ratings under the new system than under the district’s existing one, with at least 8 percent of pre-tenured teachers receiving at least one ‘unsatisfactory’ rating, according to a new paper out from the Consortium on Chicago School Research. Although Chicago is not the only district putting a new teacher-evaluation system in place, it is certainly one of the few that’s paying a lot of attention to implementation, studying it, and documenting the results.” According to Sawchuk, “According to the data, over a third of teachers received all ‘proficient’ or ‘distinguished’ scores from their principals on the various strands of the observation framework, and about a third received a mix of ‘basic’ and ‘proficient’ scores.”

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Law & Policy
New Jersey Bill Would Allow Public Schools To Charge For Summer School.
The AP (6/15) reported, “The sponsor of a proposal that would allow New Jersey public schools to charge for summer school said cash-strapped districts can’t afford to keep classrooms open without the fee. Assemblyman Vincent Prieto said half the 12 towns in densely populated Hudson County are likely to offer remedial and enrichment classes this summer if they are permitted to charge parents.” According to the AP, “The bill was released unanimously by the Assembly Education Committee on Monday” and it’s “now up to Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver to post the bill for a floor vote.”

Chicago Schools Chief Granted Authority To Lay Off Teachers, Boost Class Sizes.
The Chicago Tribune (6/16, Burnette, Ahmed) reports, “The Chicago Board of Education on Tuesday granted schools chief Ron Huberman authority to lay off teachers and increase class sizes, a procedural move that was met with fierce resistance from union groups. … The threat of class sizes of up to 35 students next fall has loomed for months due to an estimated $600 million budget deficit for Chicago Public Schools.” According to the Tribune, “more than half of the deficit comes from state cuts to education funding, which could be restored when” when state lawmakers pass “a final budget,” yet the Chicago district “is preparing for layoffs should” state lawmakers “fail to act, stoking the ire of union groups suspicious over the financial picture painted by the school system.”

Special Needs
Some States Seek Waivers To Cut Special Education Funding.
Education Week (6/15, Samuels) reported, “At least three states have asked for permission to cut back on the money they provide districts for special education, under a built-in escape clause in the federal special education law that is aimed at financially struggling states. Iowa and Kansas have both been granted a waiver, which under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act can be given out in ‘exceptional or uncontrollable circumstances such as a natural disaster or a precipitous and unforeseen decline in the financial resources of a state.’” Education Week adds, “Advocacy groups are sympathetic to the states’ financial bind, but they’d like to see more transparency in the department’s decisionmaking process, said Katherine Beh Neas, the vice president for government relations for Easter Seals, a disability advocacy organization in Washington.”

School Finance
Florida Districts Change School Start Times To Save On Transportation.
The St. Petersburg (FL) Times (6/16, Marrero) reports that the Hernando County School Board on Tuesday voted to “change bell times for nearly all of the district’s 22 schools.” The change “will allow the cash-strapped district to cut 15 buses for an estimated savings of $750,000.” The St. Petersburg Times adds that “under the new plan, five elementary or K-8 schools will start 40 to 55 minutes earlier,” while some other schools will see only “slight changes to start times, ranging from five minutes earlier to 25 minutes later.” Also, some high schools and middle schools “will start a few minutes earlier.”

In another article, the St. Petersburg (FL) Times (6/16, Catalanello) reports that the Pinellas County School Board has also “approved new school start times…to save money and close a pressing budget gap.” In addition, Superintendent Julie Janssen has “proposed furloughs and higher employee health insurance costs” to help fill the $26 million budget hole.

Nevada District To Reassign School Leaders In Money-Saving Move.
The Las Vegas Sun (6/16, Richmond) reports, “With the Clark County School District eliminating nearly 90 assistant principal and dean positions to save money, employees will be reassigned to work with either elementary or high school students for the first time in their careers.” In accordance with “the district’s contract with the administrators union, the reassignments are based solely on seniority, and do not distinguish between elementary and secondary positions.” The deans and assistant principals will be sent “back to classroom teaching positions. Additionally, 38 assistant principals will be moved to new administrative positions that are either in lower salary ranges or require shorter contracts.” The Las Vegas Sun adds that the changes do not “sit well with some district employees,” because the moves are involuntary.

Virginia District To Seek Corporate Donations Via Proposed Nonprofit Foundation.
The Washington Post (6/16, Kravitz) reports, “Cash-strapped and seeking new sources of revenue, Fairfax County’s [VA] public school system is again reaching out to the private sector. The Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce unveiled plans Tuesday for a new nonprofit foundation that would allow companies to donate money to benefit the county’s public schools.” The Post adds that the “new foundation raises questions about the future of the county’s chief education nonprofit entity, the Fairfax Education Foundation,” which “has raised and contributed roughly $23 million in cash and high-tech equipment for more than 30 county school projects” yet “donations to the organization have fallen sharply since 2004, when donors gave nearly $600,000.”

Also in the News
All Seniors At Microsoft-Designed School Accepted By A College.
The AP (6/16, Matheson) reports, “When the Microsoft-designed School of the Future opened, the facility was a paragon of contemporary architecture, with a green roof, light-filled corridors and the latest classroom technology, all housed in a dazzling white modern building.” And though the “school’s creative ambitions have been frustrated by high principal turnover, curriculum tensions and a student body unfamiliar with laptop computer culture, the school graduates its first senior class Tuesday with each student having been accepted to an institution of higher learning.” The AP adds that the school, built in Philadelphia’s “rough Parkside section with district money,” partnered “with Microsoft on new approaches to curriculum, instruction and hiring” and “attracted reform-minded teachers and students bent on avoiding traditional high schools.”

Group Of Fifth-Graders Help Test New Stock Trading Platform.
USA Today (6/16, Toppo) reports, “When it came time to beta-test its new Web-based stock trading platform, the development team at Kapitall.com turned to business students at Harvard University, Boston University, Johns Hopkins University – and, among others, a group of fifth-graders here at Cold Spring Elementary School” in Potomac, Maryland. According to USA Today, “As it turns out, the kids helped the developers work out a few bugs” and “if they’d been trading real money, a few would have earned a tidy sum.” The Kapitall.com platform is “scheduled to allow users to open real accounts this summer, and its developers hope it will become a sort of second-generation Ameritrade, encouraging more gamers, women and young people to begin investing.”

NEA in the News
Both Eugene Education Association Co-Presidents Retiring.
The AP (6/15) reports that Paul Duchin and Merri Steele, “the co-presidents of the Eugene Education Association are retiring with mixed emotions about long careers that earned them plenty of respect from teachers.” The two leaders have been praised “for their bargaining skills and for leading a National Education Association diversity training program.”

Teachers In Vermont Largely Believe Poverty Affects Student Achievement, Survey Finds.
The AP (6/16) reports that “in a survey of 6,200 teachers and support professionals released Tuesday, the Vermont-National Education Association found that its teachers believe poverty at home continues to play a big role in classroom achievement and that poorer districts have less favorable learning conditions in their schools.” The AP adds that “Vermont NEA President Martha Allen says the 12,000-member teachers union will work with the state to take the survey’s findings to heart in adapting to President Barack Obama’s education strategy.”

Missouri District Officials Propose One-Half Percent Pay Increase For School Employees.
Missouri’s News-Leader (6/15, Riley) reports, “For the second year in a row, most Springfield Public Schools teachers likely won’t see a bump in their paychecks.” The district’s “recently revised 2010-11 operating budget includes $550,000 to give employees a 0.5 percent ‘salary adjustment.’” Springfield National Education Association President Ray Smith said that the district’s priorities were “out of whack” and that “more should have been done to help teachers.” The News-Leader adds, “The proposed budget still includes the loss of nearly 57 full-time positions, including 26 teaching jobs.”

Two-Thirds Of Indiana Students Pass Math, English Exams.
The AP (6/17) reports, “Two-thirds of students passed both Indiana’s math and English standardized tests this year, and the state’s school superintendent said his goal of having 90 percent pass by 2012 is attainable even in a climate of declining school funding.” Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett hopes “to have 90 percent of the state’s more than 500,000 students in grades 3 through 8 pass both the math and English exams by 2012.”

The Gary (IN) Post-Tribune (6/16, Kirk) reported that most elementary and middle schools in Northwest Indiana “are passing the ISTEP, according to the newest round of test results released by the Indiana Department of Education on Wednesday.” For grades 3-8, “about 57 percent of students passed both portions compared to 42 percent in 2009 with 68 percent passing English and 68 percent passing math. Those numbers are in comparison to a state average of 74 percent passing English and 76 percent in math.”

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In the Classroom
New Art Lesson Plans Aim To Boost Student Creativity.
The Los Angeles Times (6/17, Finkel) reports that Mark Bradford, an “artist known for bringing the gritty, multilayered texture of urban life into painting,” has “decided to develop a set of free lesson plans for K-12 teachers that makes its debut on the Getty Museum website Thursday. The Getty invited Bradford a year ago – shortly before he received the MacArthur ‘genius’ award – to devise a project of his choice with its education department.” Bradford’s “idea is encouraging students to use art as a tool for exploring personal or social issues that matter to them.”

Some Educators Question Whether Children Should Have Best Friends.
The New York Times (6/17, Stout) reports that “increasingly, some educators and other professionals who work with children are asking a question that might surprise their parents: Should a child really have a best friend? Most children naturally seek close friends.” However, “the classic best-friend bond – the two special pals who share secrets and exploits, who gravitate to each other on the playground and who head out the door together every day after school – signals potential trouble for school officials intent on discouraging anything that hints of exclusivity, in part because of concerns about cliques and bullying.”

Strauss: Flawed Data Behind Rise In Texas Test Scores.
Valerie Strauss wrote in a blog for the Washington Post (6/16), “Good news: Texas schoolchildren performed better on the 2010 Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills this year than they did last, according to preliminary results released this month. Bad news: It turns out that students could pass the test answering fewer questions correctly than in 2009.” Strauss added that a Houston Chronicle “story behind the story of the gains on the TAKS should be a cautionary lesson in relying too much on test scores and reform driven by ‘data.’”

On the Job
Los Angeles Unified Expects To Save Nearly 2,500 Jobs.
The Los Angeles Times (6/17, Blume) reports, “Employee furloughs, federal funds and cost-cutting measures are saving nearly 2,500 jobs in the Los Angeles Unified School District, officials said this week.” Still, “682 teachers and professional ‘support personnel’…face losing their positions June 30, a much smaller number than the 3,090 who received notices March 15 that they could be laid off.” Also, “several hundred administrators are likely to be demoted to classroom positions,” as are some librarians. According to the Times, the “news on layoffs would be better still if voters had passed a district-sponsored parcel tax that failed at the polls this month, officials said.”

Law & Policy
Students In Florida District Say Changes To Spring Break Would Interfere With AP, IB Tests.
The St. Petersburg (FL) Times (6/17, Marshall) reports that the Hillsborough County School Board listened to public comment on Tuesday regarding proposed changes to the school calendar. The school board scheduled “spring break for April 25-29 next year, just six weeks before the end of school.” They “cited testing — specifically the need to avoid scheduling break right before the high-stakes Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, which is held in mid April — as a reason to avoid the break in March. But on Tuesday, high school students said the late spring break would interfere with their Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate tests, which are held the following week.” Superintendent Mary Ellen Elia argued that “any changes that interfered with the FCAT could be damaging, since that test affects far more children.”

New Jersey High School Serves Cheese Sandwiches As Punishment For Unruly Behavior.
New Jersey’s Press of Atlantic City (6/16, Clark) reported, “The infamous cheese sandwich, recently offered to students as punishment for unruly behavior in the school lunch room, was again the only food offered Wednesday” at Atlantic City High School. “Superintendent Fredrick Nickles confirmed that one lunch period was subjected to the simple serving, consisting of two slices of bread and a slab of cheese, after five students were suspended for starting a food fight.” Still, he “insisted that the meal meets the state requirements and is served to send a message to the rest of the student body.” Nickles also pointed out that “students were warned Tuesday that cheese sandwiches would be the only offering Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.”

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Special Needs
Officials Fight To Get School For Special Needs Students Off Low-Performing List.
The Grand Rapids (MI) Press (6/17, Murray) reports, “Since the 1960s, Lincoln School has served students with severe special needs from across Kent County.” This year, the state Education Department put “the school on a list of about 100 traditional programs from across the state that are considered in the lowest performing 5 percent,” citing federal regulations. But Kent Intermediate School District leaders have been trying to get the school off the list “for months without success.” The school “is run by the Grand Rapids Public Schools on behalf of the KISD and serves all 20 county districts.” Because it serves several districts, it could be removed from the list, according to state Education Department official Linda Forward. “KISD Assistant Superintendent Ron Koehler said the state’s confusion stems from the way grades are distributed.” The Grand Rapids Press details the grading distribution system.

Safety & Security
Urban School Chiefs Accused Of Misleading Public About School Violence Levels.
Attorney and safe-schools advocate Jack Stollsteimer wrote in an op-ed for Education Week (6/16), “The Obama administration recently announced its intention to ask Congress for significant changes to the little-loved [NCLB] when it reauthorizes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.” Unfortunately, he added, “the administration’s ‘blueprint for reform’ doesn’t mention the NCLB provisions…designed to stop the rising epidemic of violence in the nation’s schools.” Stollsteimer added that this “oversight is understandable,” as Secretary of Education Arne Duncan “was a serial violator of federal rules designed to make public schools safe during his tenure as the Chicago schools chief.” But Duncan, Stollsteimer added, “was just doing what all other big-city schools chiefs have done since NCLB became law in 2002: misleading Congress and the public about the level of violence in their schools” according to the Inspector General of the US Education Department.

Facilities
New York City Alleges Theft By School Contractor.
The New York Times (6/16, Otterman) reports that an electrical contractor in Queens, New York “bilked the [New York City] Department of Education of more than $1 million by submitting fraudulent invoices, falsifying payrolls and charging for work that was never completed, according to allegations released Wednesday by Richard J. Condon, the special commissioner of investigation for the city schools.” Kostas Andrikopoulos, “owner of Hara Electric Corporation in Astoria,” has also been charged by the state attorney general’s office “with skimming more than $2 million off the top of separate School Construction Authority projects since 2005.” Charges include “385 counts of falsifying business documents, among other charges, and faces up to 25 years if convicted.”

