John was tragically taken from us in the early morning of Sunday, October 16, 2011, when he was hit by a car trying to help another individual. John not only left behind his parents, but he also left behind two small children ages 8 and 10.

Function 11, a fantastic band, will be performing the evening of Saturday, November 19, 2011, at 8:00pm. Advance ticket sales are $20.00, with ticket prices of $25.00 at the door. A portion of the door sales will go directly to the benefit of John’s children through his parents. There will also be 50/50 ticket sales as well as other gift prizes, which will benefit the children and also help the APEAPF provide a scholarship in John’s name in the Asbury Park School District to be given out in June.

If you are unable to attend, but would like to donate to this worthy cause, please send a check to:

The Asbury Park Education Association Philanthropic Fund (APEAPF)
658 Cookman Ave.
Suite 19
Asbury Park, NJ 07712
(In the memo section, please write: FBO John Key)

We look forward to seeing you at this very worthy cause.

ASBURY PARK — The Board of Education is moving ahead to get a new synthetic turf football field installed by the end of the school year, and hired Leon S. Avakian Consulting Engineers to get bidding documents ready and to supervise the project.

The board Wednesday night awarded a $145,000 contract to the engineering firm.

Geoffrey Hastings, school business administrator, said Avakian was chosen after getting quotes from other firms. The total cost of the project is expected to be in the range of $1.1 million, school officials said.

Board President Gregory Hopson said the board has planned to get a turf field for some time because of the Canada geese problem on the field adjacent to Deal Lake.

“We do have the finances to put our turf in,” Hopson said Wednesday.

School officials also asked families to come to a 5:30 p.m. meeting Thursday, Oct. 27 to learn how to support their children’s education through the Title 1 federal aid program that gives additional funds to districts with at-risk students to ensure that all children have a fair opportunity to obtain high quality education.

That meeting will be in the Barack Obama Building at 1300 Bangs Ave., which is being refurbished for its new school and community uses now that it is no longer operating as a neighborhood school. The district has reopened the Dorothy McNish Parent Center at the Obama Building.

LAKEWOOD — – The Lakewood School District has received notification that it will receive a federal School Improvement Grant – worth about $6 million over three years, said Michael I. Inzelbuch, school board attorney.

The money is part of $11.6 million given to New Jersey from the federal government. School districts were awarded money competitively based on compliance to a strict set of guidelines.

When announcing the application process during a board meeting in the spring, district Superintendent Lydia Silva said the money would be used to help turn Lakewood High School around and improve the graduation rate, which was 37.6 percent for the 2009-2010 school year. The monies will be used for new technology in the classrooms, educational tools for students and teacher professional development programs, Silva said.

“When a school continues to perform in the bottom five percent of the state and isn’t showing signs of progress or has graduation rates below 60 percent over a number of years, something dramatic needs to be done,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in an April news release.

In 2010, the federal government provided $546 million in SIG funds to turn around the lowest performing schools, according to the release.

The Lakewood School District received notification July 15 to send three administrative representatives to a two-week daily seminar in Jamesburg that will prepare them for the regulations and stipulations regarding the funding, Inzelbuch said.

At that same time, the Asbury Park School District learned that they were not receiving the grant, according to Denise Lowe, the district superintendent.

“The teachers and administrators worked tirelessly on the applications,” Lowe said. “The committee also had external support from Rutgers University as well as the NJEA. We will still work to implement some of the initiatives where possible as we continue our reform efforts in the district.”

The Lakewood district received a memo from the state that it “has been recommended for the funding,” Inzelbuch said, quoting from the memo.

The Lakewood High School is under new leadership with Albert Gilson, hired as principal at the June 30 meeting. He will attend the funding seminar with Silva and a representative from the district’s business department, Inzelbuch said.

To qualify for the grant, the board had to take action to remove the current principals of four school and to remove a significant portion of the staff, according to the SIG application process from the federal Department of Education.

Written by NANCY SHIELDS

ASBURY PARK — School Superintendent Denise Lowe Wednesday night was once again rebuffed in her effort to get the school board to accept her reorganization plan that would create early childhood centers of preschool up to third grade at two elementary schools and have fourth- and fifth-graders go to a third elementary school.

With six of nine board members present, the result was a 3-1 vote with two abstentions. The proposal needed a majority of the board, or five votes, to pass.

Lowe did not ask for a vote on a backup plan to close Barack Obama Elementary School, which also could result in bringing the district’s youngest children together in two locations.

It appeared likely, however, that some change will take place because Bruce Rodman, the state monitor who works each day in the district and has the final say on all fiscal matters, announced he was reserving the right to take action. After the meeting, Rodman said he has not yet made a final decision but plans to implement what is best for the district. Lowe said she and Rodman are working very closely.

A significant loss in enrollment the past eight years and lower standardized test scores for elementary students are driving the need for the district to make significant changes in how students are taught and in the use of district buildings.

At the meeting, board president Gregory Hopson and members Gregory Brewington and Garrett Giberson supported the superintendent’s plan. Connie Breech voted no. Kevin Michel and recently appointed John Morton both abstained.

Members Remond Palmer, Joseph Raines and Geneva Smallwood were absent. Palmer and Raines indicated earlier in the week that they were going to support the high school’s boys basketball team that was playing at the same time in a state championship tournament in Toms River.

The New York Times (1/19, Brown) reports that announcement by AdvancED “followed months of public power struggles between two groups of board members for control of the board. Atlanta is the largest school system that the accreditation group has ever placed on probation, according to its spokeswoman, Jennifer H. Oliver.”

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In the Classroom
New York City To Set Aside $10 Million To Provide Students Extra Help.
The New York Times (1/19, Santos) reports that New York City “announced on Tuesday that it had set aside $10 million to give extra help to tens of thousands of students who failed standardized exams last year after the state raised the standards for passing. The money will be distributed among 532 schools and will benefit nearly 50,000 fourth through eighth graders.” The funds “will be disbursed in amounts ranging from $6,000 to $65,000, and it will be up to principals to decide how to use it, whether on small-group classes, on individual lessons or on books and Web-based programs.”

On the Job
DC Mayor, Interim Schools Chief May Clash Over Teacher Evaluation System.
The Washington Post (1/19, Turque) reports that DC Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) “says that the IMPACT teacher evaluation system, regarded as former schools chancellor Michelle A. Rhee’s signature reform, has ‘a long way to go’ before it is fair because it disadvantages instructors in schools with large numbers of students challenged by the effects of poverty and other social conditions. … Gray’s criticism of IMPACT, his most explicit since entering office, echoes that of the Washington Teachers’ Union, a major financial supporter of his candidacy. It appears to clash with a core tenet of Rhee and her successor, Interim Chancellor Kaya Henderson: that excellent teachers can help children thrive academically, regardless of the students’ economic or social backgrounds.”

Teacher-Led Detroit School Innovates With Student Regrouping.
Education Week (1/18, Sawchuk) reported, “Detroit’s troubled school system remains in emergency management, its enrollment dwindling and its labor-management relations contentious. Yet in spite of those challenges, a school there is making a bid to innovate with many of the formal structures that have long guided not just teachers’ roles, but also how students are organized in classes.” According Education Week, “At Palmer Park Preparatory Academy, teachers are gradually assuming administrative duties to become the city’s first teacher-led school.” Also, “a new, pilot schedule for 7th and 8th graders lets teachers regroup the middle school students in different English/language arts and math classes frequently, based on the students’ performance and how quickly they are learning new material.”

Law & Policy
White House Expected To Mount Fresh ESEA Effort.
Education Week (1/18, Klein) reported, “A prominent and sustained White House push for renewal of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act-which is widely expected to be part of President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address next week-is viewed as crucial to prospects for the 9-year-old law’s reauthorization by a now-divided Congress. … Last March, the Obama administration released a blueprint for overhauling the ESEA, and even proposed $1 billion extra for K-12 education if Congress approved the proposal.” According to Education Week, “For the past year, US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has been championing ESEA overhaul on Capitol Hill. … ‘I think we have a great foundation of bipartisan enthusiasm for what we have done and for what we want to do,’ said Peter Cunningham,” the Education Department’s “assistant secretary for communications and outreach.”

Event Aims To Leverage ‘i3′ Competition Momentum.
Education Week (1/18, Klein) reported, “Dozens of nonprofit organizations that narrowly missed out on a slice of the $650 million Investing in Innovation grant program may get a new shot at private funding, thanks in part to an event being organized this week by the Aspen Institute in Washington. The event is seeking, in part, to continue the momentum that was spurred by the i3 program, which was created in 2009 as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the federal economic-stimulus program.” According to Education Week, “US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Jim Shelton, the assistant deputy secretary for innovation and improvement, are” slated to speak at the event.

Education Department Decision Not To Grant NH District A NCLB Waiver Criticized.
The New Hampshire Union Leader (1/19) editorializes, “Federal Education Secretary Arne Duncan talks a great deal about education reform — especially the need to change No Child Left Behind (NCLB). But given the chance to help Manchester [NH] by allowing a sensible waiver to a burdensome NCLB requirement, Duncan’s Department of Education said no. Manchester Mayor Ted Gatsas was justifiably upset at the snub, which came after Duncan trotted up to Manchester to use our schools as a prop for an education-reform publicity tour.” According to the Union Leader, if Duncan “can’t grant the waiver, then his dedication to improving NCLB is in serious doubt.”

Safety & Security
Two Students Injured When Gun Discharges At California School.
The Los Angeles Times (1/19, Allen, Landsberg, Blankstein) reports, “Third-period health class was just beginning Tuesday at Gardena [CA] High School when a 17-year-old boy walked in and set his backpack down on a desk. In the chaos that followed, accounts differed about precisely what happened. But this much was clear: A gun had discharged, apparently by accident; two students were wounded, one critically; and the campus of 3,100 was sent into a tense, frightening lockdown.” According to the Times, “Law enforcement sources told The Times one of the aspects of the investigation was whether the teen, a special education student, had been bullied on his way to and from school.”

The Los Angeles Times (1/19, Song) reports, “Administrators and staff randomly search students for weapons on Los Angeles city school campuses, but officials acknowledged that it is nearly impossible to keep all weapons away from classrooms. … It was the second time a gun was found on a Los Angeles Unified School District campus since classes began this school year, according to district officials. A gun was found at Sylmar High earlier this year after administrators received a tip.”

The AP (1/19, Watkins) reports, “A gun in a 10th grader’s backpack went off Tuesday when he dropped the bag, wounding two students at his high school, police said. The 17-year-old could be charged with assault with a deadly weapon and other charges, said police Capt. Bill Hayes.” According to the AP, “John Deasy, incoming superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, said there was no indication the student with the backpack had touched the gun before it discharged.”

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School Finance
Poll: Most Utahns Say They’d Pay Higher Taxes To Help Schools.
The Salt Lake Tribune (1/19, Schencker) reports, “A majority of Utahns surveyed in a new poll say they’d be willing to pay more in taxes to raise teacher salaries and reduce class sizes. The survey, conducted by Dan Jones and Associates and presented by the University of Utah’s Center for Public Policy & Administration and the Exoro Group, surveyed 500 Utahns about issues that could be addressed in the upcoming legislative session.” The Tribune adds, “Utah had the highest student-to-teacher ratio – 27 students per teacher – in the nation in 2008-2009.”

Maryland, DC Receive Race To The Top Funds.
The Washington (DC) Examiner (1/19, Sherfinski) reports, “Maryland and the District each have received a piece of $3.4 billion in funding as part of the federal ‘Race to the Top’ program, intended to recruit high-quality teachers and turn around the country’s lowest-performing schools. Maryland was awarded $250 million and D.C. $75 million under the program, part of the 2009 federal stimulus plan. Virginia, meanwhile, dropped out of the race for the grant money.” According to the Examiner, “Maryland will base 50 percent of teacher evaluations on student performance and growth — 30 percent at the state level and 20 percent locally — as part of its initiatives under the grant.”

Also in the News
Newark, NJ Schools Superintendent To Step Down.
The Star-Ledger (NJ) (1/19) reports that Newark, NJ’s “embattled schools superintendent announced his resignation” on Tuesday, “four months after Gov. Chris Christie decided not to renew his contract. Clifford Janey revealed his decision during a meeting with the Newark Public Schools advisory board, telling committee members he would ‘keep his options open’ and ‘seek new career opportunities,’ according to board member Marques Lewis.” According to the Star-Ledger, “The announcement comes four months after Christie decided not to renew Janey’s contract, saying his reform plans had moved too slowly and Newark students ‘simply cannot wait any longer’ for the district to improve.”

New Jersey Governor Announces The Approval Of 23 New Charter Schools.
The New York Times (1/19, Hu) reports, “Following through on his promise for more charter schools, Gov. Chris Christie [R] announced Tuesday the approval of 23 new charter schools across New Jersey, including ones with single-sex classes or an emphasis on online learning or character-building. Seventeen of the new schools, as well as seven previously approved, are scheduled to open in September, bringing the number of charter schools operating in the state next fall to 97, from 73.” Christie “also proposed changes in the state’s charter law that would allow local school boards to authorize charter schools, streamline the application process, allow more flexibility for charter school operations and encourage ‘new and innovative types of charters.’”

School Policies On Cancelling Recess Due To Cold Vary Widely.
USA Today (1/19) reports, “When is it too cold for schoolchildren to go outside for recess? The answer varies widely based on where a school is located and what the kids are used to. … Canceling recess because of the cold is no small issue given that much of the USA is shivering through what may be its coldest winter in a generation, according to AccuWeather. There is no national temperature standard for when to keep kids inside during the winter months, the US Department of Education says.” Thus, “policies are all over the map.”

NEA in the News
Teachers’ Unions On Defensive As GOP Lawmakers Target Job Protections, Benefits.
Education Week (1/18, Cavanagh) reported, “Teachers’ unions find themselves on the defensive in states across the country, as governors and lawmakers press forward with proposals to target job protections and benefits that elected officials contend the public can no longer afford academically or financially. Many of those efforts are being driven by newly elected Republicans, who have traditionally drawn political opposition from teachers’ organizations-and did in last year’s midterm elections-but who made historic gains in those state contests.” According to Education Week, “The 3.2 million-member NEA was the largest single provider of political cash at the state and federal levels during the 2007-08 election cycle, according to data provided by the Center for Responsive Politics and the National Institute on Money in State Politics” and “during the 2010 election cycle, the vast majority of the money the NEA and the 1.5 million-member American Federation of Teachers spent on individual state candidates went to Democrats, according to data from the institute.”

Push For More Class Time Runs Into Financial, Political Obstacles.
The Washington Post (1/20, Anderson) reports, “Many educators in the Washington area and across the nation are pushing for a seemingly simple solution to lagging student performance: Keep students in school longer. Some officials want a longer school day; others, a shorter summer break” and the main “argument is that more time in class would probably result in more teaching, more learning and, eventually, more-skilled graduates better able to cope in an increasingly competitive world.” However, “these initiatives – favored by President Obama and floated in recent months by officials in the District, Prince George’s County [MD] and Alexandria [VA] – have run into more immediate political realities. Budgets are tight. Rules are restrictive. And some parents have balked at locking more of their children’s lives into structured activities.”

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In the Classroom
New York City Opens Inquiry On Grading Practices At Top-Scoring School.
The New York Times (1/20, Otterman) reports, “When report card grades were released in the fall for” New York “city’s 455 high schools, the highest score went to a small school in a down-and-out section of the Bronx called Theater Arts Production Company School. A stunning 94 percent of its seniors graduated, more than 30 points above the citywide average.” According to the Times, “By order of the principal, codified in the school’s teacher handbook, all teachers should grade their classes in the same way: 30 percent of students should earn a grade in the A range, 40 percent B’s, 25 percent C’s, and no more than 5 percent D’s. … On Wednesday, the city said it had opened an investigation into how grades were awarded at the school, including whether students were awarded credits for classes that were not offered, and whether records were changed to improve student attendance statistics.”

More Than 1,000 Out-Of-District Students Seeking Entry Into Detroit Schools.
The Detroit Free Press (1/20, Dawsey) reports, “While the Detroit Public Schools is suffering historic political and budget woes, hundreds of students outside of the district are clamoring to get into its premier high schools, according to DPS officials. An estimated 1,250 out-of-district students will take the entry test over the next week in an attempt to gain admittance to Cass and Renaissance high schools and the selective programs at King High for the fall of 2011, DPS announced today.”

On the Job
Arbitration Expert Outlines New Teacher Discipline Plan.
The New York Times (1/20, Gabriel) reports, “Teachers accused of misconduct should have their cases decided within a speedy 100 days by a special examiner and not be cast into an interminable limbo of waiting, said Kenneth R. Feinberg, the arbitration expert, who investigated teacher discipline at the request of the American Federation of Teachers. On Thursday, Mr. Feinberg will release his plan for dealing with teacher misconduct like absenteeism, corporal punishment and sexual advances to students.” According to the Times, “Misconduct cases have regularly embarrassed unions and school districts: Exhibit A was New York City’s so-called rubber rooms, where accused teachers idled away months or even years while cases were investigated, until they were closed last year.”

North Carolina District Could Lose 600 Teachers Under Plan To Cut $100 Million.
The Charlotte (NC) Observer (1/20, Helms) reports that Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Superintendent Peter Gorman’s “$100 million budget-cut plan would eliminate ‘more than 600′ teachers, but almost two-thirds could be spared if the scenario improves by spring, according to a priority list posted Wednesday.” In all, 1,500 education jobs would be lost in a plan revealed last week that would also “add 45 minutes to the elementary-school day” for “science, social studies and writing” instruction. The Observer adds that the priority list also “provides some insight…about how cuts could play out in coming months.” The school board will vote on the plan next week.

Report Highlights Poor Teacher Quality In Kansas City Schools.
KMBC-TV Kansas City, MO (1/19) reported on its Website that according to a study conducted by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), “the Kansas City School District has serious issues when it comes to teacher quality.” For instance, the NCTQ noted in its report “a disconnect between low-student performance and the high marks teachers get.” School officials in Kansas City “said they already knew much of what is in the report,” which was commissioned by the Kauffman Foundation.

Law & Policy
Oklahoma Keeps Law Passed As Part Of Race To The Top Bid.
The Broken Arrow (OK) Ledger (1/19, Habib) reported that the Oklahoma Teacher and Leader Effectiveness Act, “passed last year in conjunction with Oklahoma’s Race to the Top application” is still in effect, even though the state lost its Race to the Top bid. The act calls “for an incentive pay system that ‘rewards teachers who are increasing student and school growth in achievement,’” and “outlines a new evaluation system that the incentive pay plan would be based on.” The Oklahoma Education Association “supported the act,” but the Broken Arrow Education Association (BAEA) has neither supported nor objected to the law, according to the Ledger. BAEA President Katy Cook said that the evaluation system “was not spelled out clearly in the bill” and that “the BAEA rejects performance-based pay models” due to unequal work situations among teachers.

Nebraska State Senator Introduces Bill Allowing Teachers To Carry Guns.
The Christian Science Monitor (1/20, Khadaroo) reports that Nebraska State Sen. Mark Christensen “wants teachers to be able to carry concealed guns in school. The proposal follows a recent shooting in which an Omaha high school senior killed an assistant principal and wounded a principal before killing himself.” According to the Monitor, the bill introduced by Christensen calls for each school district to “set its own policy, with a two-thirds majority vote of the school board required to allow the weapons.”

Special Needs
Districts Tread Carefully When Considering Special Education Cuts.
The AP (1/19) reported, “Educating students with disabilities – a federally mandated responsibility – is seen as one of the costliest services school districts must provide, and one of the last that can be cut. The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act provides a set of protections for 6.6 million students – about 13 percent of total student enrollment – who have dyslexia, autism, intellectual disabilities, blindness, or other impairments that affect educational performance.” According to the AP, IDEA “guidelines have led to the perception that special education is an untouchable expense, even in lean economic times.” The AP added, “States and districts are able to adjust what they spend on special education, though the adjustments may not be billed as cuts.”

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Safety & Security
Los Angeles Schools Step Up Security After Student Shooting.
The AP (1/21, Hoag, Jablon) reports, “Security officers wielding metal detecting wands meticulously searched students Wednesday as they waited in a long line outside a Los Angeles high school where two 15-year-olds were shot in a classroom a day earlier. The stepped-up security measures come after a 9 mm semiautomatic handgun being carried in a backpack by a 10th-grader discharged Tuesday when he put the bag down on a desk at Gardena High School, authorities said.” According to the AP, “Since 1993, Los Angeles Unified School District has required some campuses to randomly check students with hand-held metal-detectors every day at different times. A preliminary review of security at Gardena, however, showed the 2,400-student school had lapsed in that procedure, a district official said.”

Los Angeles School Police Officer Shot. The AP (1/21, Jablon) reports, “A school police officer was shot by a suspected car burglar near a San Fernando Valley high school Wednesday but his bulletproof vest saved him, authorities said. … Nine schools with about 9,000 students were locked down as more than 350 police officers, sheriff’s deputies and California Highway Patrol officers scoured 7 square miles of the affluent Woodland Hills neighborhood around El Camino Real High School for the gunman.” The AP adds, “The attack occurred a day after an accidental shooting at a high school across the city wounded two students.”

School Finance
Up To 100,000 Education Jobs May Be Lost In Texas Under House Budget.
The Houston Chronicle (1/20, Mellon) reports, “The Houston Independent School District, [Texas'] largest system, might have to slash between $203 million and $348 million – up to a fifth of its budget, according to estimates from a leading school-finance firm.” Moak, Casey & Associates also estimates that statewide, about “80,000 to 100,000 education jobs are on the line.” The figures are based on the fact that “the House’s budget proposal, which serves as a starting point for the state’s spending plan, cuts between $5 billion and $10 billion from public schools” statewide. Texas districts can choose to increase revenue “by asking voters to approve a higher property tax rate – but elected trustees often are reluctant to make the call.”

Missouri Governor Proposes $112 Million Increase In K-12 Funding.
WDAF-TV Kansas City, MO (1/19) reported on its Website that “Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon [D] proposed flat funding for public schools and cuts to colleges Wednesday while acknowledging during his annual State of the State speech that ‘times are tough.’” Under Nixon’s proposed budget, K-12 schools would get “an additional $112 million during the current year, thanks to an influx of federal money that must be spent this school year. But it would cut schools by $112 million next year.” Based on the state’s current funding formula, schools “would be due an increase of about $233 million next year,” WDAF notes.

Study Spotlights School Districts’ “Educational Productivity.”
Education Week (1/19, Samuels) reported, “A report from a progressive think tank measuring the ‘educational productivity’ of more than 9,000 school districts around the country shows that districts getting the most for their money tend to spend more on teachers and less on administration, partner with their communities to save money, and have school boards willing to make potentially unpopular decisions, like closing underenrolled schools. The study, from the Washington-based Center for American Progress, attempts to measure district productivity nationwide, according to its authors.” According to Education Week, “The analysis is intended to encourage a more sophisticated discussion rather than just suggesting district funding should be cut in the name of encouraging efficiency, said Ulrich Boser, a senior fellow at the center and the report’s author.”

Arizona Bill Widens Tax-Credit Donations For Schools.
The Arizona Republic (1/20, Kossan) reports, “A new bill would allow taxpayers for the first time to designate tax-credit donations to public schools for books, computers and other academic purposes, easing a law that now restricts the donations to extracurricular programs.” According to the Republic, “The change, which would last until December 2014, is part of a larger bill called the ‘Education Relief Act’ that also would give schools more flexibility in how they operate and spend their money. It is part of a move designed to help them cope with proposed state budget cuts.”

Also in the News

Georgia Governor Holds Talks With Atlanta Lawmakers Over Accreditation Crisis.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (1/20, Torres) that Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R) “said Wednesday that he would pursue legislative action against the Atlanta school board ‘only as a last resort’ as the city’s fractious board works to regain full accreditation for the city’s high schools. Deal emerged from an hourlong meeting Wednesday with Atlanta lawmakers saying that while the group had a free-ranging conversation, they all agreed the board must work without question to prove themselves capable by a Sept. 30 deadline from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS).” SACS “placed the system on probation Tuesday for reasons related entirely to the board’s governance and said the board must make progress on six “required actions” to improve its leadership and performance.” The AP (1/20) also covers this story.

North Carolina District Residents Denounce Efforts To Roll Back Diversity Policy.
The Raleigh News & Observer (1/20, Martin) reports, “Wake County [NC] residents on Wednesday loudly criticized the Wake County school board’s efforts to end a longstanding diversity policy during a hearing designed to discuss specifics of a reassignment plan for students. In front of a rowdy crowd of several hundred at Southeast Raleigh High School, school board members heard from a few parents and educators concerned about details of the proposed reassignment plan, which could move 4,703 students to different schools this fall.” According to the News & Observer, “Some brought attention to national scrutiny that the board has received in recent weeks from US Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Comedy Central satirist Stephen Colbert.”

NEA in the News
Lily Eskelsen To Speak At Race To The Top Conference.
The Lakeland (FL) Ledger (1/20, Green) reports, “Superintendents and teachers union leaders from across [Florida] met Wednesday in Tampa to find ways they can work together to meet the federal Race to the Top mandates imposed on Polk County and other school districts. … The discussion continues today at the two-day conference at the Hyatt Regency in Tampa called ‘Leading the Way, Strategies for Transforming Florida Schools.’” According to the Ledger, “Guest speakers include Florida Education Commissioner Eric Smith and US Department of Education Senior Advisor Jo Anderson, and national union leaders, including American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten and National Education Association Vice President Lily Eskelsen.”