School Finance
Rhode Island Develops First New School Funding Formula In 20 Years.
The Providence Journal (6/17, Jordan) reports, “After years of failed attempts, Rhode Island finally has a statewide school-financing formula, its first in two decades.” The Journal describes the new formula as “complex.” It “was developed by the state Department of Education and researchers at Brown University…and is intended to redistribute about $705 million a year in direct aid to school districts, charter and state-operated schools – without adding a lot of new money to the system.” According to critics, the formula, which goes into effect beginning in 2011, gives “more state aid to districts where student enrollments have increased or that serve high numbers of low-income students, while cutting districts that have lost students or serve fewer poor students.” However, “Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist has dismissed complaints,” saying, “Having a formula actually gives us equity, transparency and consistency in the ways our funds are distributed and the resources we give to our schools.”

New Jersey Education Department Awards $45.3 Million To Schools For School Turnaround.
The Newark (NJ) Star-Ledger (6/17, Alloway, Rundquist) reports that on Wednesday the New Jersey Department of Education “awarded $45.3 million in federal grants to 12 persistently low-performing schools that have proposed bold plans, including four who said they will replace half of the school’s staff.” The schools may choose from “four federally required models to reform and boost student achievement.” The Star-Ledger notes that “seven of the 12 schools selected the ‘transformation model,’ which requires the district to replace ineffective principals, extend the school day, and boost teacher training, among other changes.”

Superintendents In Colorado Forgo Raises, Bonuses Amid Budget Shortfalls.
The Denver Post (6/16, Meyer) reported, “Economic woes that have led to deep school budget cuts across Colorado have spurred several metro area school superintendents to reject bonuses and raises written into their contracts. Leaders of Cherry Creek, Jefferson County and Boulder Valley school districts declined bonuses and raises.” In Denver, the “superintendent is donating his extra compensation to a nonprofit foundation.” The Denver Post notes that Colorado “cut $260 million from the K-12 budget for next year, forcing districts to lay off teachers, increase class sizes and even charge for riding the bus.”

Also in the News
Student Collects Discarded Textbooks For Students In African Countries.
The St. Petersburg (FL) Times (6/17, Solochek) reports that Sierra Cook, a student at Sunray Elementary School, is collecting discarded textbooks throughout Florida’s Pasco school district to send to children in Africa. The school district is getting rid of the books “for a new title that better tracks the state’s updated math curriculum.” Some teachers have “inventoried, boxed, and delivered more than 300″ textbooks “to Sierra’s home, where they sit in the garage awaiting a ride from her grandmother’s truck-driver friend to the Books for Africa warehouse in Smyrna, [Georgia].” The Minnesota-based charity “has delivered more than 22 million books to 45 African countries since 1988,” the Sr. Petersburg Times adds.

NEA in the News
Missouri District Faces Health-Insurance Plan Shortfall.
The Springfield (MO) News-Leader (6/16, Riley) reported that on Tuesday Springfield Public Schools officials discussed changing its “$201 million operating budget” in light of an expected “major shortfall” for the “district-funded health insurance plan…next year.” The current plan “calls for a loss of nearly 57 full-time positions — including 26 teaching jobs,” and it “gives the Springfield National Education Association (SNEA) authority to negotiate with the district about salaries, benefits and work conditions.” SNEA President Ray Smith has said regarding the budget, “There are only so many times you can beat a dead horse. … Going before the board and begging for raises is over. We’ll take it up at the bargaining table.”

Maryland Education Association Concerned About State’s Teacher Evaluation Plan.
WBAL-TV Baltimore (6/17) reports that the Maryland State Education Association and its affiliates have “some doubts about a proposed evaluation program that’s tied to Maryland’s attempt at getting $250 million in education funding.” Some are particularly concerned about merit pay. MSEA member Clara Floyd said, “We need to be certain that evaluation systems take into account all of the academic, social and personal factors that impact student achievement.” WBAL adds, “The state’s proposal, in part, calls for an overhaul of the teacher evaluation system while giving more weight to student achievement.”

Testing Flexibility Needed For Indian Students, Lawmakers Say.
The AP (6/18) reports, “Indian students face fewer chances for academic success under education standards that don’t embrace their traditional cultures, lawmakers and witnesses said Thursday during a Senate hearing considering revisions to” No Child Left Behind. According to the AP “Federal education standards complicated by varying state tests do not recognize tribal culture, which unfairly challenges Indian students, according to testimony before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. Among statistics cited at the hearing: About 50 percent of Indian students graduate from high school, compared to more than three-fourths of white students.”

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In the Classroom
More Than Half Of Philadelphia Public School Students Pass State Tests.
KYW-AM Philadelphia (6/18, DeNardo) reports that, for the first time, “more than half of” all students in the Philadelphia School “scored at least ‘proficient’ on the latest standardized state tests.” Superintendent Arlene Ackerman said, “Getting over the 50 percent mark for the majority of our students, I think psychologically will let people know that it can be done.” KYW notes that “in math, 56-percent of students made the grade – up four points over last year, and reading scores were 51 percent, up three points. The district’s…worst performing schools” had the greatest gains.

IES Awarding $100 Million In Grants To Fund Reading Programs Nationwide.
Debra Viadero wrote in a blog for Education Week (6/17), “The federal Institute of Education Sciences yesterday announced it was awarding $100 million in grants to six teams of researchers across the country for a major new initiative aimed at promoting reading comprehension in students from preschool to high school.” The five-year grants will be awarded to “130 researchers in the fields of linguistics, reading, developmental psychology, speech, cognitive psychology, assessment, and language pathology, are the largest ever awarded by the Institute’s National Center on Education Research for a single research program, said IES director John Q. Easton.” The funds “will go to help create a new Reading for Understanding Network, in which researchers will be required to work with teachers and other practitioners on the ground level, as well as with one another, to try to find proven, practical solutions to the thorny problem of improving reading comprehension.”

On the Job
Abilene District Tightens Requirements For Merit-Based Teacher Bonuses.
The Abilene (TX) Reporter-News (6/17) reported, “In the year after researchers questioned the effectiveness of Texas’ teacher merit pay programs, the Abilene Independent School District is stiffening the requirements for teachers to get performance-based bonuses next year.” Teachers will have “to post 10 times higher classroom improvement on the TAKS test to earn extra cash, but the bonus format only encompasses scores from students in low-income households.” In addition, just “four teachers taking tough assignments in district high schools” will receive “big bonuses.” The Reporter-News notes that prior to the new rules, “participating AISD teachers who posted a collective classroom improvement of even 1 percentage point were granted a bonus from the $1.2 million pot.”

Texas District May Move To Single-Year Contracts For Teachers.
The Dallas Morning News (6/17, Holloway) reported, “New teacher contracts in Mesquite may be for a single school year, instead of the continuing contracts that teachers have now, said Lanny Frasier, the district’s assistant superintendent for personnel services. Mesquite is one of the few school districts offering teachers continuing contracts” are “pretty much for life” after “a teacher passes the probationary period,” Frasier said. According to the Morning News, “With continuing contracts, the district must follow procedures to fire a teacher it believes has problems, a difficult process” and with “one-year contracts, the district can simply not renew the contract, Frasier said.”

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Law & Policy
North Carolina Senate Votes Against Four-Year High School Project Requirement.
The Raleigh (NC) News & Observer (6/18) reports that the North Carolina “Senate dealt the final legislative blow to a plan to require high school students complete projects designed to show they have planning, writing and speaking skills.” On Thursday, “the Senate voted unanimously…to kill the projects as a state requirement.” The plan put forth by the State Board of Education would have required “high school students to embark on a 4-year journey to complete a project that would include a paper, an oral presentation, a product, and a portfolio.” The News & Observer adds that many “school districts, parents and teachers” did not support the plan.

NYTimes Urges States To Crack Down On Testing Fraud.
The New York Times (6/18) editorializes though most educators across the US administer standardized “tests honestly and in good faith,” test-tampering cases “have recently turned up in at least a half-dozen states.” According to the Times, “groups that dislike standardized tests – and teacher accountability systems based on them – are blaming both for the cheating problem.” However, this “is no time to back away from testing” and states “need to develop clear, well-publicized antifraud policies and act decisively when test-tampering is uncovered.”

Florida School Trades Evangelism For Shoes, School Supplies.
USA Today (6/17) reported on its “Faith & Reason” blog that “Combee Elementary School in Lakeland, Florida, where separation of church and state is clearly not on the social studies curriculum, has been ‘adopted’ by First Baptist Church at the Mall. According to [a] story in the Wall Street Journal, the church, in turn, has…stocked a resource room with $5,000 worth of supplies” and “now caters spaghetti dinners at evening school events, buys sneakers for poor students, and sends in math and English tutors.” According to USA Today, “So far the evangelists visited 30 homes at Christmastime and 13 ‘came to the Lord,’” Pastor Dave McClamma said.

Toy Soldiers Violate Rhode Island School’s Weapons Ban.
The AP (6/18, Smith) reports, “Christan Morales said her son just wanted to honor American troops when he wore a hat to school decorated with an American flag and small plastic Army figures.” But the Tiogue School in Coventry, RI “banned the hat because it ran afoul of the district’s zero-tolerance weapons policy” because the “toy soldiers were carrying tiny guns. … On Thursday,” Superintendent Kenneth R. Di Pietro and the school’s principal “met with the retired commander of the Rhode Island National Guard, at the commander’s request.” Lt. Gen. Reginald Centracchio “said he disagreed with the decision to ban the hat and hoped it offered a chance for the school to review its policies.”

Special Needs
Spectrum Academy To Serve Special Needs Students With Behavior Problems.
The Tennessean (6/17, Mielczarek) reported on the Spectrum Academy opening this fall in the Metro Nashville school system for “special education students with severe behavioral problems.” The school aims “to help students catch up academically – most are one to three years behind – and socially transition them back to their original high schools before graduation. All participants follow individualized lesson plans and will come recommended by teams of teachers.” The Tennessean adds that the academy is opening as part of “Metro’s attempt to expand and improve its special education services.”

Facilities
“Eco-Walk” Will Connect Schools’ Educational Outdoor Walkway.
The Sag Harbor (NY) Express (6/18, Benard) reports that “a group of Sag Harbor parents and British designer Sam Panton of the environmentally friendly landscape architecture firm, Terra Design” will soon create “an educational outdoor walkway” between Sag Harbor Elementary School and Pierson High School. The Sag Harbor “Eco-Walk” will be “an educational outdoor walkway that…aims to teach children the benefits of having an ‘edible backyard.’” Students will “cultivate their own food and beautify their surroundings, while simultaneously creating a greater sense of community within the whole of Sag Harbor.” The Eco-Walk will “rely on the Sag Harbor community for both labor and funding.”

School Finance
Local Governments Struggling To Avoid Layoffs Amid Budget Woes.
USA Today (6/18, Keen) reports, “Some city and county employees and school districts are taking dramatic steps to try to solve their budget problems. … Curt Bradshaw, Board of Education president for the Indian Prairie School District in Aurora and Naperville, Ill., says creative solutions to budget woes are essential.” The Indian Prairie “district wants to keep employees’ state payroll taxes – about $500,000 a month – to offset $14.4 million in tardy state payments,” Bradshaw says, and the “district adopted a $21.4 million austerity plan, including a teacher salary freeze and layoffs of about 145 teachers before union concessions allowed them to call 20 back.”

More New Jersey Towns Forcing School Districts To Cut Budgets.
The New York Times (6/18, Gebeloff, Hu) reports, “About 17 percent of the New Jersey school districts that had budgets rejected by voters this spring have been ordered by town councils to make cuts to lower their proposed school taxes by at least 3 percent, according to an analysis by The New York Times of state education data released on Thursday. In the previous two years, 8 percent of districts with failed budgets made reductions of that magnitude.” According to the Times, “New Jersey voters rejected 316 school budgets this spring, a modern-day record,” yet “8 percent of the districts with failed budgets made no further cuts.”

Education Takes Big Hit In Latest Round Of Budget Cutting In Missouri.
The AP (6/18, Lieb) reports, “Education took a big hit Thursday in Missouri’s latest round of budget cuts as Gov. Jay Nixon [D] halved busing aid to public schools and significantly reduced college scholarships for the upcoming academic year. Other cuts will affect people with chronic health problems, the mentally ill, the disabled who receive in-home services and developers who depend on state tax credits.” Nixon “said the cuts are necessary because Missouri’s tax revenues have continued to fall short of projections, and because legislators failed to pass several moneysaving measures that had been assumed in their $23.3 billion budget.”

Alabama State Superintendent “Holding BP Accountable” For Oil Spill’s Impact On Schools.
Betty Carol Graham, an Alabama state representative from Tallapoosa County, wrote in a commentary for the Dadeville (AL) Record (6/17), “The BP oil disaster in the Gulf continues to threaten Alabama’s coastline.” Dr. Joe Morton, the state’s superintendent of Education, recently “held a press conference and outlined another victim of the oil spill: Alabama’s schoolchildren.” According to Morton, “the BP nightmare in the Gulf of Mexico is having and will continue to have a negative effect on the Education Trust Fund (ETF),” which “accounts for sixty percent of education spending in the state.” Through ETF, the state pays for “everything from teacher salaries to textbooks.” Graham asserts that “Morton should be applauded for his first steps in holding BP accountable.”

Districts Struggle To Meet Needs Of Severely Disabled Students.
The New York Times (6/20, Otterman) reports, “Once predominantly isolated in institutions, severely disabled students have been guaranteed a free, appropriate public education like all children since the passage of federal legislation in 1975. In the years since, school districts across the country have struggled to find a balance between instruction in functional skills and academics while providing basic custodial care.” The Times notes that there “are 132,000 such students in the United States, out of more than 6.5 million now receiving some kind of special education service at an estimated cost of $74 billion a year.”