Teacher Evaluations In California Districts Seen As Skewed.
The New York Times (1/21, Gollan) reports, “Grade inflation – a term normally associated with students – is widespread among Bay Area [CA] teachers, who receive so many favorable evaluations that it is impossible to tell how well they are performing, some educators say. For the 2009-10 school year, just 40 out of 1,924 teachers – or 2 percent – reviewed by the San Francisco Unified School District received below-satisfactory performance reviews, district records show.” According to the Times, “Administrators emphasized that weaknesses in the evaluation system did not diminish the work of teachers who educate students under difficult conditions exacerbated by a state budget crisis that has increased class sizes and reduced financing for schools. But the numbers reveal that the review process is effectively broken, parents and administrators said, at a time when the Obama administration is seeking to tie federal money for education to the use of teacher evaluations based on student performance.”

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In the Classroom
Study: Taking Tests Actually Helps Students Learn.
The New York Times (1/21, Belluck) reports, “Taking a test is not just a passive mechanism for assessing how much people know, according to new research. It actually helps people learn, and it works better than a number of other studying techniques.” According to the Times, “The research, published online Thursday in the journal Science, found that students who read a passage, then took a test asking them to recall what they had read, retained about 50 percent more of the information a week later than students who used two other methods. … Several cognitive scientists and education experts said the results were striking.”

Bronx School’s Top Ranking Stirs Wider Doubts About Rating System.
The New York Times (1/21, Santos) reports, “One of the trademarks of New York City’s school accountability system is an equation that assigns every school a letter grade, A through F, based on a numerical score from 1 to 100. A parent pulling up the latest report card for the Theater Arts Production Company School in the Bronx would find that it earned the score of 106.3 (including extra credit).” Yet “that very empiric-sounding number, which was the highest of any high school in the city, is based in part on subjective measures” and, “according to some teachers at the school, even the more tangible factors in the score – graduation rates and credits earned by students – were not to be taken at face value.” According to the Times, a question remains, are the issues raised at the Bronx school “an exception or a sign of a major fault in the school accountability system?”

Georgia May Allow Districts To Choose How They Will Teach Math.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (1/21, Dodd) reports, “Responding to parental complaints and the governor’s concern over graduation rates, [Georgia] state Superintendent John Barge on Thursday introduced a plan that would allow local school districts to choose how they will teach math. Two years ago, the state collectively turned to integrated math, or accelerated classes that were introduced to make more students college ready, rather than traditional algebra, geometry and statistics classes. However, the faster-paced curriculum was largely blamed for the failure last May of 80,000 students on math final exams.”

On the Job
New York City Teacher Bonus Pilot Program Suspended.
The New York Times (1/21, Otterman) reports, “New York City’s Education Department said Thursday that it was suspending one of the signature experiments of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s control of city schools, a multimillion-dollar program that awards annual bonuses to teachers based on student performance. The announcement came on the same day the city announced that teachers at only 26 schools would receive schoolwide bonuses this year, down from about 160 schools last year, as far fewer schools met their performance targets on state standardized tests.” According to the Times, “The city’s tight budget was one of many factors that led to the decision, the city said,” as “the mayor’s budget projects that thousands of teacher layoffs may be necessary for the 2011-12 school year.”

Law & Policy
ESEA Overhaul Viewed As An Uphill Climb.
The Christian Science Monitor (1/21, Khadaroo) reports, “President Obama campaigned on bringing common-sense changes to the federal role in K-12 education. But even with a Democratic-controlled Congress, efforts toward a long-overdue revision of No Child Left Behind made little headway.” According to the Monitor, “Secretary of Education Arne Duncan says revising the law is his top priority. … ‘The trade-off we want is this much higher bar, but in exchange for that higher bar, give folks a lot more flexibility to hit it at the local level, and frankly, in many ways, get the federal government off their backs,’ Secretary Duncan said in a recent Monitor interview.” According to the Monitor, “Education experts and Washington insiders are split on the likelihood that a revised ESEA will go through in 2011.”

Education Reform Expected To Be Major Theme Within State Of The Union Address.
Bloomberg News (1/21, Dorning) reports, “President Barack Obama plans to mark the beginning of a politically divided Congress with a State of the Union speech stressing shared responsibility for reining in the deficit and boosting the country’s capacity to compete with foreign economic rivals, according to two Democratic officials.” According to Bloomberg, “A call to promote greater accountability in the educational system, a policy goal shared by some in the Republican Party that now controls the US House, also will be featured in the speech.” According to Bloomberg, “The administration is pressing for a revision of” NCLB, “to encourage higher student achievement and additional teacher training. Obama has ‘been laser-like focused on education from Day One,’ Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in an interview. ‘I think you’ll see that reflected in the State of the Union.”

New Jersey Lawmakers Advance Opportunity Scholarship Act.
The AP (1/21) reports, “A startup school choice program that would allow children in 166 failing New Jersey public schools to transfer elsewhere advanced Thursday after a four-hour legislative hearing.” Under the Opportunity Scholarship Act, “businesses that make contributions to education scholarships” would receive a tax credit. The contributions would go toward a supplying private and parochial school scholarship vouchers to some of the roughly “40,000 students in 13 low-income districts” expected to apply. The AP notes that “dozens of people testified” at the hearing, “most of them affiliated with an education or lobbying group.”

Wyoming House Adds Funding To Study Committee On Teacher Merit Pay.
The Billings (MT) Gazette / Casper Star-Tribune (1/21, Barron) reports that “the Wyoming House on Thursday added $50,000 to a bill for an outside consultant for the study of merit pay for teachers.” Under the legislation, a merit pay study committee comprised of “two senators, two representatives, one school board member, one school administrator, one teacher and one parent” would be created. Sponsor Rep. Mike Madden (R) said that “the stickler in the study will be the criteria used. One system would have teachers give students tests at the beginning of the year and again at the end of the year and then the results would be compared.” The Star-Tribune notes that the study has the approval of the Wyoming Education Association (WEA). “A study with the right stakeholders to make sure we get something that is going to work right for Wyoming,” said WEA President Kathryn Valido.

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Special Needs
Need For Special Education Teachers To Skyrocket.
WTOL-TV Toledo, OH (1/20, Gimbel) reported on its Website, “The employment of special education teachers is expected to jump by 17-percent by 2018, which is an increase of almost 82,000 jobs nationwide. Retirements and turnovers are factors, but so is the apparent increase in the number of children with special needs.” WTOL added, “Almost 15-percent of students studying education at the University of Toledo are focusing on special education.”

Safety & Security
Los Angeles Schools Police Chief Acknowledges Poor Communication In Recent Lockdowns.
The Los Angeles Times (1/21, Blume, Blankenstein) reports, “Students from nine San Fernando Valley schools were in lockdown for as long as five hours as officers combed campuses and neighborhoods for a suspect who shot and wounded a school police officer Wednesday just outside El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills.” Now, some parents are complaining that the “students were kept in classrooms without food, water or access to restrooms longer than necessary.” Los Angeles School Police Chief Steve Zipperman acknowledged the situation on Thursday, saying, “There were restrooms down the hallways from classrooms and some schools did have the ability to deliver food. We have to determine how we get the word to schools that it’s safe to do that.” Both Zipperman and “incoming” schools Supt. John Deasy have “pledged to review policies and procedures as they sought to mollify frustrated and angry parents.”

Facilities
Baltimore County Executive Seeks To Ramp Up School Construction.
The Baltimore Sun (1/21, Hirsch) reports, “Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz said Thursday afternoon that his school construction requests for the fiscal year starting this summer recognize the need for spending restraint in difficult times, but he said the same economic challenges ‘make the education of our future work force and leaders more important than ever,’ according to his prepared remarks. The executive’s annual message to the 15-member planning board on capital spending for 2012 offered highlights of a $670 million spending plan.” According to the Sun, “Kamenetz focused on school construction,” and the “plan includes construction of three high schools and doubling the size of an elementary school.”

School Finance
School Officials In Texas Grapple With Preliminary $10 Billion State Budget Shortfall.
The Dallas Morning News (1/21, Weiss) reports, “Texas public school officials are struggling to figure out how to respond to a first-draft state budget that includes a shortfall in education funding twice as large as their largest estimates.” On Wednesday, state officials released a preliminary budget indicating a gap of almost $10 billion. Before that, “many school officials had been planning how to handle a state funding shortfall of about $5 billion for the biennium.” For instance, “Dallas ISD had been planning to work with $120 million less for the next budget cycle.” Superintendent Michael Hinojosa said, however, that “if the preliminary budget were approved, the reduction would be closer to $200 million.”

The Houston Chronicle (1/21, Mellon) reports that Houston-area “school leaders, stunned by the magnitude of the cuts reflected in the Texas House’s base budget, fear they will have to” use rainy day funds “to balance their…spending plans.” They are also “considering even more unpopular options – increasing property tax rates or eliminating special tax breaks.” But even with those moves, some do not expect to “raise enough money to plug the worst-case budget holes.”

KTRK-TV Houston (1/20) reported that the Houston Independent School District “is looking at developing a budget to approve by the end of June,” and officials are looking at “zeroing out state grants” to help make up for the more than $203 million in expected cuts. The Austin American Statesman (1/21, Heinauer) reports on how the state education cuts are likely to affect the Austin Independent School District.

Also in the News

New Jersey Charter School Application Reviewers Explain Process.
New Jersey’s Star Ledger (1/ 20) reports that one day after New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) “unveiled a list of 23 new schools as a signature piece of his education reform agenda, several reviewers talked about the rigors of sifting through the 50 detailed applications for charter schools, and what they looked for.” Each reviewer examined “several applications, using a scorecard and providing detailed comments and a non-binding recommendation on each proposal.” Then, Department of Education officials gave final approval on the applications. The Star-Ledger notes that “some education advocates were questioning the process and why the state did not release a full list of reviewers.” David Sciarra of the Education Law Center, for instance, said, “The public needs to know who was brought in to review the applications, what their qualifications are, and whether they have a vested interest in the outcome.”

Illinois District Forms More Multi-Grade Classes Due To Teacher Layoffs.
The Elgin (IL) Courier News (1/24, McFarlan) reports, “Multi-grade classrooms aren’t new – think one-room schoolhouse – and they aren’t all that uncommon in Elgin [IL] School District U46, according to district officials. But there are more multi-grade classrooms this year than in years past, mostly because more than 400 teachers were laid off in last year’s budget cuts.” According to the Courier News, “This year, U46 elementary schools have 689 single-grade classrooms and 177 multi-grade classrooms, according to Deborah Devine, the district math instructional coach,” which is “more than 20 percent of the Elgin school district’s elementary classrooms – about a 4 percent jump from the number of multi-grade classrooms (158 of 979 elementary classrooms) in the district last year.”

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On the Job
Pennsylvania District Aims To Revamp Teacher Evaluations.
The York (PA) Daily Record (1/23, Mason) reported, “Nationwide, districts have experimented with tying student performance to teacher evaluations or setting up merit pay, and the Obama administration has aimed money toward that cause. Numerous studies weigh the merits and drawbacks. Local educators say the movement is likely to hit York County [PA]. But questions linger about how, when and whether it’s a good idea.” According to the Daily Record, “Pennsylvania is using a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to create a model for how districts can evaluate teachers and principals, with student performance included.”

Los Angeles Judge OKs Settlement Limiting Use Of Seniority In Teacher Layoffs.
The Los Angeles Times (1/22, Felch, Song) reported, “In a case that pits the constitutional rights of students against the job protections of teachers, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge approved a groundbreaking settlement Friday that limits the effect of layoffs on the district’s most vulnerable students. Up to 45 Los Angeles Unified School District campuses will be shielded from teacher layoffs altogether, Judge William F. Highberger ordered Friday, and layoffs in the district’s other 750 schools must be spread more equitably.” According to the Times, “The decision comes amid deep education cuts and a debate over teacher tenure rules, which are being challenged across the country.”

Law & Policy
Teacher Merit Pay Proposal Passes Wyoming House.
The Wyoming Tribune Eagle (1/21, Dynes) reported, “A teacher merit-pay proposal met little opposition as it passed the [Wyoming] House of Representatives on Thursday. Lawmakers approved a bill on third and final reading 56-3 that would study various merit-pay strategies, as well as identify ways to measure teacher success.” According to the Tribune Eagle, “It’s a proposal that would recognize the hard work of the state’s best educators, said co-sponsor Rep. Mike Madden, R-Buffalo. Lawmakers will discuss other proposals this session that could end teacher tenure and link student success with teacher performance.”