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In the Classroom
Educators, Community Members In Nevada District Seek Solutions For Curbing Truancy.
The Las Vegas Sun (6/20, Richmond) reported that educators and community members in the Clark County School District are focusing on solutions to curb the truancy within the district. “For each of the past three academic years, the Clark County School District has cited more than 2,500 students for habitual truancy, meaning they had at least three unexcused absences.” Once problem pointed out by Edward Goldman, associate superintendent of education services, is that Clark County schools only have “25 attendance officers to cover more than 350 campuses, and their duties are more comprehensive than just hunting truants.” He also noted that “many students…stop going to high school entirely after 10 unexcused absences in a semester because they know they’ll be denied credit for the class even if they make up the work.” As a solution, Goldman suggested switching “to a quarterly grading cycle instead of two semesters…so that students can at least earn partial credit.”

Mentorship Program Aims To Refine Leadership Skills Of Minority Males.
The New Haven (CT) Register (6/20, Pinto) reported on the West Haven school system’s Developing Tomorrow’s Professionals, “a mentorship program for black and Latino young men who have shown” leadership potential. This year, 64 teens participated in the program. After being chosen among 781 other applicants, “the students…were fitted for suits they must wear to all DTP functions.” They “will attend 10 weeks of weekend classes, called Academic Saturdays, and be partnered with mentors who are professionals or graduate students at Southern Connecticut State University.” In addition, the teens will “receive laptops and a stipend and get academic training, as well as education in the ‘values, principles and ethics of real men.’”

“Rap Teacher” Uses Hip-Hop To Teach Math To Students In Los Angeles.
The AP (6/19, Hoag) reported, “The class of eighth graders at” Los Angeles Academy, “a Los Angeles middle school tap their rulers and nod their heads to the rhythm of the rap video projected on a screen. It’s not Snoop Dogg or Jay-Z” but it is “their math teacher, LaMar Queen, using rhyme to help them memorize seemingly complicated algebra and in the process improve their grades.” Queen’s “is now known at Los Angeles Academy as the rap teacher, but his fame has spread far beyond the 2,200-student school in this gritty neighborhood” as he’s “won a national award and shows teachers and parents how to use rap to reach children.”

Educator Advocates Return To Slow Reading.
The AP (6/20) reported, “At a time when people spend much of their time skimming websites, text messages and e-mails, an English professor at the University of New Hampshire is making the case for slowing down as a way to gain more meaning and pleasure out of the written word. Thomas Newkirk isn’t the first or most prominent proponent of the so-called ‘slow reading’ movement, but he argues it’s becoming all the more important in a culture and educational system that often treats reading as fast food to be gobbled up as quickly as possible.” Newkirk “is encouraging schools from elementary through college to return to old strategies such as reading aloud and memorization as a way to help students truly ‘taste’ the words.”

On the Job
Florida District Officials Say Gates Grant Helping Attract Prospective Teachers.
The St. Petersburg Times (6/20, Marshall) reported that officials in the Hillsborough County, Florida school district “say their $100 million Gates grant” is helping to attract teaching candidates and is “also…helping them figure out which places — education schools, states, or even regions — produce their most effective teachers.” So far, “Hillsborough has found recruiting success in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana, where population has been shrinking and candidates are plentiful.” At a teacher recruitment event held last week, the school system interviewed about 1,000 teachers “over three days to fill an estimated 600 openings. Officials say they hired around 150 teachers, and will likely pick up more over the summer.”

Teachers Union, District Officials In Hernando County, Florida, Developing Teacher Evaluation System. The St. Petersburg Times (6/20, Marrero) reported, “Before the furor over Senate Bill 6 put the issue of teacher performance in the spotlight, Hernando school officials already had begun working on a revolutionary new way to evaluate educators.” Union and district officials are developing an evaluation system that takes “student scores and schoolwide performance” into “account for as much as half of a teacher’s evaluation. Teachers would still be evaluated…by an administrator based on best classroom practices, but they also would get credit for other work, such as tutoring students and helping with school events.”

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Law & Policy
New Law Will Change School Evaluation Metrics In Ohio.
The Cincinnati Enquirer (6/19, Clark) reported that “after earning the state’s top academic ranking for seven straight years,” the Lebanon school system in Warren County “plunged three categories on the six-category scale — from ‘excellent with distinction’ to ‘continuous improvement.’” This, despite the fact that Lebanon Schools achieved “29 out of 30 academic indicators in the 2008-2009 school year and improving its ‘performance index’ in each of the previous four school years.” Now, a law “signed by Ohio Governor Ted Strickland (D) this month will correct this problem. Instead of dropping three categories, districts not meeting federally mandated ‘adequate yearly progress’ standards for certain sub-groups of students will drop only one category.” The law will go into effect in mid-September.

Minnesota Legislature Passes Overhaul Of Charter Laws.
Education Week (6/18, Aarons) reported, “A major overhaul to a Minnesota law aimed at strengthening accountability for those who sponsor charter schools is drawing both praise and criticism and spurring some districts to consider getting out of the business of authorizing such schools. Among the districts contemplating leaving authorizing behind is St. Paul, the home of the nation’s first charter school.” The Minnesota “state legislature approved a slew of changes last year that increased the responsibility of authorizers for the oversight and renewal of charter schools, which are publicly funded but largely independent in their operations.”

Rhode Island District To Alter Policy That Banned Soldier Hat.
The AP (6/20) reported that Ken Di Pietro, the superintendent of the Coventry (RI) Public Schools district “that banned a second-grader’s homemade hat because it displayed toy soldiers with tiny guns said Saturday he will work to change the policy to allow such apparel.” According to the AP, “David Morales, an 8-year-old student at Tiogue School, made the hat after choosing a patriotic theme for a school project last week,” gluing “plastic Army figures to a camouflage baseball cap.” However, “school officials banned the hat, saying the guns carried by the Army figures violated school policy” yet the “decision prompted criticism of the school and support for Morales.”

Maryland District Enacts Ban On Student Cell Phone Use In School.
The AP (6/20) reported that Prince George’s County, MD “has restricted cellphone use in the past, but officials say the new policy sets clear consequences. Under the new policy, students may carry cellphones, but the phones must be off during school, not just silenced.” According to the AP, “students who violate the policy will initially have their phones confiscated” an after “a second offense, the student will have to have a parent pick up the phone” and students “who break the rules a third time can’t have a phone at school for the rest of the year.”

The Washington Post (6/18, Birnbaum) reported, “Prince George’s County students will have to keep their cellphones turned off from the first bell of the morning to the last bell of the day under a strict new ban passed Thursday night by the school board. And they will not be permitted to post photographs taken on school property to Web sites such as Facebook.” According to the Post, “The ban goes further than any other local school system’s, many of which have been liberalizing their cellphone rules, not tightening them.” WUSA-TV Washington, DC (6/19, Mastis) also covers this story.

Facilities
New York City Opens East Side’s First New Public School Building In 50 Years.
The New York Times (6/19, Ceasar) reports that East Side Middle School “officially opened on Friday; it is the first new public school building on the Upper East Side in nearly 50 years. … Upper East Side campuses are overcrowded, with many students on waiting lists to attend schools in their own neighborhoods.” According to the Times, “The building was made possible through the city’s Educational Construction Fund, a partnership between the city and private developers who build and pay for the school” and in “return, the developers are allowed to build on part of the land, said Jamie Smarr, the fund’s executive director.”

School Finance
Chicago Parents Discuss Fundraising Strategies.
The Chicago Tribune (6/20, Schmadeke) reported, “After detailing the yawning budget shortfall Chicago Public Schools faces next year, schools chief Ron Huberman drew laughter from a group of parents Saturday when he said he was ‘optimistic’ that state lawmakers would eventually be forced to fix the perennial school-funding crisis. The nearly 120 people from nearly 70 schools around the city who gathered at an East Lakeview magnet school Saturday for what was billed as a first-of-its-kind fundraising gathering were a bit more skeptical” as “these parents were among those who are increasingly being asked to raise money on their own to help pay the bills at their children’s schools.” According to the Tribune, “Many parents worried that if a much-discussed option to cut the CPS deficit by increasing class sizes to as many as 35 students were enacted, it would drive away those who can afford to send their children elsewhere” and the parents “know their own fundraising won’t be enough to close the budget deficit.”

Also in the News
Texas District Experimenting With School Bus Videos.
The Dallas Morning News (6/19, Holloway) reported, “The Garland [TX] school district is experimenting with playing educational videos on a school bus to help cut discipline problems. For $1,500 per bus, Carrollton-based AdComp Systems installs a 26-inch flat screen TV at the front of the bus.” According to the Morning News, “Garland transportation director Brian Abbett said it’s a good thing anytime that students’ attention on the bus can be focused on something other than picking on each other.”

NEA in the News
Elementary Teacher To Take Over As Utah Education Association President.
The Salt Lake Tribune (6/21, Schencker) reports that Dilworth Elementary School teacher, Sharon Gallagher-Fishbaugh, will take over as president of the Utah Education Association (UEA) in July. “Over the past few years, Gallagher-Fishbaugh has won a slew of prestigious education awards,” including Teacher of the Year in Utah for 2009. “This year, she won the National Education Association’s top honor, the $25,000 NEA Member Benefits Award for Teaching Excellence.” The Salt Lake Tribune adds that Gallagher ran unopposed for the position of UEA president.

New York City School Officials Seek More Equitable Gifted Admissions Test.
The New York Times (6/22, A21, Otterman) reports that New York City schools “will search for a new admissions test for its gifted and talented public school programs” in order “to address concerns that some families were ‘gaming’ the test through extensive preparation.” The city’s “new deputy chancellor for portfolio planning,” Marc Sternberg, “announced the move” after City Council members questioned “why the city’s gifted programs were not as racially and economically diverse as the city schools as a whole.” Council members noted that “while more students now take admissions tests for gifted programs, fewer students now enroll, and they are less racially diverse” than in years prior to 2008, when the city adopted its current gifted tests.

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In the Classroom
Chinese Gaining Popularity Over French In Some Schools.
The AP (6/21) reported, “The rapidly growing Chinese economy is causing French language classes to be phased out and replaced with Mandarin Chinese classes in private and public schools,” according to some language teachers. A survey by the Modern Language Association in 2006 showed a decrease in French class enrollment of 43 percent between 1990 and 2006 was down by 43 percent, compared to a 106 percent increase in Chinese language. “Mandarin, the most widely spoken dialect,” has seen the greatest increase. “Another study by the Center for Applied Linguistics found that students taking French decreased from 27 percent in 1997 to 11 percent in 2008.”

More Districts Launching Online Credit-Recovery Programs.
Education Week (6/21, Zehr) reported, “Interest in online credit-recovery courses continues to surge, prompting some policy experts and educators to consider whether traditional rules requiring students to spend a certain number of hours in the classroom, rather than simply demonstrate their proficiency in the subject matter, are increasingly outdated. At least three large urban school districts-New York City, Chicago, and Boston-have recently rolled out or soon will roll out programs for online credit recovery” which allow “students who have failed courses in high school” to “earn credits for those courses by making them up through online coursework.” Education Week added, “The increase in credit-recovery programs is being fueled by pressure from state and federal accountability systems to increase graduation rates, educators say.”

Strategies To Curb Summer Reading Loss Outlined.
National Summer Learning Association CEO Ron Fairchild wrote in a blog for the Washington Post (6/21), “A century of empirical evidence confirms a pattern of summer learning loss, particularly for low-income children. … What we learned from” studies into the summer learning loss phenomena “is that high-quality summer programs combining engaging lessons and enriching experiences can help these children stay on track for the academic challenges ahead.” According to Fairchild, a “new initiative that highlights the need for learning opportunities and physical activity for children during the summer months” spearheaded by First Lady Michelle Obama, “combined with a range of strategies including access to books and community resources and high-quality summer learning programs, can make a dent in the problem of summer learning loss and put more children on the path to academic success.”

STEM Program Seeks To Foster Skills In Creativity Innovation, Critical Thinking.
CentralJersey.com (6/22) reports on the “12 districts across that state that will benefit from an $11.5 million National Science Foundation Math-Science Partnership Grant that aims to engage and motivate teachers and students to improve learning in science and engineering.” The grant-funded program, “PISA 2 program: Partnership to Improve Student Achievement in Physical Sciences: Integrating STEM Approaches,” is being offered through the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education at Stevens Institute of Technology and “will enhance teaching and learning of physical and earth science in grades 3 through 8 at the 12 districts across the state, thereby fostering skills including creativity innovation, problem-solving, and critical thinking, according to the university.” The article notes, “The program will use societal problems such as climate change to engage and motivate teachers and their students in STEM subjects.”

Seventh-Graders Discover Crater On Mars.
Space.com (6/22, Moskowitz) that 16 students in Dennis Mitchell’s “7th-grade science class at Evergreen Middle School in Cottonwood, [California], found what looks to be a Martian skylight — a hole in the roof of a cave on Mars” — while studying “images taken by a NASA spacecraft orbiting the red planet.” Glen Cushing of the U.S. Geological Survey said that the crater is similar to a skylight — “where a small part of the roof of a cave or a lava tube had collapsed, opening the area below the surface to the sky.” The seventh graders made the discovery after initially setting “out to hunt for lava tubes” as part of the Mars Student Imaging Program at the Mars Space Flight Facility at Arizona State University.

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On the Job
Ohio Districts Increasingly Rehiring Retired Educators.
The AP (6/21) reported, “More Ohio school districts are hiring retired teachers and administrators, allowing them to earn a salary and collect a pension at a time when the state retirement system is ailing.” This practice, called “double dipping,” is especially prevalent among superintendents, with “more than 25 percent of the state’s 614 superintendents…drawing full retirement benefits.” Meanwhile, “the State Teachers Retirement System, which has suffered investment losses, has $40 billion in unfunded liabilities and is seeking a taxpayer bailout.” State lawmakers have targeted double dipping “several times in the past 10 years.” However, in at least two cases, “the Legislative Service Commission, which provides fiscal and legal analysis to lawmakers,” was unable to “determine whether double dipping cost taxpayers money.”