Duncan Pushes Education Reform During Minnesota Visit.
The St. Paul Pioneer-Press (1/22, Belden) reported, “Minnesota has lost its ‘sense of urgency’ to improve education and needs to take bolder steps to reduce the achievement gap between student groups and foster nontraditional pathways to teaching, US Education Secretary Arne Duncan told a group of business and community leaders Friday in Minneapolis. Minnesota’s achievement gap between white students and their low-income, minority peers is among the largest in the nation. Duncan called it ‘a huge challenge’ that no state has solved but that many have made more progress on than Minnesota.” According to the Pioneer-Press, “Duncan spoke at a Chamber of Commerce lunch at a downtown Minneapolis hotel and then spent about an hour at a school in Lakeville with Congressman John Kline and state Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius.”

The AP (1/22) added that Duncan “said Minnesota, like other states in the nation, was becoming more racially diverse but wasn’t doing enough to help students on the wrong side of the achievement gap catch up. … Duncan said there wasn’t a single policy that would solve the problem, but providing high-quality early childhood programs would help.” The AP adds, “In the speech, Duncan also made the administration’s case for overhauling the federal No Child Left Behind law. .. After the speech, Duncan traveled to Lakeville where he sat in on two classes at Crystal Lake Elementary with [John] Kline, the new chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee.”

Safety & Security
Virginia School’s Disciplinary Policies Scrutinized After Apparent Suicide.
The Washington Post (1/22, George) reported, “The apparent suicide of a 15-year-old high school football player in Fairfax County [VA] has sparked concern about the school district’s disciplinary policies, which critics say are overly punitive and often debilitating for students. The concerns come as students at W.T. Woodson High School mourn the loss of Nick Stuban, a former sophomore running back on the junior varsity team. … Nick’s death followed a disciplinary action that some parents and school activists considered unnecessarily harsh.” According to the Post, “As the family prepared for a Monday service, parent activists and a School Board member spoke about the need to reexamine discipline policies and what some parents call a ‘zero tolerance’ approach.”

Facilities
Texas Budget Cuts Could Leave Numerous School Buildings Vacant.
The New York Times (1/22, Smith) reported, “Texas public schools are facing what could be $10 billion less in state financing – a stark prospect that could empty school buildings across the state as districts consolidate campuses to reduce costs. … What should happen to these structures, built with taxpayer money?” According to the Times, “It is a dilemma that the state, with its fast-growing population, has not had to confront before on a large scale. … Perhaps the most eager potential tenants are charter schools. David Dunn, who directs the Texas Charter Schools Association, said charters had a ‘huge’ need for suitable facilities. But Mr. Dunn said it had been ‘a struggle’ to get districts to accept charter schools as potential lessees.”

School Finance
Numerous States Enact Deep Education Funding Cuts.
Bloomberg News (1/21, Jones) reported, “US governors and legislatures facing deficits of more than $140 billion are slashing local school budgets, cuts that may mean jammed classrooms, fewer teachers and libraries without librarians.” According to Bloomberg, “The Texas Legislature is considering a 13 percent reduction in education funding and South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard recommended taking 10 percent out of per-pupil spending. Cuts proposed in those states, and in Kansas, Washington, Ohio and Iowa, come after New Jersey Governor Chris Christie took $820 million away from schools in his current $29.4 billion budget.”

Iowa District Seeking Stimulus Funds.
The Quad-City Times (IA) (1/24, Cook) reports, “Davenport [IA] Mayor Bill Gluba returned from meetings in Washington, D.C., Sunday with hope that Davenport still can receive federal funding that will transform its education system. … The application was ‘a comprehensive plan to try to get Davenport $25 million to basically transform our education system,’ said Gluba, who was in the audience when Secretary of Education Arne Duncan addressed the three-day United States Conference of Mayors.” According to the Times, “Gluba asked Duncan if he could set up a meeting with James H. Shelton III, assistant deputy secretary for innovation and improvement. Duncan arranged for Gluba to meet with Shelton, who reviews applications for the money.”

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Also in the News
Former DC Schools Chief To Headquarter New Lobby In Sacramento.
The Sacramento Bee (1/21, Lillis) reported on its front-page, “Former Washington, D.C., schools chancellor Michelle Rhee will headquarter her new education advocacy organization in Sacramento, Mayor Kevin Johnson announced Thursday during his State of the City address. Rhee’s goal is for her organization, StudentsFirst, to raise $1 billion and to use the money — much as teachers unions do — to support candidates and influence education policy in state legislatures and school districts across the country. … The move means Johnson and Rhee, who are engaged to be married, will be a twin force on education in Sacramento.”

George Washington University Launches Online College Prep School.
The Washington Post (1/22, De Vise) reported, “George Washington University has opened a private college-preparatory high school that will operate entirely online, one of the nation’s first ‘virtual’ secondary schools to be affiliated with a major research university. The opening of a laboratory-style school under the banner of a prestigious university generally counts as a major event among parents of the college-bound.” According to the Post, “Online learning may be the next logical step in the evolution of university ‘lab’ schools, an ongoing experiment in pedagogy.”

New KIPP School Model Questioned.
Jay Mathews writes in a column for the Washington Post (1/24), “The Knowledge Is Power Program, the nation’s and [DC's] most successful charter school network, has a new official name, KIPP, and a new approach to raising achievement for disadvantaged children. In its first decade, the network…focused on creating middle schools that started with fifth-graders two or three years below grade level and got them up to speed by eighth grade. Now it is opening elementary schools, including three here, so that it can start raising achievement in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten.” According to Matthews, “The move makes sense and conforms to a movement in many city school systems and charter networks to create K-8 schools that will give urban and rural children the consistent support and high standards found in many suburban schools. But I see a problem. This clean progression from making pre-K the main intake point overlooks the messiness of life in the communities being served.”

NEA in the News
Teacher Unions Urged To Work With Lawmakers, Districts To Craft Reforms.
The New York Times (1/24) editorializes, “The American Federation of Teachers, the country’s second-largest teachers’ union, has wisely chosen to work with state legislatures and local school districts to help shape” new teacher evaluation systems and disciplinary policies “rather than try to block them.” The Times adds that “unions and state legislatures also need to press forward on developing evaluation systems that take student performance into account and that allow school systems to reward excellent teaching while steering ineffective teachers out of the field.” AFT President Randi Weingarten “has shown strong leadership in this area, and is well ahead of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union.” According to the Times, “The states are already charging ahead in this area” and if “unions want to have input, they need to quickly come up with a legitimate proposal of their own.”

Conference Seeks To Promote Less Conflict Among Teacher Unions, Districts.
The Providence (RI) Journal (1/24) reports that Rhode Island Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist “said Thursday that she was ‘very disappointed’ that Jane Sessums, president of the Central Falls Teachers’ Union, had declined an invitation from US Education Secretary Arne Duncan to attend a conference in Denver designed to improve relations between labor and management.” According to the Journal, “The country’s two teacher unions are co-hosting the event with the US Department of Education, the American Federation of Teachers, which represents the teachers in Central Falls through the Rhode Island affiliate, and the National Education Association. … Gallo has said she wants to break away from adversarial negotiations, include the public in the process to a greater degree and create a ‘compact’ with teachers that focuses on the needs of students.”

Duncan, Obama To Engage GOP On Education Policy.
Bloomberg News (1/25, Brower) reports, “President Barack Obama, who has adopted such traditionally Republican principles as charter schools and teacher merit pay, will meet resistance in a divided Congress over spending and the reach of government in the classroom. He will showcase his argument for an education overhaul in his State of the Union address tomorrow, Education Secretary Arne Duncan says.” According to Bloomberg, “Republicans now holding majorities on the House Education and Workforce Committee, which writes education legislation, say they’re skeptical that the government is the solution. … Duncan said he’s still ‘hopeful’ that Congress can agree on an education bill this year.”

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In the Classroom
Tiered RI Diploma Plan Discriminatory, Critics Say.
The Boston Globe (1/25) reports, “A coalition of groups including the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and disability and minority advocates joined yesterday to object to a plan to institute a tiered high school diploma system in the state, saying it would create a ‘caste system’ in public schools. The Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education has proposed that each student who graduates from a public high school starting next year would receive one of three diplomas, depending in part on how well he or she does in junior year on a standardized test, the New England Common Assessment Program.” According to the Globe, “A student who does not pass the test could take it again and receive a ‘Rhode Island’ diploma if he or she improves. If the student does not improve but meets other graduation requirements, he or she could receive a certificate.”

On the Job
Wyoming Lawmakers Propose Installing Cameras In Classrooms.
The Christian Science Monitor (1/25, Khadaroo) reports, “Teachers in Wyoming might someday have to add an extra step to their lesson plans: Smile for the camera. State lawmakers have proposed installing video cameras and taping lessons to help evaluate teachers’ performance.” According to the Monitor, “the notion of tying recorded lessons to high-stakes evaluations raises a host of thorny issues. Schools would have to consider who would be evaluating the taped lessons, what criteria they’d use, and how student and teacher privacy would be respected.”

Minnesota Campaign For Achievement Now Pushes For Education Reforms.
KARE-TV Minneapolis, MN (1/24) reported on its Website, “A new nonprofit group launched efforts at the [Minnesota] State Capitol Monday aimed at closing the achievement gap through education reforms. The Minnesota Campaign for Achievement Now, or MinnCan for short, is headed by Vallay Varro, a former St. Paul school board member and one-time adviser to Mayor Chris Coleman on education.” According to KARE, “MinnCan will push for alternative teacher licensing, which would enable people from other professions to gain certification to teach. The group will also seek more investment in quality pre-kindergarten programs. … US Education Secretary Arne Duncan stressed many of the same initiatives during in his visit to Minnesota Friday.”

Maine District To Apply For Teacher Training Grant.
The Lewiston (ME) Sun Journal (1/25) reports, “Despite concern from teachers, the [Lewiston, ME] School Committee voted 5-2 Monday night to permit the School Department to apply for a federal teacher training grant. Superintendent Bill Webster will seek a teacher incentive grant that, if awarded, would net about $3 million over five years to help some teachers get on the road to becoming nationally certified. … As proposed, the grant would allow 270 of Lewiston’s 460 teachers to receive one year of teacher development training called Take One. It amounts to 25 percent of the national certification process.”

Law & Policy
Boehner, Lieberman To Introduce DC School Voucher Bill.
Politico (1/25, Lee) reports, “The day after President Barack Obama makes education a centerpiece of his State of the Union address, House Speaker John Boehner will try to force his hand on the issue of school vouchers in Washington, D.C. as a test of the White House’s commitment to bipartisanship.” According to Politico, Boehner and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I) “will introduce legislation on Wednesday to reauthorize the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program, the speaker’s office said Monday, making a school voucher initiative that Democrats, including Obama, have strongly opposed as a bargaining chip for beginning discussions on the administration’s desired education proposals.” The voucher bill “could be the only bill Boehner authors all year, his office said to stress how important he views the program.”

The Washington Post (1/25, DeBonis, Pershing) reports, “House Speaker John Boehner will introduce a bill Wednesday that aims to revive a school voucher program in the District, nearly two years after Democratic opposition to the program led to its phaseout. Boehner (R-Ohio) is set to unveil the bill one day after President Obama is expected to call for greater political comity in his State of the Union address. … Democrats pushed successfully in the previous Congress to prevent re-authorization of the program, which provides up to $7,500 yearly toward tuition in private schools, including religious schools.”

Indiana House Panel Passes Bill To Expand Charter Schools.
The Louisville Courier-Journal (1/25, Weidenbener) reports that the Indiana “House Education Committee amended and approved legislation on Monday meant to expand charter schools in Indiana, in part by making the public schools – which are freed from some state regulation – easier to create and fund. House Bill 1002 passed along party lines, with majority Republicans pushing it to the full House for consideration after beating back Democratic amendments that they say would have weakened the legislation.” According to the Courier-Journal, “Indiana already has 62 charter schools serving about 22,000 students. But Republicans – and a handful of Democrats – are seeking to bolster that number significantly to give parents more choices.”

Nevada Governor Proposes Major K-12 Changes.
The Nevada News Bureau (1/25) reports, “Nevada’s primary education system would change dramatically under the proposals Gov. Brian Sandoval delivered tonight in his State of the State address. He would use student achievement data to evaluate educators, provide merit pay for effective teachers and end extra pay for longevity and advanced degree attainment.” Also, the Nevada governor “would also eliminate full-day kindergarten, class size reduction, early childhood education and the gifted program, among other programs. The catch, however, is a proposal to allot school district ‘block grants’ through which districts could choose the programs they want to fund.”