Beginning Teacher Academy In West Virginia Offers Classroom Management Training.
West Virginia’s State Journal (6/22, Lieu) reports on the Beginning Teacher Academy being offered to first-year teachers in West Virginia this year “by the West Virginia Center for Professional Development.” The summer training sessions focus on classroom management, and “understanding framework for poverty so they can understand students as they are teaching them,” said Dixie Billheimer, CEO of the West Virginia Center for Professional Development. The State Journal notes that a 2005 study found that “classroom management is one of the key reasons why 50 percent of all new teachers entering public schools leave the profession within five years.”

Arizona State University To Offer New Online Degree, Certification Programs For Educators.
T.H.E. Journal (6/22, Schaffhauser) reports, “Arizona State University has expanded its online degree and certification programs for PK-12 teachers, including the addition of a new credential for online teaching.” Starting next fall, six new programs “will be available completely online,” including Arizona State’s “first fully online graduate certificate offering…a 15-credit hour graduate certificate for online teaching for grades K-12, designed for educators who want to lead development, implementation, and evaluation of online and hybrid education programs at their schools.”

Law & Policy
Alaska Governor Signs Rural Grant Program For School Repairs.
Alaska’s News-Miner (6/21, Eshleman) reported that Gov. Sean Parnell (R) on Monday signed into law “a grant program to build and repair rural schools.” Funding for these projects will be calculated by matching each dollar spent “to help repay bond-funded school construction in organized areas…for rural grants.” In addition to stabilizing “an often-inconsistent flow of school-construction dollars going to rural, unincorporated communities,” the bill “also extends in perpetuity the state’s promise to cover 70 percent of school construction debt in Fairbanks, Anchorage and other municipalities’ school districts.”

Louisiana Lawmakers Approve Stricter Oversight Of State Superintendent.
Louisiana’s Advocate (6/22, Sentell) reports, “With just minutes left before adjournment, the Louisiana Legislature voted Monday to impose tougher oversight on the effectiveness of state Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek.” Under Senate Bill 302, the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) must “report to lawmakers on: How Pastorek is implementing the $3.3 billion in basic state aid to public schools” and “whether he is establishing good working relationships with state educators, lawmakers and local school board members.” In addition, the BESE must report on “whether local schools are getting adequate technical assistance from the state Department of Education.”

As Education Aide To President Clinton, Kagan Weighed In On K-12 Issues.
Mark Walsh wrote in a blog for Education Week (6/21), “In 1997, as President Bill Clinton’s administration was pursuing an initiative on voluntary national testing,” Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, then “a White House education aide” suggested “the possibility of a high school test to follow proposed 4th and 8th grade tests. … The voluntary test idea eventually fizzled amid opposition in Congress” yet the “e-mail from Kagan…shows the political instincts she exhibited during her two years in the domestic policy job.” Walsh added, “The Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Ark., on June 18 released its final batch of Kagan records, including thousands of e-mails composed by her” and “e-mails show that Kagan was more of a traffic cop on domestic-policy proposals than a prolific writer advancing her own views.”

Special Needs
South Dakota Receives Highest Special Education Scores Possible Under IDEA.
KPLO-TV Sioux Falls (6/22, Janssen) reports that “the teachers and administrators who help implement” special education programs in South Dakota “are getting proof that their efforts are paying off.” The state, which serves nearly 18,000 special needs students, is “one of only 16 in the country to receive the highest scores possible under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA.” IDEA takes into account factors such as “the percentage of special ed students who graduate from high school, the drop-out rate for those students and how many pass state assessment tests.”

School Finance
Detroit School Board, Financial Manager In Dispute Over Academic Control.
The AP (6/21) reported that Detroit public schools emergency financial manager, Robert Bobb, is currently facing “a civil suit filed against him by the school board.” Board members claim that “Bobb didn’t communicate with them on” a “sweeping, multimillion dollar academic plan, which includes curriculum changes, a more rigorous learning environment for Detroit students and an eventual 98-percent graduation rate.” They say that Bobb was hired to manage the district’s finances, not its academic programs. Meanwhile, “Bobb has testified that his academic changes all are part of his plan to wipe out a deficit of more than $300 million.”

Also in the News
Obama Urges Absent Fathers To Re-Engage With Families.
USA Today (6/22, Toppo) reports, “Saying he has ‘lost count’ of all the times when work demands have taken him away from his children, President Obama said Monday that his administration would move to raise awareness about ‘responsible fatherhood’ and push to re-engage absent fathers with their families. The announcement, coming one day after Father’s Day, follows a year-long, six-city tour by administration officials focusing on fathers’ roles and influences.” Obama “said he would ask Congress to expand fatherhood and family program” and “he has asked US Attorney General Eric Holder to create a ‘Fathering Re-Entry Court’ that would help fathers leaving prison get jobs and services they need to start making child support payments and reconnecting with families.”

NEA in the News
Utah Governor Discusses School Finance, Charters With UEA Members.
Lisa Schencker wrote in the Salt Lake Tribune (6/21) “The Chalkboard” blog that last week, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert (R) “met with leaders of the Utah Education Association (UEA)…and shared some of his thoughts on key issues in education.” In a press release, the UEA noted the governor’s position on several key issues. Herbert told union members regarding education funding “that Utah is in a ‘unique’ position with only 21.2 percent of the state held privately, limiting the amount of land available to generate tax revenue.” He also said that even as “a vocal supporter of vouchers,” he “recognized that there were flaws in the law ultimately passed by the Utah legislature.” Said Herbert, “(Vouchers) should have been means tested and there should have been income limits. … As far as I’m concerned, the (voucher) issue is dead for at least the next decade.”

The AP (6/3, Turner) reports that under the new standards, “third-graders should understand subject-verb agreement, fifth-graders need to know about metaphors and similes and seventh-graders must understand how to calculate surface area.” States that opt-in “are supposed to use the standards as a base on which to build their curricula and testing, but they can make their benchmarks tougher than Common Core.” The AP (6/3) adds in a separate story that Wisconsin state superintendent Tony Evers “immediately adopted” the standards.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (6/3, Torres) reports, “Georgia is poised to become one of the first states to heed a call Wednesday by states’ governors and school leaders to voluntarily adopt common national standards in English, language arts and mathematics.” The standards “have the support from a who’s who of education experts and organizations, including the College Board, the National School Boards Association, the National Education Association, the National Parent-Teacher Association and the State Higher Education Executive Officers.”

The Washington Post (6/3, Anderson), Wall Street Journal (6/3, Banchero) and Christian Science Monitor (6/3, Paulson) also cover this story.

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In the Classroom
“Mad Scientist Day” Aims To Make Science Less Intimidating For Students.
Maryland’s Business Gazette (6/3, Hill) reports that Hollywood Elementary School in College Park, Maryland, “school held its fourth-annual Mad Scientist Day and Night” last week. The event — aimed at making “science more exciting and less intimidating for students” — was a full day “of interactive science experiments, followed by more activities for parents and children that night.” Activities stations “where participants could build molecules from gum drops and toothpicks, plant grass seeds in foam cups, connect circuits to power light bulbs or test the aerodynamics of paper airplanes.”

Students At California Elementary School Produce Books For Young Authors’ Event.
California’s Contra Costa Times (6/3, Harrington) reports that students at Silverwood Elementary in Concord, California, “have spent months writing and illustrating books,” which they will “unveil…for their families Thursday during a Young Authors’ reception at the school.” In second grade teacher Eva Stoltz’s class, for instance, “students brainstormed fiction ideas and worked with parent volunteer Robert Lang to refine their stories. … Lang typed up the stories for students and glued a few sentences onto each page.” Students also wrote an “About the Author” blurb for the end of the book, and attached a school photo. According to Stolz, the project “is valuable to students because they learn what it’s like to publish a book.”

Study Shows Private Competition Helps Increase Public School Student Achievement.
The St. Petersburg Times (6/3, Matus) reports that a new study “to be released next week by the National Bureau of Economic Research” shows that “competition from private-school vouchers has led to small academic improvements in Florida’s public schools.” In 2001, “the state began offering tax-credit vouchers to low-income students in 2001.” Since then, “students in public schools with a greater and more diverse array of private schools around them showed greater gains in standardized test scores than students in other public schools, found David Figlio and Cassandra Hart at Northwestern University.” But, according to “Stanford labor economist Martin Carnoy, who has studied the impact of vouchers and reviewed the latest study,” noted that while the researchers “did ‘an honest job with the data,’” the gains they found were “so small that even small downside effects would nullify them, leaving vouchers as mainly an ideological exercise.”

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On the Job
New York Mayor To Withhold Teacher Pay Raises In Effort To Save Jobs.
The New York Times (6/3, Medina) reports that New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I) “said Wednesday that the city would withhold across-the-board pay increases for public school teachers and principals for the next two years to ‘save the jobs of some 4,400 teachers.’” The decision “could put pressure on lawmakers to allocate more money for schools,” which “would most likely have to be offset by spending cuts elsewhere or by higher taxes.” The Wall Street Journal (6/3, Martinez) adds that teachers will still receive pay increases based on time in service, even as they lose cost-of-living increases.

School Board In Georgia May Change Teacher Training Requirement To Save Money.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (6/3, Matteucci) reports that “the DeKalb County school board is looking to cut mandatory training hours for teachers in half because of the district’s budget problems.” Teachers currently must take “20 hours of professional development a year. On Wednesday, the board’s instruction committee discussed cutting training time to 10 hours a year.” The school board last month approved $104 million worth of budget cuts, “including seven furlough days for teachers.” One proposal “calls for three of those furlough days to be designated teacher professional development days.”

Law & Policy
New Child Nutrition Act Could Promote Healthier School Lunches.
The Sun Journal (ME) (6/2, Washuk) reported, “Almost every school in the nation would serve” lunches containing health-conscious ingredients that are “less processed, more nutritious” and contain “less fat, sugar and sodium” under “a proposal in Congress to boost school lunch spending,” says US Department of Agriculture Undersecretary Kevin Concannon. WCSH-TV Portland, Maine (6/3) reports, “President Obama is proposing spending an additional billion dollars per year when the Child Nutrition Act comes up for reauthorization later this year.” The money would be used “to bring locally grown and more nutritious food to our nation’s school lunch programs.”

Measure Would Bring Stricter Health Guidelines To Ohio Schools.
Ohio’s Plain Dealer (6/3, Marshall) reports that on Wednesday Ohio House members “passed a measure aimed at getting kids eating healthier and exercising more.” Specifically, the bill “pushes out…candy machines and soda pop in favor of lowfat milk, fruit juices, water and healthier fare in Ohio’s school lunchrooms by 2014.” In addition, it calls for 30 minutes of exercise in school, and it would require that Ohio schools to “measure kids’ body mass index, a measure of height and weight, in kindergarten, third, fifth, and ninth grades.”

Special Needs
Los Angeles District To Cut 200 Classes, Campus For Disabled Students.
The Los Angeles Times (6/3, Blume) reports that Los Angeles Unified School District “officials plan to spend much less on the disabled” by shutting down 200 classes and one “specialized campus, the West Valley Special Education Center.” The cuts are needed, say district officials, in order to make up for “multimillion-dollar deficit” that will also result in larger “class sizes, decimated art and music programs, closed libraries, and an expected 1,000-plus layoffs.” Still, officials insist that even with the changes, disabled students will still receive services “as the law requires,” with some improvements.

School Finance
DC Teachers Ratify New Contract.
The Washington Post (6/3, Turque) reports that DC “teachers ratified a new contract Wednesday that dramatically expands Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee’s ability to remove poor educators and places Washington on a growing list of cities and states that have established classroom results, not seniority, as the standard by which teachers are paid.” The contract comes after “nearly 2.5 years of contentious negotiations.” It “combines a rich traditional financial package with unorthodox initiatives historically resisted by unionized teachers” including a performance pay program and the “weakening of seniority and tenure.” The Washington Times (6/3, Simmons) reports that the “merit-pay component” is provisional “and limits the power of tenure in giving the schools chancellor more power to assign and fire teachers.” The Washington Post (6/3) runs a brief synopsis of the new contract’s main provisions and the Washington Times (6/3, Simmons) also covers this story in a separate report.

WPost Applauds New DC Teacher Labor Pact. The Washington Post (6/3) editorializes, “Overwhelming approval by D.C. teachers of a new contract caps nearly three years of high drama marked by bitter negotiations, political recriminations and budget uncertainty. But rather than an ending, the labor pact — which still must be approved by the D.C. Council — represents what could be a beginning in building and retaining a more effective teaching force.” The Post adds, “That’s a credit to the tenacity of Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee and also to the willingness of the union’s rank and file to embrace her aggressive but common-sense reforms,” as seniority and tenure “would no longer protect bad teachers.”

ACLU Report Says More Equitable School Construction Funding Needed In Baltimore.
The Baltimore Sun (6/3, Bowie) reports that the ACLU “is calling on state and city leaders to address a $2.8 billion need for renovations to Baltimore schools by developing a more creative and equitable way to fund school construction across Maryland.” On Wednesday, the ACLU released a report saying that “despite state increases in school construction dollars in recent years, many city schools are still deteriorating and at current funding levels it would take 50 years for them to be in good condition.” It also asserts that “because the state does not take into account each district’s needs and ability to fund projects locally, school construction funding lacks equity.” For solutions to this problem, “the ACLU points out several innovative funding models used in other cities and states across the nation that have successfully helped provide an infusion of cash to get aging schools up to par and to build new ones.”

Colorado District Considers Charging Students $10 Per Month For School Bus Service.
KUSA-TV Denver (6/3, Nelson) reports that Colorado’s Adams 12 Five Star School District is considering charging students “$10 a month to ride the bus, for a total of $100 for a school year.” Currently, $8.1 million of the district’s budget is for transportation. Meanwhile, Adams 12 faces a $20 million budget cut. The bus fee would generate about $380,000, projections show. “Families that qualify for the free and reduce lunch program at school would be exempt from the bus fee.” KUSA adds that “Fees for buses may become the norm for districts across the state as they are forced to look at all sorts of budget fixes, including charging more for athletics or technology.”