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Safety & Security
New Jersey Bill Would Allow Teens To Avoid “Sexting” Prosecution Via Education Program.
The AP (1/25, Santi) reports, “New Jersey teenagers caught texting or posting sexually explicit photos online could avoid prosecution under a measure that would give first-time offenders the chance to complete a diversionary program. State Assemblywoman Pam Lampitt of Camden, who is sponsoring the bill, said it’s important to teach teens the potential consequences of their actions without saddling them with a permanent criminal record.” According to the AP, “The bill won unanimous support from both parties in a committee and is headed for the Assembly floor. A version must also pass the Senate for it to become law.”

Facilities
EPA Inspection Finds PCBs In Another New York City School.
The AP (1/25) reports, “Inspectors from the federal Environmental Protection Agency have found leaks of the toxic chemicals known as PCBs at another New York City school. According to The New York Times, the EPA says 18 out of 28 samples taken at Public School 11 in Brooklyn showed PCBs above the regulatory limit of 50 parts per million. … The contamination does not pose an immediate health threat, but officials say long-term exposure to PCBs can cause cancer and other health problems.”

School Finance
Nevada Governor Outlines School Budget Reforms.
The Nevada Appeal (1/24, Dornan) reported, “Nevada’s per pupil contribution to public schools will drop about $270 a year under Gov. Brian Sandoval’s spending plan. The reduction will take basic support per pupil down to $4,918 for each year of the biennium.” However, “Sandoval plans to give school districts a lot more freedom in how they spend other money from the state on programs such as class size reduction, full day kindergarten and gifted and talented programs. Those are among eight programs rolled into a new Student Achievement Block Grant Program under Sandoval’s plan.”

Kansas Governor’s School Finance Plan Could Cost State $70 Million In Federal Funds.
The Washington D.C. Examiner (1/25) reports that Kansas “Governor Sam Brownback’s budget proposal would cut public education funding by $132 million in the current school year, including $16.7 million in special education funding. … By cutting $16.7 million from special education funding, Kansas would fall below a minimum threshold to receive all its federal special education funding. This could cost the state $70 million over the next two years. School districts, still held accountable under special education laws, would be forced to make up the difference out of their general funds.”

The Lawrence Journal World (KS) (1/24, Rothschild) reported, “Not only would Gov. Sam Brownback’s proposed budget cut school funding, it could result in a federal penalty of $70 million in special education funding, officials said Monday. … Brownback’s budget recommendation would cut school funding in the current school year by $132 million, which would reduce base state aid per student from $4,012 to $3,937, or $75 per pupil. It would also cut special education funding by $16.7 million.”

Advocates Call For More Pre-K Funding In New Mexico.
The Santa Fe New Mexican (1/25, Jennings) reports, “Dozens of New Mexicans braved a brief snow shower at the Capitol on Monday to rally support for a proposal they believe would help raise school test scores, lower the dropout rate and curb teen pregnancy. The solution is simple, advocates say: Include early-childhood programs such as pre-kindergarten and home visits for developmentally delayed children in the annual payout to public schools, colleges and universities from the state’s more than $10 billion Land Grant Permanent Fund.” According to the New Mexican, “The permanent fund distributes hundreds of millions of dollars each year to K-12 education and higher education. But none of the dollars goes toward early-childhood programs.”

Also in the News

Atlanta School Board Accepts Probation.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (1/25, Torres) reports, “The embattled Atlanta school board, after receiving sharp criticism from the leader of one of the nation’s top accrediting agencies, students and even state lawmakers, on Monday night voted to accept an accreditation report that put the school system on probation.” However, some education stakeholders “wanted the board to fight the decision by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) to put the school system on probation and challenge its accreditation.” Monday’s vote “formally moved the board into action to address six mandates required by SACS, one of the nation’s top accrediting agencies, for the system to regain full standing. All mandates deal with board leadership and governance, which the agency found sorely lacking after months of infighting and dysfunction among board members.”

New Jersey Governor Proposing End To Teacher Tenure.
Bloomberg News (1/26, Dopp, Deprez) reports, “In New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s perfect world, the worst unionized teachers would forfeit raises or even lose tenure rights they have enjoyed for more than a century. Students in the state’s underperforming schools would be offered vouchers to attend private institutions. Failing schools would be taken over by publicly funded charters operated independently of district boards of education.” According to Bloomberg, “The plans, which Christie, 48, lays out in town-hall meetings on YouTube, have escalated his war with the teachers’ union and helped make him a Republican star. … Christie’s success in winning support for his proposals may determine whether other governors follow his lead.”

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In the Classroom
Less Than Half Of US Students Proficient In Science, NAEP Results Show.
The AP (1/26) reports that scores from the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress released Tuesday show that US “students are still struggling in science, with less than half considered proficient and just a tiny fraction showing the advanced skills that could lead to careers in science and technology.” The AP adds that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan “said the NAEP results show students aren’t learning at a rate that will maintain the United States’ role as an international science leader. … ‘Our nation’s long-term economic prosperity depends on providing a world class education to all students, especially in mathematics and science,’ Duncan said.”

The Washington Post (1/26, Anderson) reports that the results show that “the average student was likely to be stumped when asked to interpret a temperature graph or explain an example of heat transfer. Seventy percent of eighth-graders and 79 percent of 12th-graders also fell short of science proficiency…, a key measure of performance in a subject that President Obama and business leaders call crucial for American competitiveness.” The Post adds that the results “provide a sobering snapshot of scientific performance in US schools” and indicate “major achievement gaps among racial and ethnic groups.”

The New York Times (1/26, Dillon) adds that the NAEP test was given to “308,000 fourth graders and eighth graders and 11,000 12th-graders.” The Times adds, “Because the Education Department changed the test since it was last administered in 2005, the latest results cannot be used to determine whether science achievement has risen or declined in recent years. But the results showed that a smaller proportion of 12th graders demonstrated proficiency in science than in any other subject that the government has tested since 2005 – except history.”

Bloomberg News (1/26, Hechinger) reports, “Fewer than half of US students are proficient in science, renewing questions about the country’s global competitiveness, the Education Department said today. A third of the nation’s fourth-graders, 30 percent of eighth-graders and 21 percent of 12th-graders are performing at or above the proficient level in science, according to the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress. … ‘The results released today show that our nation’s students aren’t learning at a rate that will maintain America’s role as an international leader in the sciences,’ Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a statement. ‘When 1 or 2 percent of children score at the advanced levels on NAEP, the next generation will not be ready to be world-class inventors, doctors and engineers.’”

The Washington Times (1/26, Simmons) reports that the NAEP results “underscore” past reports from the National Academies warning about lingering deficits in math and science education which “could diminish America’s standing on the competitive global stage.” The Christian Science Monitor (1/26, Paulson), AFP (1/26), Reuters (1/26), the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (1/26, Badertscher), the Detroit Free Press (1/26, Higgins) and the Orlando Sentinel (1/26, Postal) also cover this story, as did CNN (1/25, Holland) in a report on its Website.

Charter School Advocates, Opponents To Square Off In Chicago.
The Chicago Tribune (1/26, Ahmed-Ullah, Reporter) reports, “Hundreds of charter school supporters and detractors are expected to attend a Chicago Public Schools board meeting Wednesday, hoping to influence a vote on whether to open more of the independently run public schools. Critics forced the board to hold off on a decision to add new campuses last month, catching the charter community off guard.” However, “they plan to come back strong as the school board gets another chance to hear the proposals, which call for two new charter schools as well as four more campuses and additional students for existing charters.”

Law & Policy
Obama Makes Education A State of Union Centerpiece.
Alyson Klein wrote in a blog for Education Week (1/25), “President Barack Obama used his State of the Union address tonight to put education front-and-center on the national agenda, and on the agenda of the newly divided Congress. And he tied his education proposals, including the long-stalled reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, directly to the nation’s economic future. … While calling for a five-year federal spending freeze, the president-without giving budget specifics-also proposed spending more on education as part of a campaign to ‘win the future.’” President Obama “also announced an initiative to train 100,000 new teachers in mathematics, science, technology, and engineering, or STEM subjects. He plans to expand ‘promising and effective teacher preparation models’ for STEM teachers.”

House Speaker Seeks To “Revive” DC Voucher Program.
The Washington Times (1/26, Simmons) reports, “House Speaker John A. Boehner plans to meet President Obama’s call for bipartisanship and education reform with legislation that would ‘totally revive’ the D.C. voucher program, which the president killed in 2009. On Wednesday, Mr. Boehner, a school-choice stalwart, will announce plans to reauthorize the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program and provide funds for traditional and charter public schools.” The Times adds, “The voucher program is helping an estimated 1,000 poor children attend the private or parochial school of their parents’ choosing with scholarships up to $7,500 – about half the public schools’ per-pupil spending.”

DC Mayor, Council Chairman Set To Clash Over Voucher Issue. Mike Debonis wrote in a blog for the Washington Post (1/25), “A popular Wilson Building parlor game of the moment is trying to discern where exactly Mayor Vincent Gray and D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown will part political company in the coming weeks, months or years.” However, “thanks to House Speaker John Boehner, there is clear daylight between Brown and Gray on a hot-button issue: school vouchers. Brown is on the record for them. … Gray is on the record against them. He sees the federally funded program as another example of unwarranted congressional experimentation with the District, saying in a statement last night that it was an example of ‘decisions that should be made by the residents of the District of Columbia.’”

Bills Address Bullying In Virginia Schools.
The Franklin (VA) News Post (1/26, Turner) reports, “As more schools nationwide implement anti-bullying programs, several bills have been introduced in the [Virginia] General Assembly that define bullying and establish specific requirements for schools in handling bullying incidents. Del. Adam Ebbin (D-Arlington) has introduced a bill that defines bullying to mean ‘recklessly or intentionally endangering the health or safety of a student by exposing the student repeatedly and over time to physical aggression or intimidation.’” According to the News Post, “Under the bill, this aggression or intimidation can be through direct physical contact or through the use of information or communication technology, resulting in bodily injury or other harm to person or property.”

School Finance
Minneapolis Schools Make $3.7 Million Error.
The Minneapolis (MN) Star Tribune (1/26, Mitchell) reports, “The Minneapolis School District underestimated the cost of the new teacher contract by $3.7 million due to a ‘significant’ clerical error. The contract will cost the district $14.7 million, not $11 million as initially estimated, Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson told school board members Tuesday.” According to the Star Tribune, “No job or program cuts are imminent because the district’s budget for the contract negotiations provided a cushion, district spokesman Stan Alleyne said.”

Dallas District Now Preparing For $260 Million Funding Cut.
Matthew Haag wrote in a blog for the Dallas Morning News (1/25), “Dallas school officials are now bracing to lose as much as $260 million each of the next school years as lawmakers slash education funding to close a multibillion-dollar deficit. … A month ago, Superintendent Michael Hinojosa thought Dallas ISD might be out $120 million each of the next two school years. Under the Texas House draft budget, Hinojosa said last week, DISD could lose $200 million a year.” Hinojosa “has advocated for school districts to gain the authority to enact furloughs.”

Nevada Governor Suggests School Funding Cuts.
The AP (1/26) reports that Nevada “Gov. Brian Sandoval wants to improve Nevada’s troubled schools while slashing education spending. His ambitious and conservative plan revealed Monday during his State of the State speech proposes rolling back education spending to 2007 levels, giving unproven educators the boot and eliminating statutory mandates requiring smaller class sizes and other programs.” According to the AP, “Education advocates and Democratic leaders call the plan the latest assault on Nevada’s underperforming schools. … The brewing battle over education dollars mirrors a national debate over the role of state funding versus teacher performance in student achievement.”

CA District Chief Placed On Leave Pending Financial Mismanagement Charges.
The Los Angeles Times (1/25) reported in a blog post, “A judge in Los Angeles ruled Monday that there is enough evidence for Newport-Mesa Unified School District Supt. Jeffrey Hubbard to stand trial for alleged misappropriation of funds during his previous job as superintendent in the Beverly Hills schools district. Hubbard has pleaded not guilty to two felony counts of misappropriation of funds.” The Times adds, “Also on Monday, the Newport-Mesa school board placed Hubbard on paid administrative leave.”

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Also in the News
Wake County, NC School Board Will Cooperate With Accrediting Agency.
The Raleigh News & Observer (1/26, Goldsmith) reports, “Wake County [NC] school board members agreed Tuesday to cooperate with a national accrediting agency’s review of the system’s high schools. The decision ends a political standoff that could have endangered college and scholarship prospects for students.” According to the News & Observer, “Some school board members complain that AdvancED’s review unfairly includes matters that shouldn’t affect accreditation and that, therefore, they have been reluctant to fully cooperate with the review. The dispute came to a head when the system was getting push-back from comedian Stephen Colbert, US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and many others.”