Also in the News
“Phantom Of The Opera” Now Available For School Theatres.
The Wall Street Journal (6/3, Orden) reports that today, R&H Theatricals will begin accepting applications from high schools and colleges interested in putting on performances of the Broadway musical “The Phantom of the Opera.” With rights, schools may begin the performances starting September 1.

Pass Rate For Texas High School Exit Exam Improves.
The Dallas Morning News (6/4, Stutz) reports, “There will be no diplomas this spring for about one in 10 high school seniors from the Class of 2010 who failed one or more sections of [Texas'] high school graduation test, the Texas Education Agency reported Thursday.” The roughly 28,592 seniors statewide “who failed the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills and didn’t graduate with their classmates represented an improvement over last year, when about 14 percent of seniors were denied diplomas.” However, the TAKS results also showed that “minority students were most” negatively “affected by the graduation requirement as, 17 percent of black students and 14 percent of Hispanics were unable to pass all four sections of the exam, measuring skills in English, math, science and social studies.”

The AP (6/4) reports that students in “third through fifth grades and the seventh through 11th grades who took the state’s standardized test” Showed improvement, as did “high school juniors…according to a TEA statement.”

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In the Classroom
Some Elementary Schools To Begin Basing Student Placement On Achievement Data.
The St. Petersburg Times (6/4) reports that this fall, students at 21 elementary schools in Hillsborough County, Florida, will be placed in classes based on “test data and other measures of student achievement.” This system will place students “strategically with [peers] from several achievement levels. The goal is to reduce the range of levels in any classroom so teachers can reach students more effectively.” The St. Petersburg Times adds that the system is being implemented “in more than 50 schools in eight states…backed by a $448,052 grant from the federal Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Program.”

Missouri High Schools Become First To Earn Certification For PLTW Biomedical Program.
The Kansas City infoZine (6/3) reports that seven high schools in Missouri have become “the first in the country to earn national certification for their Project Lead The Way Biomedical Science programs.” The first Missouri schools begin piloting the program in 2007-08, and now thirteen in the state and “nearly 300″ nationwide are “using the PLTW Biomedical Science program and curriculum.” The article notes, “PLTW, originally known for its pre-engineering curriculum, began the Biomedical Sciences program in response to an expected shortage of qualified science and health professionals.”

On the Job
Language Of New DC Teacher Contract Mirrors That Of Expired Pact.
The Washington Post (6/4, Turque) reports, “On Wednesday, D.C. teachers ratified a new deal with provisions that include performance pay, new school turnaround models and improved mentoring.” According to the Post, the new contract’s provisions mirror many features of the contract “that expired Sept. 30, 2007, with many of its promises left unrealized.” Nevertheless, “both sides agree that the accord, which awaits final approval by the D.C. Council, will mean something only if both parties are serious about fulfilling its terms.”

New York City Mayor Urged To Negotiate Fairly With Teacher’s Union.
The New York Times (6/4) editorializes that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) “made the sensible choice this week when he opted to freeze teachers’ salaries instead of laying off teachers.” However, Bloomberg’s decision would have been “even better” if he “had decided to give the president of the teachers’ union, Michael Mulgrew, some early warning.” The Times adds that regarding the “reserve pool” of teachers being paid up to $100,000 annually yet are displaced from permanent posts, the “two sides must negotiate a fair and equitable system under which capable teachers find jobs quickly and teachers who cannot do the job are shown the door.”

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Law & Policy
Florida Education Officials Consider Ending Chocolate Milk Sales In Schools.
The St. Petersburg Times (6/4, Catalanello) reports that Florida’s Board of Education is “entertaining a policy that would end the sale of flavored milk in schools.” The idea is opposed by “Florida’s milk farmers and school nutrition directors” who say that “if chocolate is removed, kids will give up on the calcium-rich beverage altogether.” According to The Dairy Council of Florida, “a study of milk purchased in an affluent, suburban Connecticut town…in 2008″ shows “that in a three-month period after flavored milk stopped being offered, overall milk purchases declined 67 percent in grades 3 to 8.” But Dr. David Katz, “director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center at Yale University,” also weighed in, arguing, “If the only beverage available were water, the kids would be just fine.”

Rendell Asks Pennsylvania Lawmakers To Boost Education Funding By $354 Million.
Pennsylvania’s Patriot-News (6/4, Andren) reports that Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) “and lawmakers agreed Thursday after their first official budget negotiation that a willingness to compromise exists in order to finish next year’s budget by the June 30 deadline.” Still, the governor hinted “at a news conference Thursday afternoon…that he would be willing to blow past that deadline to fight for funding public education, one of the priorities of his two-term tenure.” Despite the state’s “$1.2 billion budget deficit,” he “is asking lawmakers to approve a $354 million increase in basic-education funding.” Of education Rendell stated that “there’s nothing more important to the commonwealth’s future –nothing.”

Court Weighs School Discipline For Web Posts.
The AP (6/4, Dale) reports that the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals “heard arguments Thursday over whether school officials can discipline students for making lewd, harassing or juvenile Internet postings from off-campus computers. Two students from two different Pennsylvania school districts are fighting suspensions they received for posting derisive profiles of their principals on MySpace from home computers.” According to the AP, “The American Civil Liberties Union argued that school officials infringe on student’s free speech rights when they reach beyond school grounds in such cases to impose discipline.”

Special Needs
Chicago Public Schools Taps Principal To Overhaul Special Education.
The Chicago Tribune (6/3, Huppke, Ahmed) reports, “Longtime Chicago school principal Dick Smith has been given a mandate: take Chicago Public Schools’ (CPS) special education program, long subjected to withering criticism, and change it into a system focused on education…that responds rapidly and effectively to the needs of students and the concerns of parents.” As “head of CPS’ Office of Specialized Services, Smith “plans to create a system that would allow the district to spot any school that was having repeated problems with special needs students.” He hopes “to create a culture of ownership at local schools, where principals and staff are held accountable for the education of children with special needs.” The Tribune notes that Smith’s “appointment came two months after the district promised a systemwide revamp in response to a series of Tribune stories highlighting widespread failures in the special education program.”

Safety & Security
Impact Of Chicago Public Schools Anti-Violence Program Still Unclear.
The Chicago Tribune (6/4, Ahmed) reports that in September, the Chicago Public Schools “district announced [an] unprecedented two-year, $60 million initiative to keep kids safe in and out of school. But despite the promise of isolated pieces of the program, its larger impact is impossible to tally as it nears the halfway mark.” According to the Tribune, “Youth homicides and shootings have dipped this year, but it’s difficult to credit the anti-violence initiative because so much of it is still in the planning stages.”

School Finance
Education Stakeholders Concerned About Recession’s Toll On High Schools.
The AP (6/4, Chea, Armario) reports, “Students graduating from high school this spring may be collecting their diplomas just in time, leaving institutions that are being badly weakened by the nation’s economic downturn. Across the country, mass layoffs of teachers, counselors and other staff members – caused in part by the drying up of federal stimulus dollars – are leading to larger classes and reductions in everything that is not a core subject, including music, art, clubs, sports and other after-school activities.” According to the AP, “Educators and others worry the cuts could lead to higher dropout rates and lower college attendance as students receive less guidance and become less engaged in school.”

Some Boston-Area Districts Resort To Layoffs Due To Rising Costs.
The Boston Globe (6/3, Rosenberg) reports, “With the economic turndown showing few signs of letting up, more than 100 educators are expected to receive pink slips from school districts” throughout Massachusetts “in the coming weeks.” Beverly Superintendent James Hayes Jr. said that “rising health insurance premiums, teacher salary raises, and special education costs have added millions annually to school budgets.” The Boston Globe provides examples of the budget decisions being made in Massachusetts districts facing layoffs.

Las Vegas Chamber Of Commerce Issuing Series Of Reports On Local Education.
The Las Vegas Sun (6/3, Richmond) reported that “with the Clark County School District as the state’s largest employer,” the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce’s new president and CEO, Matt Crosson, has been taking a close look at public education over the past month. “One of his first tasks as chief of the Las Vegas Chamber is to explore better partnerships with the School District.” In May, the chamber began launching “of a series of reports on” education. The first report “concluded that at certain grade levels, socioeconomic factors were a more significant influence on student achievement than funding levels.” Crosson said that does not “mean schools that are reeling from steep budget cuts don’t need more money.” Instead, he asserted, “the real issue should be figuring out what are the most effective ways to spend the education money.”

Also in the News
CDC Study: 1 In 5 High School Students Taking Medicines Without Prescriptions.
The AP (6/3) reported that a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “report shows one in five high school students have taken a prescription drug that they didn’t get from a doctor. The abused drugs include pain pills and attention deficit drugs used as study aids.” The CDC “study found that the drug use was most common among 12th graders” and “white students took the drugs more than blacks or Hispanics.”

Apple Issues Free iPads To Fifth-Graders At School In Florida.
The Apple Insider (6/4, Lane) reports, “Thirteen fifth-grade students” from Watergrass Elementary School in Wesley Chapel, Florida, “were given free iPads by Apple, and could appear in a forthcoming advertising campaign after they were photographed excitedly eyeing the company’s new hardware.” Apple’s Andrea Barr said that her “heart melted” after receiving the photos from “the school’s instructional technology specialist.” Apple’s vice president of education, John Barr, is now interested “in potentially using the photos for” advertising. And, he “decided to reward the 13 children seen in the photos with iPads.”

Special Needs Students At Florida School Perform Romeo & Juliet.
The Miami Herald (6/4, Morel) reports on “the spring performance of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, presented by 25 students…from The Learning Experience School” for “students with special needs.” Drama teacher Rebecca Cartaya condensed “the original five-act play…down to a 90-minute performance.” The Herald notes that at first, the school’s executive director, Cristina Cartaya, thought that “the thys and thees throughout the dialogue seemed intimidating. But when students began memorizing their lines and parts, she changed her mind.” Said Cristina Cartaya, “We set the limit on people. That’s something that we don’t do at this school. … [The students] surprise us every single day.”

NEA in the News
Efforts To Ban Ethnic Studies Viewed As Misguided.
Attorney Raul A. Reyes writes in an op-ed for the Christian Science Monitor (6/4) though he avoided taking a` Chicano studies class as a youth, in “hindsight” he sees that “a Chicano studies course” could “have filled in some critical” knowledge gaps and given him “a better context for understanding American history.” He adds that while Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) signed a “law banning ethnic studies,” Arizona “is not the only state whitewashing its public education.” The Texas State Board of Education “recently approved textbook guidelines that give short shrift to minorities in favor of a conservative ideology.” In light of NEA data that shows “Arizona ranks 50th in expenditure per pupil in grades K-12,” Reyes asks, “Doesn’t Brewer have more important things to do besides ensuring that Arizona’s schoolchildren do not learn about the Aztecs in a state that is one-third Latino?”

NEA Backs House Members’ Push For Teacher Jobs Bill.
The Hill (6/7, Alarkon) reports, “Soon after Congress returns from the Memorial Day recess…House Democrats and teacher unions will make one last push to pass a $23 billion fund to prevent teacher layoffs.” A letter written by “Democratic Reps. Maurice Hinchey (NY), Phil Hare (IL) and Bob Etheridge (NC)” and signed by “104 other House Democrats,” the NEA, and other teachers unions, says, “states are still facing bleak budgetary outlooks and may very well have to cut funding for education in order to balance budgets. … If Congress does not pass additional funding for education jobs soon, many of the jobs that have been supported by [the stimulus] will be lost.”

The Miami Herald (6/6, Goldstein, Sampson) reported that “the layoffs already have begun,” and “advocates for teachers are calling them catastrophic.” For example, “large, populous states such as California and Texas…are each expected to absorb the loss of more than 30,000 teachers and other personnel, according to White House estimates.” The Herald notes that while some “in the House of Representatives had hoped to pass the $23 billion emergency bailout as part of a spending bill for the war in Afghanistan that was slated for passage…fiscally conservative members from tough districts” did not want to “defend another vote that would increase the deficit.”

Duncan Says He Has No “Plan B” For Saving Jobs, Urges Congress To Approve Teacher Fund. The AP (6/4, Dalesio) reported Education Secretary Arne Duncan also “warned Thursday that without federal funds, thousands of teachers would be laid off in the coming weeks.” While visiting Southern High School in Durham, North Carolina with Gov. Beverly Perdue and US Rep. Bob Etheridge (D-NC), Duncan said, “We are strongly urging Congress to take action and take action this month. … I don’t have a Plan B. Plan B is children around the country are going to get hurt.”

Congress Urged To Pass Teacher Jobs Bill. The Oregonian (6/5) editorialized, “Over the past 18 months the federal government has hurled hundreds of billions of dollars at Wall Street bankers, Main Street businesses and virtually every public or private program that might protect or create jobs. But now that it’s public education — and teachers — feeling the brunt of the recession, there’s a new message from Washington: You’re on your own.” The Oregonian added, “As members of Congress return to work this week from their Memorial Day break, they must look with fresh eyes at legislation that would send $23 billion to the states to prevent mass teacher layoffs, early school closures and other deep budget cuts throughout the nation’s school systems.”

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In the Classroom
Hands On Activities Help Students Learn, Hone Handwriting Skills.
The Arizona Republic (6/7, Javier) reports that some Arizona schools “are getting their students to develop proper handwriting skills early using unique techniques to help them succeed later in school.” Some techniques include “using Play-Doh to shape letters and learning to form a letter always starting from the top.” They “are part of the Handwriting Without Tears curriculum, designed for students in kindergarten through fifth grade.” Handwriting Without Tears “incorporates songs and hands-on activities to help children learn how to form and identify letters and to remember the correct way to write them.” For instance, students use “straight and curved wood pieces” to “form letters.”

Number Of School Suspensions In Delaware Nearly Double National Average.
The Wilmington (DE) News Journal (6/7, Dobo) reports that the number of suspensions in Delaware schools is “nearly double the national average.” Throughout the state, “22,828 of the 125,430 students in public schools” — or about one in five students — “were suspended or expelled, missing tens of thousands of school days.” Nearly 80 percent of those students “were sent home for non-criminal offenses, infractions ranging from breaking the dress code to cutting class.” While “state officials agree Delaware’s rate is too high” they say that “local school leaders [have] autonomy to decide what punishments are warranted.” Meanwhile, “school and district leaders…argue that sometimes suspension of a child disrupting the entire class is the best option for the remaining students.”