Schools Take Steps To Combat Food Allergies.
The Chicago Tribune (1/26, Ahmed-Ullah) reports, “Even as schools across Illinois put the finishing touches on new state-mandated food allergy policies, some health care advocates question whether they go far enough to keep children safe. The debate is especially strong in Chicago, where the death of a seventh-grader who suffered an allergic reaction reportedly to food served at a classroom party last month prompted public schools officials to re-examine their proposed policy even before it was adopted.” According to the Tribune, “Even if the board approves the policy Wednesday, Chicago Public Schools officials will continue looking at issues ranging from districtwide peanut bans to whether an epinephrine injection could be given to any student suffering a severe allergic reaction at school, whether or not the potentially lifesaving hormone has been prescribed for that child.”

NEA in the News

25 Years Later, Challenger’s McAuliffe Remembered.
Education Week (1/26, Heitin) reports that “nearly everyone who was of school age or older in 1986 vividly remembers the day when the space shuttle Challenger burst into flames just 73 seconds after takeoff, claiming the lives of all seven astronauts aboard-including Christa McAuliffe, who was to be the first teacher in space. Friday, Jan. 28, marks the 25th anniversary of the Challenger disaster. Around the country, teachers-some of them classroom veterans, others too young to recall those terrible moments-will describe the day’s historical significance to their students.” Education Week adds, “Dennis Van Roekel, the president of the National Education Association, remembered that throughout the media blitz before the shuttle launch, Ms. McAuliffe, an NEA member, held true to her roots as a teacher. ‘She spoke to audiences from the viewpoint of a teacher who taught kids,’ he said.”

Obama Seeks To Make NCLB More Flexible.
The Washington Post (1/27, Anderson) reports, “Confusion over the ratings” of thousands of schools across the US “is fueling President Obama’s drive to rewrite the nine-year-old No Child Left Behind law. In his State of the Union Address on Tuesday, Obama called for a version that is ‘more flexible and focused on what’s best for our kids.’ Senior congressional Republicans and Democrats said Wednesday they would join forces with the president to fix what they call numerous flaws in the law. … ‘We need to get away from Washington announcing whether schools are passing or failing,’ said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). ‘We’re getting to the point where we’re going to have almost every school in the country failing,’ said Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee. ‘We’re going to have to change that.’”

ESEA Needs Major Overhaul, Duncan Says. The AP (1/27, Vanderwerf) reports, “It’s time to renew the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan wants to do away with the current version, called No Child Left Behind. In a conference call with journalists Wednesday, Duncan said he hopes to see the law revamped and sent to President Obama this year, with a new program in place by the time school starts in the fall. School officials in west central Minnesota have long had complaints about the law. … ‘The president and I both understand that NCLB doesn’t work in every school in America and particularly for schools in rural communities,’ Duncan said.”

Senators Seek To Have NCLB Reauthorization Bill Competed This Summer. The Washington Times (1/27, Weber) reports, “The top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Education Committee said Wednesday they plan to have a reauthorization bill for No Child Left Behind to President Obama by late summer and that it would include broad changes, including possibly renaming the landmark education-reform legislation to ‘Every Child Counts.’ … The proposals follow the State of Union address Tuesday night in which Mr. Obama said he wanted to ‘replace,’ not fix No Child Left Behind.” According to the Times, “Education Secretary Arne Duncan, in a conference call with reporters, said the administration is not ‘dialing back’ on the president’s statement and that the White House and Congress are moving ‘in the same direction.’”

Duncan, Harkin, Enzi Discuss NCLB In Conference Call. Maureen Downey wrote in a blog for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (1/26), Are US schools “ready for a sleeker, less onerous model of education reform, an Every Child Counts law? That may be coming, according to US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, Sen. Mike Enzi R-Wyo., and Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.” Downey added, “In a media conference today, the Senate education leaders joined Duncan in pushing for greater flexibility, increased state and local control and a federal focus on the bottom 5 percent of the nation’s schools.”

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In the Classroom
North Carolina District Adds Schools To Reform Effort.
The Charlotte (NC) Observer (1/27, Frazier) reports that Charlotte-Mecklenburg (NC) Schools “Superintendent Peter Gorman today added four campuses to his signature strategic staffing initiative, which pays top teachers and administrators extra to tackle some of the area’s worst-performing schools. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools now has about two dozen schools involved in the effort, which has won national praise despite mixed early results.” According to the Observer, “The announcement comes the day after the school board voted to save millions by cutting extra teachers for low-income students and rearranging school schedules to reduce busing costs. The district faces as much as a $100 million budget shortfall next year.”

Plan For Durham, NC Schools Outlined.
The Raleigh News & Observer (1/27, Bridges) reports that Durham, NC “Public schools Superintendent Eric J. Becoats rolled out a districtwide strategic plan Wednesday night that seeks to shrink the high school dropout rate to 3 percent, raise student proficiency in various grades and subjects to at least 80 percent, and obtain a 90 percent approval rating on teachers’ working conditions by 2014. .. Other goals of the 10-year road map for the district include increasing partnerships with local colleges and businesses, improving school nutrition, establishing equitable standards for school resources, and starting a competitive recruitment and retention initiative to attract the education industry’s best and brightest.”

On the Job
Indiana School District Budget Plan Will Cut Up To 25 Jobs.
Indianapolis Star (1/27) reports, “About 10 certified staff members and as many as 15 instructional assistants will lose their jobs at the end of the school year under a proposal by [Brownsburg, IN Schools] Superintendent Jim Snapp. … The plan, which would make up for a $3 million budget shortfall, also would result in smaller class sizes at the elementary level. Parents requested fewer administrators, more teachers and smaller classes during a series of community meetings last summer.”

Nevada Educators Debate Teacher Pay Changes.
KLAS-TV Las Vegas (1/26) reported on its Website, “Earlier this week, [Nevada] Governor Brian Sandoval talked about merit pay for teachers who perform well. Now President Barack Obama is echoing that sentiment. But is it fair? Some teachers in the Clark County School District say it is not, while the Nevada State Education Association supports the performance pay idea.” According to KLAS, “The NSEA says they support performance pay because they feel people should be rewarded for a job well done.” Sandoval “also floated the idea of ending teacher tenure.”

Florida Lawmakers Tackle Teacher Merit Pay Issue.
The Orlando Sentinel (1/26, Postal) reported, “Crafting a teacher merit-pay bill for Florida this spring is ‘not going to be like last time,’ a key state lawmaker promised today. State Sen. Steve Wise, whose education committee will devise a bill to be considered by the Florida Legislature, said he does not want a repeat of last year’s fierce fight.” According to the Sentinel, “Wise, who is the committee chairman, said that in tackling what was one of the most divisive issues of the legislature’s 2010 session, his committee will devise a ‘thoughtful’ bill that aims to boost teacher quality by changing how teachers are evaluated and paid.”

Law & Policy
Duncan At Odds With Paul Over Proposal To Eliminate Education Department.
The Lexington (KY) Herald-Leader (1/27) reports, “Critics lashed out Wednesday at a proposal by US Sen. Rand Paul to slash numerous federal programs, including food stamps, to save $500 billion in a single year. But Paul’s supporters praised him for sticking to his campaign promise to attempt to reduce the size of the federal government.” The Herald-Leader adds, “US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said he disagreed with Paul’s proposal to do away with most of the Department of Education. ‘I’d love to have that conversation with the senator,’ Duncan said during a news conference. Duncan said the department’s role should not be to pay for local public schools but to ‘spur innovation.’”

Teacher Praises Obama’s Remarks On Education.
In a piece for the Huffington Post (1/27) introduced by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Antero Garcia, a Classroom Teaching Fellow for the US Department of Education, writes, “As the president listed the many things that will strengthen the country in his forthcoming budget proposal, I was continually reminded that none of these items is possible without an improved educational foundation. … The president…offered a sobering view of education today and the challenges we are facing ‘that have been decades in the making.’”

Will Calls Duncan Administration’s “Redeeming Feature.”
George Will, in his column for the Washington Post (1/27), writes, “The Education Department sits at the foot of Capitol Hill, where many new legislators consider ‘federal education policy’ a constitutional oxymoron. They have a point. They might, however, decide that the changes [Education Secretary] Duncan proposes — on balance, greater state flexibility in meeting national goals — make him the Obama administration’s redeeming feature.”

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School Finance
Detroit Schools Chief Proposes Series Of Painful Cuts Amid Fiscal Crisis.
The Washington Times (1/27, Billups) reports that some Detroit schools “could end up with as many as 62 students per classroom under a proposal geared at helping balance the district’s budget, which is $327 million in the red. The class-size increases come along with a recommendation to close nearly half of the struggling city’s schools over the next two years, from 142 to 72, in a money-saving effort that would shutter empty buildings, lay off staff, force parents to pay fees for sports and consolidate some departments.” According to the Times, “The hard-times proposal was released last week as a part of a monthly recommendation made to the Michigan Department of Education by Robert Bobb, a former D.C. school board president and deputy mayor who was appointed in January 2009 by Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm as the district’s emergency financial manager.”

Kansas Governor Wants Definition Of “Suitable” Funding For Schools.
The Kansas City Star (1/27, Klepper) reports, “Kansas lawmakers should define how much a public education should cost, says Gov. Sam Brownback, to finally settle the vexing debate at the center of the state’s money problems. Schools are the most expensive program for Kansas government – a priority that Brownback likens to the role that the military plays in the federal budget. But many lawmakers say they lack a clear understanding of what the money must pay for.” According to the Star, “That uncertainty has prompted lawsuits from parents and school districts who think the state isn’t meeting its obligations.”

Also in the News
Interim DC Schools Chief Reassigns Principal.
The Washington Post (1/27, Turque) reports, “Interim D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson announced Wednesday that she has reassigned the new principal of Hardy Middle School, acknowledging that poor decisions by the District had contributed to more than a year of turmoil at one of the city’s few academically successful public middle schools. In a take-home letter distributed to students at dismissal, Henderson said Dana Nerenberg will return full-time to Hyde-Addison Elementary, where she also serves as principal.” According to the Post, “The move also represents the second high-profile Rhee initiative that Henderson has reversed in her three months on the job. In December, she ousted the private management firm hired by Rhee to turn around low-performing Dunbar High School.”

Group Calls For School Reforms In Rhode Island.
The Providence Journal (1/27, Jordan) reports, “For the second time in two days, an education-advocacy group is appealing to [Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee] to push ahead with controversial school reforms, in this case the growth of public charter schools, an expansion the governor has made clear he does not support. Joe Williams, the executive director of Democrats for Education Reform, a national group, hand-delivered a letter with his concerns to the governor’s office Wednesday morning, said organization spokesman, Bill Fischer.” According to the Journal, “The commitment to expand these alternative public schools was a key part of Rhode Island’s successful Race to the Top application, which will bring $75 million to schools over the next four years. Federal education officials have said that changing any part of the plan could jeopardize the entire grant. Chafee has said he is discussing altering that part of the plan with US Education Secretary Arne Duncan.”

More Than 170 Houston Educators May Be Laid Off As Stimulus Exhausted.
The Houston Chronicle (1/28, Mellon) reports, “More than 170 educators in the Houston school district received notice on Thursday that their jobs may disappear in June with the end of federal stimulus funding. Hundreds of public school employees across Texas also face the prospect of layoffs as the two-year-old economic stimulus package runs dry.” According to the Chronicle, “The 2011 expiration date is no surprise, but it comes as the state faces a multibillion-dollar funding shortfall that officials warn could cost even more jobs – up to 100,000, according to one estimate.”

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In the Classroom
Report Documents Sharp Rise In Suspensions At New York City Schools.
The New York Times (1/28, Santos) reports, “The number of New York City student suspensions more than doubled in the six years after Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg took control of public schools and as the city moved toward a zero-tolerance approach toward misbehavior, according to a report released on Thursday. The report, compiled by the New York Civil Liberties Union and based on 10 years of previously undisclosed suspension statistics, echoed a nationwide trend toward mandatory suspensions for an increasing variety of infractions.” According to the Times, “Black students, who make up 30 percent of the schools’ enrollment, accounted for more than half of all suspensions every year from 1999-2000 to 2008-9, the period covered by the report,” and special education “students, who make up 16.2 percent of the enrollment, served about one-third of all suspensions.”

Los Angeles Catholic Schools To Add 20 Days To Academic Year.
The Los Angeles Times (1/28, Landsberg) reports, “As public school students in Los Angeles adjust to a shorter academic year, Catholic school pupils face a different sort of transition. Beginning this fall, most elementary schools in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles will add 20 days to their schedules, making their school year one of the longest in the United States.” According to the Times “Los Angeles Unified Supt. Ramon C. Cortines said he would lengthen the public school year ‘in a minute’ if he had enough money. … Probably the largest school system to operate on an extended calendar is that run by the KIPP charter school group, which operates 99 schools across the country, including five in Los Angeles.”