Black, Special Needs Students Disproportionately Suspended In Delaware Schools. The Wilmington News Journal (6/7, Dobo) reports, “Educators in Delaware’s public schools disproportionately punish boys, black children and special education students, a News Journal analysis of state school suspension and expulsion data shows.” For instance, “black students made up about 32 percent of the public school population last year, but they accounted for about 55 percent of the students who were suspended or expelled.” According to experts, this “pattern mirrors a national trend.” Although “state and school district officials acknowledge the discrepancy in all of the state’s school districts…some do not believe it points to unfair discipline.” Russ Skiba, director the Indiana-based Equity Project, said that “to assume the disproportionate punishments are caused by racism would be too simplistic,” because other factors such as “the attitudes and training of the staff and the policies in place to deal with disruptive youth” also contribute to the rates.

Black Student Population In Dallas Schools Down Sharply.
The Dallas Morning News (6/7, Hacker, Hobbs) reports in the first of a two-part series, “Black students formed a majority in Dallas schools through the 1980s and ’90s” yet in the “last 10 years, though, the number of black children has fallen by nearly 20,000, or about a third. Meanwhile, Hispanic children have filled their seats as the district’s overall enrollment remains fairly flat at about 157,000.” According to the Morning News, “the trend seen in Dallas schools is part of a larger national move away from inner cities for many black families, but the plunge is steeper in Dallas ISD than other urban districts in Texas and is among the biggest declines nationally.”

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On the Job
Online Curriculum System Helps Enhance Collaboration Among Teachers.
The Bakersfield Californian (6/5, Barrientos) reports on the “new Bakersfield City School District (BCSD) online curriculum system called Learning Village.” The system, launched this year in BCSD, will cost the district “$500,000 for three years,” and “is the first of its kind implemented districtwide in California.” It “holds digitized textbooks” and allows educators to “create lesson plans online, from anywhere, and share them with others.” In addition, it “allows teachers to connect their lesson plans to SMART boards.” The Bakersfield Californian explains how teachers throughout BCSD are utilizing the new system to enhance collaboration among peers and classroom instruction.

Districts With Four-Day Schedules See Improvements, Drawbacks.
The AP (6/6) reported that in “more than 120 school districts across the country…students attend school just four days a week, a cost-saving tactic gaining popularity among cash-strapped districts struggling to make ends meet.” Some of these districts “say they’ve seen students who are less tired and more focused, which has helped raise test scores and attendance.” Meanwhile, “others say that not only did they not save a substantial amount of money by being off an extra day, they also saw students struggle because they weren’t in class enough and didn’t have enough contact with teachers.”

Facilities
Elementary School In Arizona To Get Energy-Efficient Renovations This Summer.
The Arizona Republic (6/5, Yara) reported on the $9 million renovation of Aguilar Elementary School that will begin in July. “The plans include construction of a new 65,300-square foot, two-story building that will house classrooms and offices, and the remodeling of the multipurpose building.” The renovations “will include energy efficient cooling and electrical systems” and “classrooms…built to take advantage of natural light.” The construction is expected to continue through July 2011. Classes will be held at the school throughout the renovation. The Arizona Republic adds that “Feedback on design and practical needs from parents and teachers will be considered during the construction process, with certain touches added specifically to meet the Aguilar community’s requests.”

New High School In Florida District Incorporates Suggestions For Avoiding Future Expenses.
The St. Petersburg Times (6/6, Solochek) reported that the new Fivay High School in Pasco County, Florida, “which has about four times more indoor space than a Publix grocery store, takes the best of past designs…along with the lessons learned from other recent new high schools.” Built at a cost of $49 million, the school “features many of the improvements that several principals recommended as necessary to avoid known future expenses.” For example, “the bus loop, student/staff parking and visitor lots don’t share common entrances…in an effort to avoid the traffic entanglements that snarl other high schools.” In addition, “the hallway double doors have removable center bars to make it easier to move furniture around.” And, “the cafeteria has six serving lines instead of four, as most other high schools have.”

Denver School District Restricts Public’s Access To New School Workout Centers.
The Denver Post (6/6, Robles) reported, “Just as Denver’s public schools convert their old tracks into gleaming modern workout centers, the school district is cutting off public access to prevent vandalism.” Already, “fields at four schools…have been completed, and fields at five other schools are under construction this summer.” When “the projects are completed, the tracks –many of which allowed public access before the renovations — are fenced off and locked down.” District facilities director, Trena Deane, said that “anyone interested in using the fields can do so by following a process.”

School Finance
Reaction To Race To The Top Mixed In California.
The New York Times /Bay Citizen (CA) (6/6, Shih) reported, “Over the past few months,” California “educators, the teachers unions and lawmakers have clashed so bitterly regarding the changes tied to Race to the Top that state officials privately say the weakened bid stands at best a 50-50 chance of gaining approval – and a sorely needed $700 million – from Washington.” According to the Times, the “Bay Area has been at the center of this fight” as San Francisco schools chief Carlos A. Garcia “had to be prodded into joining the bid by Ramon C. Cortines, the Los Angeles schools superintendent, and even now he continues to openly criticize a federal program that he hopes will send $20 million to the San Francisco Unified School District, which is facing a $113 million deficit.”

Also in the News
Elementary Principal To Hold Assemblies Via Skype While Deployed With Navy Reserves.
The Oklahoman (6/7, Painter) reports that Carol Perry, “principal at Stonegate Elementary School in northwest Oklahoma City,” has been deployed with the Navy reserve twice between 2002 and 2007. Those deployments took her to Kuwait, Iraq, and the UAE. Last October, “Perry learned she would be back in active service, going first to training and then Afghanistan in a joint mission with the Army.” Although she won’t be at the school next year, “the school district will use Skype video to allow Perry to speak to her students during assemblies on Fridays.” Said Perry of her reserve duties. “I’ve had many experiences other people haven’t. … I can share these with my students. It gives me a sense of pride in my country, and I want my kids to have that sense of pride.”

NEA in the News
Tampa Tribune Remembers Former NEA President.
The Tampa Tribune (6/7) eulogizes former NEA president Braulio Alonso. “Alonso graduated from Hillsborough High School, the University of Tampa and University of Florida and started his career in education as a chemistry and physics teacher at Plant High School.” During World War II, he was drafted into the military, where he “was awarded a Purple Heart and Bronze Star. After the war, Alonso headed a program to provide on-the-job training to returning veterans and helped establish the Veterans Institute for returning GIs to get high school diplomas,” which later became the Adult Education High School. Later, Alonso served as principal at three different schools in Florida, as president of the Hillsborough County Education Association, and as “president of the National Education Association,” where he “helped engineer its merger with the African-American Teachers Association.”

Supreme Court Will Not Hear No Child Left Behind “Unfunded Mandates” Case.
The AP (6/8) reports that “the Supreme Court has turned away a challenge by school districts and teacher unions to the federal No Child Left Behind law.” The lawsuit, School District of Pontiac, Mich. v. Duncan, “questioned whether public schools have to comply with requirements of the law if the federal government doesn’t pay for them. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit and a federal appeals court split 8-8, leaving the judge’s ruling in place.”

Mark Walsh wrote in the Education Week (6/7) “School Law” blog, “It’s the end of the line for the National Education Association-backed legal challenge to the No Child Left Behind Act.” The lawsuit was backed by “the NEA and nine school districts in Michigan, Texas, and Vermont.” Walsh added that “the justices issued no comment in declining the appeal.” He notes, however, that seven of the judges from the “US Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, in Cincinnati” who heard “the case last October” accepted “the NEA’s view about the law’s ‘unfunded mandates’ language, giving the union hope that the” Supreme Court “might be interested in taking up the case.” Walsh noted that “in a brief filed in May by US Solicitor General Elena Kagan on behalf of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Kagan urged the justices not to hear the union’s appeal.”

Bloomberg News (6/7, Stohr) reported that “the suit aimed to enforce a provision in the 2001 measure that says states and school districts can’t be forced to spend their own money implementing the law’s testing requirements and other rules.” Bacckers of the suit “contended that Congress underfunded” No Child Left Behind “by more than $30 billion from 2002 to 2006.”

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In the Classroom
Some Physical Education Classes In Nevada District Are Double Recommended Size.
The Las Vegas Sun (6/8, Richmond) reports that in Nevada’s Clark County school system, “there are no district regulations mandating class sizes for physical education.” According to the National Association for Sport and Physical Education, elementary P.E. classes should be capped at 25 students, “middle school classes at 30 and high school classes at 35.” But, P.E. classes twice the recommended size are not uncommon in Clark County, “and will become increasingly commonplace in August, because of budget cuts.” Joe Migoni, “a district elementary P.E. teacher who also is chairman of the professional association’s Southern Nevada chapter,” said that “with the proper equipment and instructional strategies, ‘it’s possible to conduct activities where large numbers of students have a high level of involvement.’” But, he added, “The bigger concern is whether those students are going to have the proper level of supervision for that to happen.”

Testing Company Faces Fine Over Delayed Release Of Florida Standardized Test Scores.
The Miami Herald (6/6, McGrory, Sampson) reported, “Within months of receiving a $254 million contract from the Florida Department of Education, a testing company with a troubled history ran into problems administering and scoring the state exams, records show.” NCS Pearson ha, in some past cases “delayed releasing some student scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Tests more than six weeks.” Last week, “a top state education official announced that the state will not release the bulk of the scores until the end of June — a full month later than in years past.”

The St. Petersburg Times (6/8, Matus) reports that NCS Pearson “may be on the hook for millions of dollars in damages for this year’s scoring delays.” A “2009 contract between” the testing company “and the Florida Department of Education requires the company to pay escalating penalties for” the delayed release of test “results deemed ‘extremely critical,’ including the results of” state standardized “reading and math tests in grades 4-10 and the science tests given to grades 5, 8 and 11.” The St. Petersburg Times notes that “some of those results were due May 19, according to the contract.”

On the Job
Idaho Law Allows Districts To Negotiate Lower Pay, Benefits For Teacher Contracts.
The AP (6/8, Bonner) reports, “Some teachers have fared better than others in the months since Idaho lawmakers opened the door for school districts to negotiate lower employee pay and benefits to help balance the books.” Though state law guarantees that teachers will receive “at least as much money as they earned in the previous year,” contracts “hammered out during salary talks this spring range from deals that force employees to take a handful of unpaid days off, to contracts with lower salaries across-the-board next year.” The AP notes that the “the legislation also declared a financial emergency for all Idaho schools, even if their districts aren’t close to exhausting their funds, which was required by a 2009 law before they could declare an emergency.”

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Law & Policy
Effort Launched To Encourage “College-Going Culture” In Texas.
The San Antonio Express-News (6/8) reports that “the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board on Monday announced the rollout of a $3 million grass-roots movement and marketing campaign to create a college-going culture throughout Texas, starting with San Antonio and Fort Worth.” The Generation TX initiative “aims to build support for the idea that every student, regardless of income or background, should pursue education beyond high school.” Coordinating Board official Judith Loredo explained, “We are not trying to say that every student has to have a four-year degree.” Instead the campaign encourages students to seek education beyond a high school diploma. The San Antonio Express News notes that the campaign is being funded through “a $3 million federal College Access Challenge Grant,” with much of the money going “to a marketing contract with Milkshake Media in Austin, which created Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong brand.”

Facilities
Detroit District To Shut Down 32 Schools This Month.
The Detroit News (6/8, Schultz) reports, “Eighteen Detroit Public Schools won’t be shutting after this year while several others were added to the district’s school closure list.” Now, “32 schools and one support building” are “slated to be closed this month.” Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb made the announcement Monday. The Detroit News notes that the 32 closures announced “are fewer in number than the original proposal by Bobb in March to close 41 school facilities. … Community feedback and further planning for the school construction bond program helped shape the final decisions.” In addition to “the closures this month, nine more schools will shut next year and four more in 2012 for a total of 45 schools over three years as part of Bobb’s master facilities plan.” The closures come as district enrollment shrinks. They will “save the…district $28 million annually for three years.”

Some Arizona Districts Taking On Fewer Construction Projects This Summer.
Arizona’s East Valley Tribune (6/8, Reese) reports that “while summers past have brought about construction and major remodeling projects,” in East Valley school districts, just two new buildings will be going up this year: “a 30,000-square foot classroom building” at Skyline High School in Mesa and “a new aquatic center the city is building on land donated by the district.” In addition, there will be some “typical summertime maintenance and smaller projects, such as flooring replacement, energy upgrades and kitchen cleaning.” The East Valley Tribune attributes the lag in school construction to a lack of funding. “The state’s School Facilities Board has provided funds to districts in the past to conduct building repairs and maintenance, but with the state’s fiscal crisis, those funds have dried up, putting the bulk of the burden back on districts through either their maintenance and operations budgets or bond funds approved by voters.”

School Finance
Grand Rapids BOE Approves $212.7 Million Budget That Could Move More Instruction Online.
The Grand Rapids (MI) Press (6/8, Reinstadler) reports, “The Grand Rapids Board of Education approved a $212.7 million budget, which includes changes in how students are instructed, including a controversial move to more online education.” The new budget calls for “moving more high school instruction online, offering hands-on electives city wide, and eliminating half of art and music instruction in elementaries and K-8 schools.”

Critic Files Complaint Against DC Schools Chief Over Fundraising Efforts.
The Washington Post (6/8, Turque) reports that DC’s Office of Campaign Finance “will investigate a complaint, filed” against Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee by critic Robert V. Brannum. The complaint alleges “that Rhee violated the law by soliciting donations from private foundations that reserved the right to pull their funding if there was a change in the school system’s leadership.” Cecily E. Collier-Montgomery, the office’s director, said Friday “that there was ‘reasonable cause to believe that a violation has occurred’ and that ‘a full investigation is warranted in this matter.’”

Also in the News
Obama Urges Graduating Students To Take Responsibility For Their Lives.
The AP (6/8, Superville, Martin) reports that in his commencement speech at Kalamazoo Central High School in Michigan, President Barack Obama told students to “work hard and think of others.” He also encouraged them “to veer from the path of those who make excuses for their problems and blame others for their failures.”

The Christian Science Monitor (6/8, Turner) reports that not “too long ago, crime-related stories seemed to grab as many headlines as those about learning achievements and sports victories” at Kalamazoo Central High school. But, the school has seen improved academic achievement in recent years. According to the Monitor, the “key to that achievement has been” a program in which anonymous donors pledge “scholarship money to” Kalamazoo Public Schools graduates to attend “in-state colleges and universities.”

High School Junior From Baltimore Wins $50,000 Scholarship From Intel Competition.
The Baltimore Sun (6/8, Williams) reports on Eon Duzant a junior at W.E.B. DuBois High School in Baltimore who was awarded a $50,000 college scholarship to the Florida Institute of Technology “last month at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair held in San Jose,” California. The award “was presented in recognition of his outstanding scientific ability and academic curiosity.” Duzant’s project focused “on the center of gravity of robots equipped with mechanical arms.” Ultimately, he “hopes that his work can carry over to preventing automobiles from tipping over and planes and helicopters from spiraling out of control.” According to his mentor, Marvin Martin, Duzant “didn’t have access to state-of-the-art equipment or the financial backing of colleges or countries” as did “a number of international students” in the competition. The Baltimore Sun notes that with his scholarship, “Duzant will be the first person in his family to go to college.”

NEA in the News
Utah District, Teachers Reach Impasse Over Proposed Salary Freeze.
The Salt Lake Tribune (6/8, Winters) reports that the Jordan School District “has reached an impasse with the Jordan Education Association (JEA) on teacher contract negotiations for 2010-11 over the district’s plan to freeze teachers’ salaries next year.” JEA President Robin Frodge pointed out, “If all the surrounding districts get steps and lanes and we don’t, that will hurt our ability to be competitive with those districts in hiring [and retaining] the best teachers.” The two sides “will meet with a third-party mediator” to resolve the issue. The Salt Lake Tribune notes that other area districts plan “to fund step and lane increases,” despite budget gaps. A spokesperson for Jordan said that step increases would cost the district “$4.25 million and lane changes would run $900,000.”

First Lady Helps Launch New Childhood Health Initiative.
The Christian Science Monitor (6/9, Paulson) reports, “School is out for much of the country, and kids everywhere are looking forward to a few months off” yet “nutrition and education experts warn that for too many kids, summer break is also a time when they backslide educationally and fall into bad eating habits.” First lady Michelle Obama “helped launch another component to her campaign to tackle childhood obesity” on Tuesday, “this time targeting summer vacation.” The Obama “administration’s new ‘Let’s Read. Let’s Move’ campaign” aims to promote “exercise, healthy eating, and reading among kids on break from school.”

The Chicago Tribune (6/9, Katz) reports, “In the last month, the first lady announced that she was creating the Chefs Move to Schools program as part of her national Let’s Move campaign, which is designed to ‘solve the childhood obesity epidemic within a generation.’” The “The event was a launch pad for Department of Agriculture efforts, as the program arm for the first lady’s initiatives, to bring chefs and schools together.”

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In the Classroom
Students Launching Science Experiments To Edge Of Space For Summer Program.
MinnPost.com (6/8, Schmickle) reports on “Reach for the Sky,” a summer program on the White Earth Indian Reservation for 4th through 8th grade students, during which they will “launch science experiments to the edge of outer space,” and “test science theories and apply hands-on science and math to their world.” The program is sponsored by the University of Minnesota. Earlier this week, the students began building “eight miniature spacecraft, with about 5 science sensors plus a camera in each one, as well as tracking radios.” This morning, the students will begin preparations to launch their projects, and “students from the University of Minnesota’s High Altitude Balloon Team will help the Reach for the Sky kids analyze the data to address questions.”

Students Explore Ecological Challenges, Produce Documentary.
The Calgary Herald (6/8, Gravenor) reported on a group of students at John Paul I High School, who earlier this year “explored the environmental challenges facing” Canada and came up “with real-life solutions and produced a video documentary that proposes ways to improve the environment.” The students researched and gave three-minute talks about topics such as conservation and renewable energy. “The half-hour video included 10 sections that were produced by the students, along with Alessandra Di Viccaro, a teacher of history and geography in the IB section at John Paul I,” and “a copy of the video was later presented to” a lawmaker who “came to speak at the school and hear the students out on important environmental and social issues.”

Eighty-Nine Wisconsin Schools Miss NCLB Mark.
The AP (6/9, Bauer) reports, “Eighty-nine Wisconsin schools along with the Milwaukee and Beloit districts are on a state list released Tuesday for repeatedly failing to meet” NCLB standards. The “individual schools and the districts made the list under the more serious ranking of ‘schools identified for improvement’ for failing to make adequate progress in the same category for two consecutive years. Also, 145 schools and the Milwaukee, Madison, Racine and Green Bay districts were identified for missing at least one of the standards for the first time.”

The WUWM-FM Milwaukee, WI (6/8, Dennis) reported on its Website, “Eighty-nine Wisconsin schools along with the Milwaukee and Beloit districts have failed to make progress in problem areas under [NCLB]. According to the Department of Public Instruction, 71 percent of those schools receive federal funding for students in poverty.”

On the Job
New Jersey School System Will No Longer Pay For Out-Of-District Training For Teachers.
Mike Pigantaro wrote in The Caldwells (NJ) Patch (6/8) blog that the Caldwell-West Caldwell School District will not “pay for its teachers to attend out-of-district workshops next year due to budget cutbacks.” School board members speculated Monday night as to whether the change would result in fewer teachers attending out-of-district workshops. “According to Barry Bachenheimer, the district’s director of instructional services, the answer isn’t clear.” But he said, “Knowing the professionalism of our staff and knowing that they pay money out of their own pockets to buy supplies…I wouldn’t be surprised if they still attend a fair amount of workshops out of their own pocket.” Bachenheimer also pointed out that even though “the district will no longer pay for the workshops…teachers will be” granted the “time and substitutes” in order “to attend these programs.”

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Law & Policy
Ohio Becomes Seventh State To Adopt Common Math, English Standards.
The Columbus Dispatch (6/8, Candisky) reports, “Ohio has become the seventh state to adopt common academic standards spelling out what students should know in mathematics and English-language arts to ensure they are ready for college and a career” after the state Board of Education voted unanimously in favor of the standards. “Ohio was among 48 states, two territories and the District of Columbia working together for the past year to develop Common Core State Standards.” The Dispatch notes, “The state board also voted 16 to 1 to approve new science and social-studies standards developed by the Department of Education despite complaints that the science guidelines are weaker than the ones they will replace.”

Connecticut Law Increases Penalties For Falsifying School Bus Safety Records.
School Transportation News (6/9, Babcock) reports that on Sunday, Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell (R) “signed a bill into law that will increase penalties for falsifying school bus safety records or transporting students on out-of-service buses.” The new “law comes on the heels of recently signed legislation that will help bus companies pay for new school buses equipped with three-point seat belts by covering a portion of the sales tax.”

Safety & Security
Search For Missing Child In Oregon Highlights School Safety Procedures.
KDRV-TV Medford, Oregon (6/8, Sandberg) reported that “the search for a seven-year-old Portland boy who was last seen at his school last Friday is bringing school safety procedures to the forefront” in southern Oregon schools. “Elementary school methods for keeping track of students include checking attendance and calling the homes of absent students to find out where they were last seen.” At other schools, teachers monitor “kids outside when they come and go from school.” According to some school administrators, “one of the most important things is having a staff that is always aware of a given situation.”

KOHD-TV Salem, Oregon (6/8) reported, “The massive search for seven-year old Kyron Harmon returns no developments Tuesday.” The child “went missing sometime between leaving his step-mom at a science fair and entering his classroom, just down the hall.” In a separate story, KDRV-TV (6/8) reported that “investigators have interviewed the families of about 90 percent of the students at” Skyline Elementary School, where Kyron “has been missing for five days.” According to Multnomah County sheriff’s Capt. Jason Gates, as of Tuesday, “that there have been no significant developments in” Kyron’s disappearance.

School Finance
Rising Claim Costs Force Florida District To Consider Changing Healthcare Coverage.
The St. Petersburg Times (6/9, Marshall) reports, “Employees of the Hillsborough County school system may see changes to their health care coverage in the coming year, as the district grapples for ways to balance the budget without layoffs, officials said Tuesday.” The district would have to “pay around $29 million more” than it already does in order “to keep the existing Humana policy as it is,” because of “soaring claim costs.” This, along with “other budget gaps…would create a shortfall of at least $37 million in the district’s projected $1.3 billion budget for next year.” To deal with rising costs, board members have considered “raising deductibles, encouraging the use of mail-order prescriptions, and publicizing a new service that allows patients to seek a second opinion on diagnoses.”

School Board Proposes Three Separate Start Times For Elementary Schools To Save Millions. The St. Petersburg Times (6/9, Matus) reports that “as part of an effort to make at least $11 million in budget cuts, Pinellas County school officials are discussing a new bell and busing schedule that would have” three separate start times for elementary schools: “7:30, 8:35 and 9:20 a.m., depending on the school.” The new schedule “could save 50 bus routes and about $2.25 million without discontinuing transportation for anyone who is eligible now.” Overall, the district needs “to cut $26 million to balance next year’s budget” due to “declining enrollment and continued reductions in state education spending.”

Pearson To Pay Maryland District $2.25 Million To Develop Elementary Curriculum.
The Washington Post (6/9, Birnbaum) reports that the Montgomery County, Maryland public “school system will be paid $2.25 million to develop an elementary school curriculum that an education company will augment and sell around the world. … Under the terms” of the deal, “Pearson…will acquire the expertise of one of the nation’s top school systems and the right to use its name and its top employees as sales tools.” The Post notes that according to school officials,” money from the deal will allow them to double the dozen people who have been working on the curriculum, speeding its completion and saving money on implementation.”

Also in the News
More US High Schools Opting For Environmentally Friendly Commencement Robes.
The Los Angeles Times (6/8, Gordon) reports that “a number of high schools and colleges around California and the nation” are “adopting environmentally friendly graduation garb made from either renewable wood fibers or recycled plastic bottles. The eco-robes being worn at” Animo Venice Charter High School (Venice, CA), “for example, are designed to decompose quickly if graduates decide to discard them. … Call it social responsibility or savvy marketing, graduation eco-chic was launched this year by several companies and taken up by such California schools as Mills College in Oakland, the University of San Diego, UC Berkeley and Humboldt State.”

Company Could Face Millions In Fines For Delayed Florida Test Results.
The Miami Herald (6/9, McGrory, Sampson) reports that “Florida Education Commissioner Eric Smith on Tuesday slammed the testing company in charge of administering the FCAT for delaying the release of this year’s scores.” Smith also “threatened to impose hefty fines, which are likely to reach into the millions of dollars.” The company could pay up to “$250,000 for each day it missed a critical deadline.” Adam Gerber, a spokesman for NCS Pearson, “the testing company…apologized for the delays.” Said Gerber, “With the benefit of hindsight, we underestimated the challenges involved in aligning technology systems between Pearson, the Department of Education and the state’s schools.” Meanwhile, state lawmakers called “for an investigation into how the company was hired — and its problems since.”

The Christian Science Monitor (5/28, Khadaroo) notes that “economic segregation is on the rise in American schools.” According to Richard Kahlenberg of The Century Foundation, “a public policy research group in Washington,” the “separation of rich and poor is the fountainhead of inequality.” He said that high-poverty schools “get worse teachers … are more chaotic … [have] lower levels of parental involvement … and lower expectations than at middle-class schools — all of which translate into lower levels of achievement.” But, the Monitor points out, “cities aren’t the only places facing this challenge.” While 40 “percent of urban elementary schools have high poverty rates…13 percent of suburban and 10 percent of rural elementary schools do as well.”

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In the Classroom
Parents At Elementary School In Baltimore Outraged By Standardized Test Cheating Scandal.
The Baltimore Sun (5/28, Green) reports, “Parents expressed outrage Thursday that someone at Baltimore’s George Washington Elementary School changed thousands of answers on state standardized tests in a cheating scandal that is calling into question the school’s hard-fought achievements.” On Thursday morning, “Alonso and state schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick held a joint news conference…to announce the revelations” found through an 18-month city and state investigation. Alonso said that while it was not “clear who had tampered with the tests, the responsibility lies with the school’s leadership.” The Baltimore Sun notes that Alonso has revoked the certification of George Washington Elementary Principal Susan Burgess. But, the “president of the city principals and administrators union,” expressed concern Thursday that the revocation has set a precedent “that could affect future principals who are in the middle of a controversy, even if they are not found guilty of any wrongdoing.”

Baltimore Sun: Standardized Tests Should Be Removed From School Immediately After Testing. The Baltimore Sun (5/28) editorializes, “Baltimore schools CEO Andres Alonso and state schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick deserve credit for their extensive investigation into suspected cheating at George Washington Elementary School.” Nevertheless, Alonso still “has to worry about how this incident feeds into a cynical narrative about Baltimore’s students and the city in general.” The Baltimore Sun asserts that “changes to the exam process could make it much more difficult for some other school to repeat what happened at George Washington.” Last year, instead of having “test booklets arrive at schools well in advance of the exam,” Alonso and Grasmick, seeking to prevent “cheating at George Washington…sealed the exams and removed them from the school immediately after the test. That should become standard practice,” says the Baltimore Sun.

Fifth Grade Class In Utah Participates In Pen Pal Program With Senior Citizens.
The Salt Lake Tribune (5/28, Sanchez) reports that the L. Clark Cushing Heritage Center in Murray, Utah, is in its twelfth year of partnering “with an elementary school class for its pen pal program, arranging for students to exchange letters with senior citizens throughout the year.” This year, “the center teamed up with Ellie Ferrero’s fifth-grade class at Liberty Elementary School.” The class met with their pen pals “for the first time in December over a holiday luncheon.” The two groups “reunited last week over a game of bingo and ice cream at the program’s end-of-the-year party.” Center director Susan Gregory said that “the program is a way to show students that seniors can be ‘vibrant, educated and fun’ and gives adults a chance to stay connected to the youth.”