Florida District Struggles To Comply With Class-Size Limits.
The Orlando Sentinel (1/28, Freeman) reports, “After reviewing options with some teachers and parents, public schools in Palm Beach [FL] County are making tough choices to meet the state’s strict class-size limits next year. This round of planning – to be completed Friday – is critical as the School Board prepares to vote Feb. 9 on a compliance blueprint to be submitted to the state.” According to the Sentinel, “The goal is for all 163 traditional schools, and three of the district’s alternative schools, to get on track for meeting the requirements by an October enrollment count. But it’s not going to be easy because there’s not enough money, or classrooms on each campus, to simply hire more teachers.”

Struggling Los Angeles High School To Be Restructured.
The Los Angeles Times (1/27, Song) reported, “Los Angeles school district officials announced Wednesday that Belmont High School will be restructured and most employees will have to reapply for their jobs and agree to a curriculum in which students will be taught in English, Spanish and Mandarin. The move marks the third time recently that officials have taken such measures using federal guidelines allowing districts to revamp struggling campuses.” According to the Times, “The two other campuses that were restructured, John C. Fremont and Jordan high schools, showed much less progress than Belmont before teachers, administrators and staff were made to reapply for their jobs. But Dale Vigil, the local superintendent who oversees Belmont near downtown, said he made the decision to overhaul the nearly 1,300-student school because a small percentage of students score at grade level or above in English and math on standardized tests and a low percentage graduate in four years.”

On the Job
North Carolina District Expands Strategic Staffing Initiative.
The Charlotte (NC) Observer (1/28, Frazier) reports that Charlotte-Mecklenburg (NC) Schools “Superintendent Peter Gorman this week added five campuses to his signature strategic staffing initiative, which pays top teachers and administrators extra to tackle some of the area’s worst-performing schools.” CMS “now has about two dozen schools involved in the effort, which has won national praise despite mixed early results. The announcement came the day after the school board voted to save millions by cutting extra teachers for low-income students and rearranging school schedules to reduce busing costs” amid a looming $100 million budget shortfall.

24 Georgia Educators Under Investigation Over Alleged Test Cheating.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (1/28, Matteucci, Sarrio) reports, “Twenty-four DeKalb County[GA] educators have been reassigned to nonschool duties over irregularities in 2009 state testing that affected nine schools and possibly 1,400 students. The unidentified educators, both teachers and principals, could face losing their teaching licenses” and the “DeKalb District attorney will review the investigation conducted by the school system and determine if criminal charges are warranted. … School officials told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Thursday they referred 24 educators and five former employees to the Georgia Professional Standards Commission after an internal investigation uncovered numerous irregularities on the April 2009 Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests.”

Law & Policy
Teacher Licensing Plan Moves Through Minnesota House.
The AP (1/28, Williams) reports, “Less than a week after US Education Secretary Arne Duncan scolded Minnesota for not having more ways for talented people to become teachers, a state House committee approved a bill aiming to do just that. On a split vote, the House Education Finance Committee on Thursday forwarded a bill sponsored by Rep. Patrick Garofalo [R]” which “would make it possible for the first time for a local applicant to get a license through an organization other than a Minnesota college or university. … ‘We need to open this up and get great talent, wherever that talent may come from,’ Duncan told a group of business leaders in Minneapolis on Jan. 14.”

Obama, Duncan Call For NCLB Overhaul.
The International Business Times (1/28, Picard) reports, “The Obama administration believes that one policy area ripe for bipartisan cooperation and accomplishment is the reauthorization, and improvement, of” NCLB. In his State of the Union address “Obama said he wanted to ‘replace No Child Left Behind with a law that’s more flexible and focused on what’s best for our kids.’ Secretary of Education Arne Duncan followed the President’s lead by holding a press conference Wednesday, accompanied by US Sens. Tom Harkin, D-IA, Mike Enzi, R-WY, Jeff Bingaman, D-NM and Lamar Alexander, R-TN.” According to the IBT, “Duncan called NCLB ‘far too rigid’ to allow states to develop their own policies.”

Colorado Bill Would Expand Turnaround Choices.
Education News Colorado (1/27, Engdahl) reported, “A measure introduced in the [Colorado] Senate Thursday would increase the options that could be used for schools that need turnaround plans and also would require greater public scrutiny of such plans. If passed, the bill would be the first significant modification of the state’s new accountability system for schools, passed by the legislature in 2009 and now being implemented by the Department of Education.” According to Education News Colorado, “The accountability law, known as Senate Bill 09-163, requires that schools placed on ‘turnaround’ status for low academic performance hire an outside partner to help improve the school, reorganize school leadership, become an innovation school or cluster with other schools to form an innovation zone, or ‘restart’ by hiring contract management, becoming a charter school or redoing the charter if the school already has charter status.”

Michigan Teacher Tenure Reform Back On The Table.
Peter Luke wrote in a blog for MichiganLive (1/27), “The Michigan Education Association managed to block House consideration of a teacher tenure change measure in last year’s lame duck session when Democrats controlled the chamber. That’s going to be tougher to do now that Republicans are in charge and move to change state tenure laws has retained the flavor of bipartisanship. … A measure introduced by Rep. Tim Melton, D-Auburn Hills, this week would bar tenure to new teachers in the last year of probation unless they received a performance evaluation that judged them to be effective, according to the assessment tool adopted by the school district that has to include student performance as a measure.”

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Safety & Security
Los Angeles School Officer Faked Shooting Story, LAPD Says.
The Los Angeles Times (1/28, Rubin, Blankstein) reports, “A Los Angeles school police officer who said he was shot by an attacker last week, prompting a manhunt that shut down a large swath of Woodland Hills, has been arrested on suspicion of concocting the story, authorities said Thursday night.” According to the Times, “Police had said Stenroos was shot in the chest Jan. 19 after he confronted a man who was attempting to break into vehicles near the eastern boundary of the El Camino Real High School campus. … The incident sparked a massive police response that inconvenienced thousands of people for the day as officers blocked roads, locked down schools and refused to let people in or out of a 7-square-mile area.” The AP (1/28, Watkins) also covers this story.

Also in the News
Memphis To Vote On Transferring School System To County.
The New York Times (1/28, Robertson) reports that the “voluntary surrender” of Memphis, TN “schools’ charter, since backed by the City Council and most of the school board, has led to an extraordinary standoff between Tennessee’s largest county and its largest city, a showdown charged with issues of money, politics, class and race. It is headed for a citywide referendum in March, and if it is approved, the residents of Memphis and surrounding Shelby County are likely to find themselves together in uncharted territory.” According to the Times, Memphis city councilman Shea Flinn said the surrender “was a pre-emptive strike, a way to head off a plan by the separate county school system that could have led to a drastic shortfall in city school revenues. With no Memphis school system, the city schools instead would become the county’s responsibility.”

NEA in the News
Teach For America Secures $100 Million To Launch Endowment.
The AP (1/28) reports, “Teach For America, the education organization that places recent college graduates in low-income public schools, is getting $100 million to launch its first-ever endowment in hopes of making the grass-roots organization a permanent fixture in education. The program – which is now in communities from Atlanta to rural New Mexico to Los Angeles – announced Thursday that four philanthropists are joining to create a stable, long-term source of money.” The AP adds that the news is “likely to be unwelcome…for teachers’ unions and other opponents, who say Teach For America puts inexperienced 20-somethings with just five weeks of training in classrooms and most of don’t stay after their two years of service. ‘I don’t want anyone to practice or test out whether teaching is their profession on children,’ said Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, a teachers’ union with 3 million members. ‘We need to find out if teaching is your profession before you get in the classroom.’”

Rhee Building National Platform For Education Reform Agenda.
Politico (1/28, Smith) reports that former DC schools chancellor Michelle Rhee is “an important voice among centrist Democrats – led by President Barack Obama – who are pushing a new agenda of teacher quality and high standards in education. She’s an adviser to some of the nation’s most ambitious Republican governors, like Florida’s Rick Scott, New Jersey’s Chris Christie, and Indiana’s Mitch Daniels, all of whom envision a more apocalyptic confrontation with teachers’ unions.” According to Politico, “Teacher union leaders privately loathe Rhee, but they have tried to associate themselves with the reform cause by showing flexibility on contracts, while pointing out that salaries and benefits are key to attracting good teachers. ‘My greatest concern is that she takes energy and focus away from the very things we ought to be doing to change things for students,’ said the president of the National Education Association, president Dennis Van Roekel. ‘She’s polarizing in almost everything she does.’”

The Los Angeles Times (1/7, York) adds that an announcement about the position could have been made as early as yesterday. Gubernatorial spokesperson Evan Westrup, however, would not confirm nor deny speculation about the future of the position or the office. The “11 employees in the education secretary’s office were already packing boxes and have been notified that their office has been targeted for elimination.” The article also provides some background on Brown’s intentions with the office and noted that during his campaign, he targeted it for removal and cited it “as an example of bureaucratic redundancy.”

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In the Classroom
Mentoring, Scholarship Programs In Pittsburgh Aim To Prepare Students For College, Careers.
USA Today (1/7, Marklein) reports that in Pittsburgh Public Schools “more than 300 adults give their time to kids through a 2-year-old mentoring program — one of many ways in which residents have rallied around the belief that education is the key to Pittsburgh’s future.” The movement “centers on the Pittsburgh Promise, a 3-year-old scholarship…for public school graduates” funded by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, which “gave $10 million upfront, and said it would match donations up to $90 million over nine years toward a $250 million permanent endowment.” The goals Pittsburgh’s initiatives, USA Today adds, are “to ensure that students master academics, develop behaviors and habits that are consistent with success in college or a career, and explore ambitions and dreams.”

Elementary Immersion Program Delivers 90 Percent Of Curriculum In Mandarin.
California’s Mercury News (1/7, Barry) reports that “a class of kindergarteners at Joseph Azevada Elementary School is learning the same core instruction of reading, writing and arithmetic” with 90 percent of the curriculum “taught in Mandarin Chinese” and 10 percent in English. Students in the Mandarin Immersion Program are able to pick up Mandarin quickly, according to Azevada Principal Carole Diamond. “What I’ve seen in their language oral abilities, the students themselves are now using Mandarin casually and academically,” she said. Currently, there is only one class of students in the program “there is approval to have two classrooms at both the kindergarten and first-grade level next school year. Based on registration that has just begun, Diamond said there will be one kindergarten and one first-grade class for sure next year.”

Students Collaborate On Cross-School Wiki Project To Track Energy Conservation.
Illinois’ TribLocal.com (1/7, Jaworski) reports that “children at Oak Park Elementary District 97 got a lesson in conservation and green energy this week, as educators kicked off a cross-school project to get students more involved in environmental initiatives.” Sixth and third-graders from Brooks Middle School and Longfellow Elementary School, respectively “will all be working with a wiki, an Internet document that is edited by multiple parties working in collaboration.” They “will evaluate their own homes” for energy conservation “and report back to the wiki.” TribLocal adds that Oak Park Elementary District 97 is “beginning a process to get students from multiple grade levels and schools all involved in the same project on a larger scale.”

Law & Policy
New Jersey Enacts New School Anti-Bullying Law.
The New York Times (1/7, Pérez-peña) reports, “New Jersey on Thursday enacted the nation’s toughest law against bullying and harassment in schools, three and a half months after the suicide of a Rutgers University student drew national attention to the issue.” Under the law, schools and districts must appoint “specific people…to run antibullying programs;” incidents must be investigated “starting within a day after they occur; and…teachers, administrators and school board members” must be trained. The law also requires that superintendents “make public reports twice a year detailing any episodes in each school, and each school will receive a letter grade to be posted on its Web site. The law, which goes into effect at the start of the next school year, lists harassment, intimidation or bullying as grounds for suspension or even expulsion from school.” The AP (1/7) also covers the story.

Rhee Teams Up With Florida Governor On Education Reform.
The AP (1/7, Kay) reports that Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) “and former D.C. public schools chief Michelle Rhee visited a South Florida charter school Thursday to announce a partnership and tout their student-focused education agendas.” Rhee, who “was on Scott’s education transition team” will “continue to serve Florida as an informal education adviser.” She told her audience at Florida International Academy in Opa-locka Thursday that “she made Florida the first state to partner with her new nonprofit education organization, StudentsFirst, because Scott shares her focus on improving teacher quality, on giving parents and students more options and on school accountability.” Scott and Rhee “both said they supported merit pay plans for teachers, even if the teachers unions oppose such plans.”

Florida Officials Propose $43 Million In Penalties For Districts In Violation Of Class-Size Rules.
The AP (1/7, Kaczor) reports, “Florida education officials have proposed reducing state funding to school districts and laboratory and charter schools by about $43 million as penalties for violating class size limits.” Still, that total “is far less than the $131 million the department had predicted before the school year began.” Of the 35 districts in violation of class-size regulations, 25 have appealed so far. “Also, all three laboratory schools and 38 of 44 charter schools found in violation are appealing. The State Board of Education will consider the appeals when it meets Jan. 18 in Pensacola. The fines then must be approved by the Legislative Budget Commission, probably in February.”