High School Students Used Calculators To Cheat On Test.
The Denver Post (5/27, Meyer) reported that six students at Golden High School in Colorado “were caught cheating on a chemistry final last week, forcing the school to make all 100 students enrolled in the course take the exam again before summer break begins next week.” The cheating scheme involved a former student, who “sold the previously administered final exam to current students.” Some of the current students then “loaded the answers onto their calculators, principal Mike Murphy said.” Researchers on the subject of student behaviors say that, “academic dishonesty has long been prevalent in high schools and in college,” but, they add, cheating methods have changed as “students have increased access to the Internet, camera phones and texting.”

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On the Job
Alabama Seeks To Define, Measure Teacher, Administrator Effectiveness.
The Birmingham (AL) News (5/28, White) reports that the Alabama Board of Education voted on Thursday to begin a study focused on how best to define and measure “teacher and principal effectiveness.” The study “eventually could lead to the state using student test scores and other objective measures of student achievement as the main ways of evaluating the effectiveness of public school teachers and principals,” according to the Birmingham News. The board is asking “members of the Governor’s Commission on Quality Teaching, the Governor’s Congress on School Leadership or the Education Reform and Innovation Council” to submit recommendations with the state schools superintendent “in time for him to suggest policy changes to the state school board by early 2011.”

Transition To Teaching Program Helps Fill Critical Shortages In West Virginia Schools.
West Virginia Public Broadcasting (5/27, Higgins) reports that through the federally-funded Transition to Teaching program, “teachers from various occupations” are filling “critical shortages” in West Virginia schools. The state is currently “critical teacher shortages in math, science, English, foreign language and special education.” Through Transition to Teacher workers in those fields can earn their teaching certification without an education degree. “A $600,000 federal appropriation pays for online classes, fees, travel to trainings, teacher certification tests, a laptop computer, and classroom materials.” And, “the program…provides mentors and coaches who help with lesson plans, instructional strategies, and classroom management.”

Law & Policy
Effort To Pass Teacher Jobs Measure Stalls In House.
The AP (5/28, Kellman) reports, “A $23 billion payout to save thousands of educators’ jobs faltered Thursday — perhaps for good” — after getting “only lukewarm support from the White House.” The AP notes that even as House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D) and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan called for passage of the teacher jobs measure at a news conference, “there were signs from the top down that not everyone considered the situation so dire.” Some lawmakers even “complained privately that the effort cried out for presidential advocacy,” as “Duncan seemed the only member of the administration making a case for it forcefully.”

WPost: Teacher Jobs Bill Flawed, Would Perpetuate Status Quo. The Washington Post (5/28) editorializes that White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Christina D. Romer has failed to make a compelling case for passing the teacher jobs bill in her op-ed for the Post as she “did not explain why retaining teachers stimulates the economy better than retaining, say, construction workers,” nor does she “weigh the costs and benefits of not borrowing another $23 billion from China.” The Post adds that if the goal of the $23 billion teacher jobs bill now before Congress is “to preserve the maximum number of good K-12 teachers at minimum cost, the bill would encourage states to lay off teachers according to ability, rather than seniority — as current rules, sacrosanct to unions, dictate. … Many jobs could be saved if more teachers accepted wage and benefits restraint, as workers in other hard-pressed industries have done.”

Louisiana Governor Signs Teacher Evaluation Overhaul Into Law.
The AP (5/28, Deslatte) reports that on Thursday, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) gave “final approval to a revamp of the state’s teacher evaluation process that [was] pushed against the wishes of teacher unions.” The new law will tie “at least half of a teacher’s review to student performance data – not the flat standardized test scores, but the growth in student achievement on those tests.” The AP notes that the measure was rushed “through final passage in recent days, with education officials arguing it could help bolster the state’s application for federal Race to the Top grant dollars.”

Hawaii Education Officials To Begin Preparing For Switch To Common Standards Next Year.
The Honolulu Advertiser (5/27, Moreno) reports that “next school year, education officials will begin widespread professional development and training to prepare public school teachers for the shift to common educational standards in math and English.” After “the standards are implemented in the 2011-12 school year, the vast majority of public schools in Hawai’i and nationwide will base their teaching on the same set of standards for the first time.” The Honolulu Advertiser points out that “There have long been arguments that Hawai’i's education system is failing in comparison to other states,” but “the new common core standards” would allow for more accurate comparisons. It adds that while “total costs are still uncertain,” the costs for switching to the new standards would come “in the form of new textbook purchases and professional development.”

School Finance
Rhode Island Legislature Approves Budget That Cuts $31 Million From Education.
The Providence Journal (5/28, Peoples, Gregg, Edgar) reports that “with one eye on Washington, a Rhode Island legislative panel endorsed a state budget Thursday night that slashes at least $150 million from local communities, trims public pension benefits and restores millions of dollars for arts and subsidized housing.” However, “the budget also slashes education aid by about $31 million, of which about $6.1 million would be offset by projected pension savings.”

Also in the News
High School Principal From Indiana To Join Development Team In Afghanistan.
Indiana Journal-Gazette (5/27, Haynie) reports that next school year, Jeremy Gulley, a National Guard soldier and principal of Huntington North High School in Indiana, “will take a one-year absence to serve in eastern Afghanistan” as “part of the National Guard’s 3-19th Agribusiness Development Team (ADT) — a group dedicated to helping Afghans learn to improve their farming.” In Afghanistan, Gulley will be “monitoring contracts — much like he does at school.” He and his team will “be joining about 60 soldiers from Indiana. Of the 60, 15 will be agriculture experts and 30 will provide security.” The ADT — the third from India — “will partner with the Afghan Agriculture Department to help farmers improve their agricultural techniques and hopefully increase their earning power.”

NEA in the News
New Jersey Education Association Supports State’s Race To the Top Application.
New Jersey’s Record & Herald News (5/28, Brody) reports that the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) has signed on to the state’s Race To The Top application, “after weeks of hashing out differences on tenure, merit pay and seniority with state education chiefs.” NJEA spokeswomen Dawn Hiltner said of the negotiations, “We’ve been pleasantly surprised they’ve been willing to work with us throughout this process.” According to NJEA officials, “the updated application retains seniority rights, and includes a modified system of merit pay that focuses on rewarding schools that make big strides rather than individual teachers.” The Record & Herald adds that “the NJEA wants district locals to sign on to the plan as well.”

Rhode Island Seeks Last-Minute Union Support For Race To The Top Bid.
The Providence Journal (5/28, Jordan) reports that only two local chapters of the National Education Association of Rhode Island (NEARI) have signed onto the state’s Race To The Top application, which state Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist plans to hand-deliver on Friday. But, “as of Thursday evening, the” NEARI had “declined to endorse the” application. “In an interview, Gist said she would be happy to receive NEARI’s support at any point before the June 1 deadline.” The Providence Journal notes that “Rhode Island’s application for round two is significantly stronger than its initial application in January.” Notably, it “establishes a committee that includes teachers to create a new yearly evaluation system for educators.”

Utah Education Association Announces Endorsement For Primary Runoff.
The Salt Lake Tribune (5/28, Gehrke) reports that “the Utah Education Association on Thursday endorsed Rep. Jim Matheson in Utah’s 2nd Congressional District Democratic primary” on June 22, “citing his support for a federal stimulus program that the teachers’ union says saved 2,000 education positions in the state.” In a press release, UEA President Kim Campbell stated, that Congressman Matheson has stood “up against private school vouchers” and helped “save teachers’ jobs during the current recession.”

Local Nevada State Education Association Affiliate Ratifies Contract That Freezes Pay.
The Las Vegas Sun (5/28) reports that members of the Clark County Education Association members on Wednesday “ratified a new contract with the School District that freezes teacher pay for one year.” According to the Las Vegas Sun, “the agreement will help the district close the bulk of a remaining $28 million budget gap without resorting to furlough days or layoffs.” The contract was approved by 76 percent of the 902 members who voted.

States Pass Education Reform Laws Ahead Of Race To The Top Deadline.
The New York Times (6/1, Dillon) reports that Colorado Democrats “backed by the state’s largest teachers’ union nicknamed legislation overhauling Colorado’s tenure and evaluation rules the ‘teacher scapegoat’ bill, and several lawmakers wept in public sessions during their monthlong battle to stop it. But other Democrats joined with Republicans to pass Colorado’s law, the most comprehensive of a dozen similar bills passed around the nation this year, in part to increase” the state’s chances to win Race to the Top funding. According to the Times, “Louisiana, Oklahoma and New York also approved bills modifying their tenure and evaluation rules in the last week, just in time to meet Tuesday’s application deadline for Round 2″ of the Race to the Top competition.

Some States Walk Away From Race To The Top. The AP (6/1, Williams) reports, “About two dozen states are going back to Washington for another shot at billions in education grants under the ‘Race to the Top’ program.” However, nine other states have not been lured by a “chance at hundreds of millions of dollars.” The AP cites “the opposition of teachers unions, the wariness of state leaders to pass laws to suit the program, and fears of giving up too much local control.” It lists “Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Oregon, South Dakota, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming” as the nine states opting out of the second round of Race To The Top.

Race To The Top Has Not Prompted Enough Education Reforms, Some Stakeholders Say. The Wall Street Journal (6/1, Banchero) reports that the Race to the Top education stimulus competition has prompted a number of states to pass education reform laws. However, according to the Journal, some education reformers have expressed concern that education reforms prompted by the competition have not been as comprehensive as expected.

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In the Classroom
“Fifth Quarter” In Cincinnati Public Schools Combines Academics, Day Camp Activities.
The Cincinnati (OH) Enquirer (5/31, Amos) reported that Cincinnati Public Schools is “holding a ‘fifth quarter’ of summer instruction” this year. “The fifth quarter is a two-year-old pilot program that combines summer-school academics with day camp activities, in an effort to close achievement gaps at Cincinnati Public’s 16 worst-performing elementary schools.” The 3,368 students who have chosen to attend fifth quarter this year will spend “the next four weeks in daily reading, math, science and social studies lessons.” The Enquirer notes that “last year at this time, 1,471 students, or about 38 percent, had signed on at 13 schools.” This year’s participation accounts for “about 42 percent of the [sixteen] participating schools’ total enrollment.”

More Teachers Allowing Students To Sit On Fitness Balls Instead Of Chairs.
The Salt Lake Tribune (6/1, Schencker) reports that in Meredith Dyer’s fourth-grade class at Adelaide Elementary School in Bountiful, Utah, “about one-third of the students sit on large, colorful fitness balls instead of chairs.” According to Dyer, the balls help students who had trouble paying attention in class. Dyer is one of “at least hundreds of…teachers nationwide” who have switched from using only hard chairs in their classrooms to medicine balls for seats, “saying it helps their kids to shake off excess energy, focus, and improve their posture.” The Salt Lake Tribune points out that a “study published in the American Journal of Occupational Therapy in 2003 found the balls could help kids with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) stay seated and write more clearly.”

Elementary Students Use Animation Lab To Enhance Vocabulary Assignments.
The Hilton Head Island Packet (5/30, Cerve) reported on the animation lab at Bluffton Elementary School In Hilton Head, South Carolina. “Students use the lab to bring new life to weekly vocabulary words, historical events and science topics, such as the Earth’s orbit around the sun.” For one assignment, “students demonstrated their ability to distinguish between figurative and literal language by animating idioms.’” To bring the lab to the school, Principal Christine Brown “worked with the Savannah College of Art and Design,” choosing “animation software geared toward children.” The program was paid for using “prize money through the state Department of Education’s Palmetto Gold and Silver awards program, which last year gave monetary awards to schools who earned high marks on school report cards.”

Students In Virginia School Get Hands-On Lesson In Economics.
The Washington Post (5/30, Freeman) reported that last week, about 170 second-graders at Liberty Elementary School in South Riding, VA “worked as producers in their school’s ‘Krazy Krayon’ factory. The idea behind the factory, brought to the school by teacher Julie Ciardiello in 2008…is to give students a hands-on understanding of economics.” For the program, students create their products and sell them to their peers. The “goal is to raise enough money to pay for running the project, including new molds, burners, raffle prizes and treats for custodians, who have to deal with the added mess.”

AP Grade Weighting Unnecessary, Study Finds.
Jay Mathews wrote in a column for the Washington Post (5/31), “Like all human beings, educators accept rules and procedures that make sense to them, even when academic types wave data in their faces proving they are wrong. That appears to be the case with one of the most powerful and widespread practices in Washington area high schools — the extra grade point for college-level courses.” According to Mathews, research from the Texas Schools Project at the University of Texas at Dallas shows that “grade weighting for Advanced Placement courses is unnecessary” as when the study, conducted by senior researcher Kristin Klopfenstein, “compared schools that weighted AP with those that didn’t, there was no significant difference in AP course taking.”

Free Books Halt “Summer Slide” Among Low-income Students.
USA Today (6/1, Toppo) reports on an “experimental program in seven states” that provides “low-income students an armful of free books” in “districts from Nevada to South Carolina.” According to USA Today, “Research has shown that simply giving children books may be as effective as summer school – and a lot cheaper. The big question is whether the effect can be replicated on a larger scale and help reduce the USA’s nagging achievement gap between low-income and middle-class students.”

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On the Job
Educators Seek To Revamp Teacher Training.
The AP (5/30, Blankinship) reported that critics say few teacher colleges “provide adequate nuts-and-bolts teaching skills such as public speaking, classroom management, and dealing with the class goof-off.” According to some educators teachers often fail to keep “youths engaged,” lead “meaningful class [discussions],” or use “student test data to assess when students are ready to move on.” According to the AP, “Educators nationwide have begun to work together on what teacher education needs to look like in the future,” and in “a speech to Columbia University’s Teachers College last fall, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said the federal government would be investing in the reform of teacher training programs as part of the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.”

DC Teachers Likely To Ratify Contract.