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Special Needs
DC Officials Seek To Save Money With Fewer Private School Placements For Special Education.
The Washington Times (1/7, Simmons) reports, “D.C. officials are adamant: The spiraling costs for special education must be cut.” As of “Oct. 1, taxpayers have spent about $142 million on nonpublic special-education programs, including about $15,000 per student on tuition for students who attended specialized private schools. Room and board alone for those students has cost an additional $510,000.” DC Mayor Vincent Gray opposes vouchers for special education students. Instead, he and Deputy Chancellor for Special Education Richard Nyankori “want to “mainstream” special-ed students in D.C. public schools and make early-intervention testing a mainstay so educators can begin addressing learning and behavioral problems early on.”

The Washington Post (1/7, Turque) reports “that the area of the city with the highest proportion of privately placed special needs students is its most affluent: Ward 3.” Forty percent of “Ward 3 special [education] students” have “attended private schools” as of Sept 30. Meanwhile, “Ward 8 has the lowest proportion at 22 percent.” Nyankori noted that “the data reflect other disparities. … ‘Some of our best special education services are located in Ward Three. … It is also an area of the city where we have the least concentration of students with highly complex needs–Wards 5, 7, and 8 have many more. Given the resources available in that ward, I think we have to take a look at the disproportionality and understand whether it’s warranted or not,’” he said.

New Jersey Lawmaker Proposes Task Force To Study Special Education Spending.
New Jersey’s Asbury Park Press (1/7, Mullen) reports that “a new bill, if passed, would set up a task force to study ways to make the state’s $3 billion-a-year special-education system more effective and accountable.” Assemblyman David P. Rible (R), the measure’s sponsor, said that “the 15-member task force would include teachers and parents of disabled children.” Currently, “, little data exists to gauge the performance of” special education programs. An investigation by the Asbury Park Press recently showed that “the state Department of Education doesn’t keep track of the costs associated with educating some 200,000 students in the state with wide-ranging disabilities.”

School Finance
Connecticut School Systems Warned Of Cuts In State Funding This Year.
The Middletown (CT) Press (1/7, Federico) reports that Connecticut school systems “could lose an estimated $3 million in federal stimulus money this summer if the state fails to restore state education grants to towns, state education officials warned Thursday.” Over the last two years, Connecticut has made up for $270 million in education funding cuts through “federal economic stimulus money.” But with that funding “running out…school leaders” are uncertain whether or not the money will be restored. On Wednesday, The Middletown Press adds, “Organizations including…Connecticut Association of School Business Officials” went with “parents and students [to] the state Capitol…to announce a campaign meant to raise awareness of the shortfall and to urge state legislators to take action during the upcoming session to protect state education funding.” For the campaign, the “organizations pledged to provide information to their communities and education leaders across the state in order to find attainable results for their school via a website, called WhatWillOurChildrenLose.com.” The AP (1/7, Reitz) and the Danbury (CT) News Times (1/7, Lambeck) also cover the story.

Also in the News
Community Conversations Aimed At Bridging Achievement Gap In Tulsa Public Schools.
KOTV-TV Tulsa (1/7) reports that some parents in Tulsa, Oklahoma are “coming together to bridge the [achievement] gap” between black and white students. The movement’s organizers call it “an action plan to save a segment of students who are falling further and further behind” through community conversations. “Thursday night was the second community conversation on the achievement gap” focused on “accountability and ways to get parents engaged in their children’s schools.” Participants are still working to develop an action plan for the school district on the issue. KOTV notes that “African American students at Tulsa Public Schools lag nearly 30 points behind their white peers on state exams.”

NEA in the News
Van Roekel: Tests Should Not Be Used To Punish Schools.
In an opinion piece published in the Washington Post (1/6) “Answer Sheet” blog, NEA President Dennis van Roekel wrote that “The intent behind” the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was to close achievement gaps between disadvantaged and minority students and their peers.” However, he notes, the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress “showed that those gaps have not been narrowed. So while NCLB was useful in providing data about different demographic groups, it didn’t achieve its goal of closing the achievement gaps.” Van Roekel also says that the emphasis on standardized testing that has come as a result of NCLB “has distorted our children’s experience in school.” He concludes that “tests shouldn’t be used to punish schools…or to pigeonhole students or their teachers. Instead we should use assessments to help teachers improve their practice…and focus help on the students and subjects that need attention.”

Teachers In Illinois District Vote Against Reopening Contract To Salary Freeze.
Illinois’ TribLocal.com (1/7, Huston) reports, “Teachers at Wilmette School District 39 have rejected a school board request to open their contract for renegotiation in light of a $5.1 million deficit.” The school board in November asked the Wilmette Education Association to reopen its contract to include a salary freeze that would have saved the district $1.1 million each year. “But in mid-December the WEA voted against reopening its contract, which runs through August 2013. … The contract calls for annual raises of between 5 percent and 6 percent, depending on experience and seniority.”

Class Sizes Rise Amid California Budget Crisis.
The San Jose Mercury News (1/10, Noguchi) reports, “As California crams more kids into classrooms, students are sitting in aisles and on windowsills. Fewer are paying attention and more are certain to be left behind. Teachers are spending more time lecturing and less time leading experiments and devising creative lessons.” According to the Mercury News, “Caught in a budget meltdown, the state is forcing schools to abandon one of the most popular education reforms — smaller class sizes. … While standardized test scores have yet to measure the result of larger class sizes, teachers and students are reporting the day-to-day struggles, from more unruly classes to more students being neglected.”

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In the Classroom
Virginia District To Remove Erroneous History Textbooks From Classrooms.
The Washington Post (1/8, Sieff) reported, “Fairfax [VA] school officials have decided to pull a textbook in which historians have found dozens of errors. Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Jack D. Dale said that fourth-grade history will be taught using supplemental materials until errors in ‘Our Virginia, Past and Present’ are corrected in a subsequent edition.” According to the Post, “A state-appointed panel of historians in December found dozens of additional errors in ‘Our Virginia’ and ‘Our America to 1865,’ both of which were published by Connecticut-based Five Ponds Press.”

McCartney: Virginia Schools Should Insist On Full Refund For Error-Filled Textbooks. Robert McCartney wrote in a column for the Washington Post (1/9), “Among Northern Virginia school systems wrestling with how to handle a wildly erroneous fourth-grade social studies textbook, Loudoun County initially received the gold star. Loudoun yanked the book, ‘Our Virginia: Past and Present,’ when the first falsehood – describing nonexistent battalions of black Confederate soldiers – was discovered in October. … By contrast, Fairfax and Arlington were content just to cover up the offending sentence with a blank sticker.” According to McCartney, “There can be only one acceptable solution. The small publishing company responsible for this fiasco, Five Ponds Press of Weston, Conn., should agree right away to cover the entire price” to replace the books.

Maryland, DC To Adopt National Academic Standards.
The Washington Post (1/10, Anderson) reports, “D.C. and Maryland school officials have agreed to national academic standards and have begun to lay the groundwork for new tests and teacher training. But it will take at least a few years before such measures generate notable change in the classroom.” According to the Post, “D.C. and Maryland school officials adopted the standards last year and won major school reform grants from the federal government to help carry them out. The District’s share from the $4 billion Race to the Top contest is $75 million. Maryland’s is $250 million.”

Advanced Placement Guidelines To Be Revamped.
The New York Times (1/7, Drew) reported that as Advanced Placement “has proliferated, spreading to more than 30 subjects with 1.8 million students taking 3.2 million tests, the program has won praise for giving students an early chance at more challenging work. But many of the courses, particularly in the sciences and history, have also been criticized for overwhelming students with facts to memorize and then rushing through important topics.” According to the Times, “All that, says the College Board, is about to change. Next month, the board, the nonprofit organization that owns the A.P. exams as well as the SAT, will release a wholesale revamping of A.P. biology as well as United States history – with 387,000 test-takers the most popular A.P. subject.”

Effectiveness Of School Reform Push Questioned.
Robert J. Samuelson writes in a column for the Washington Post (1/10), “Almost everyone who worries about America’s ‘competitiveness’ in the world bemoans the sorry state of US K-12 education. … ‘The urgency for reform has never been greater,’ Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently wrote in The Post. The diagnosis spans the political spectrum. But what if it’s not true?” Samuelson adds that “persistent achievement gaps demonstrate the limits of schools to compensate for problems outside the classroom. … What we face is not an engineering problem; it’s overcoming the legacy of history and culture.”

Law & Policy
Virginia Updating Startup Rules For Charter Schools.
The Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot (1/10) reports that Virginia “is changing the way that charter schools apply for approval” yet “that isn’t likely to bring more of the nontraditional schools” to the state, according to “some state and national education leaders.” According to the Virginian-Pilot, “Charter advocacy groups generally don’t consider Virginia a charter-friendly state, though Gov. Bob McDonnell pledged to ease restrictions during his campaign and when he took office last year. Charter schools have been in the national spotlight, too, thanks in part to the support of President Barack Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan.”

Pennsylvania Leaders Push Plan For School Vouchers.
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (1/9, Weigand) reported, “This week Pennsylvanians will get a look at a plan to use state money to give low-income families alternatives to public school. State Sens. Jeffrey Piccola, R-Dauphin, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, and Anthony Williams, D-Philadelphia, will release their proposal for a tuition voucher system mid-week. Parents could use the money to send their child to a public, parochial or private school of their choice.” According to the Tribune-Review, “The plan provides up to an $8,000 voucher to families with an annual income of no more than 130 percent of the federal poverty level,” Williams said. “For a family of four, the income limit would be $28,665.”

Law Banning Latino Classes Sparks Controversy In Arizona.
The New York Times (1/8, Lacey) reports that Latino-culture themed classes “have been declared illegal by the State of Arizona – even while similar programs for black, Asian and American Indian students have been left untouched. ‘It’s propagandizing and brainwashing that’s going on there,’ Tom Horne, Arizona’s newly elected attorney general, said this week as he officially declared the program in violation of a state law that went into effect on Jan. 1.’” According to the Times, “It was Horne, as the state’s superintendent of public instruction, who wrote a law aimed at challenging Tucson’s ethnic-studies program.”

Many See Union Influence In Shakeup Of California Board Of Education.
The Los Angeles Times (1/8, Mehta) reported, “In one of [California] Gov. Jerry Brown’s first official acts this week, he sacked the majority of the state Board of Education, replacing several vocal proponents of charter schools, parent empowerment and teacher accountability. A broad range of educators, policy makers and others say the move was widely believed to be the handiwork of the California Teachers Assn., which heavily supported Brown in his gubernatorial campaign.” According to the Times, the move “also appears to delay a key vote about parents’ power to reshape failing schools – an effort opposed by the union – leading to strong criticism of the governor from fellow Democrats.”

Safety & Security
Virginia Education Leaders Study Proposal On Sex Abuse.
The Washington Post (1/9, White) reported, “The Virginia Board of Education is considering its first statewide guidelines for the prevention of sexual misconduct in public schools in response to recent abuse cases, such as the one involving former Manassas [VA] teacher Kevin Ricks, officials said. The proposed guidelines would target behavior that has led to student sexual abuse, and they seek to limit situations that could blur the lines in a teacher-student relationship.” According to the Post, “The guidelines suggest strict limits on communication, physical contact and socializing with students.”

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School Finance
California Education Chief Declares Fiscal Emergency For State’s Schools.
Bloomberg News (1/7, Marois) reported that California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson said that “California’s public schools are mired in a fiscal crisis” and cautioned “that renewed cuts might push some districts further toward insolvency after three consecutive years of deficits.” He added that 174 California districts “are in financial jeopardy and may require state oversight. He called on Governor Jerry Brown to resist making more cuts to elementary and high-school education.”

KGO-TV San Francisco (1/7, Anthony) added on its website that Torlakson also said, “The law won’t let me call out the National Guard. Your schools need your help. And they need it now. Continuing some of the current taxes that are in place, that the taxpayers got used to paying, that were put in place to protect schools and education, we need to do that.”

The San Jose Mercury News (1/7, Gonzales) observed that in addition to Torlakson’s declaration, he also identified ways that his office hopes to save districts money ahead of the Governor’s budget announcement. Specifically, “Torlakson’s ideas of giving districts additional financial flexibility and streamlining the school construction process pleased local education leaders.” Howard Blume also covered this story in a blog for the Los Angeles Times (1/7).

K-12 Funding, Policy On Radar For New Congress.
Education Week (1/7, Klein) reported, “President Obama has a long list of K-12 items on the policy agenda for his next two years in office, but it remains to be seen how his priorities will jibe with those of the new, more conservative Congress that took office last week with many members intent on shrinking the federal government and squeezing spending. Although renewal of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act-whose current version is the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002-is being touted as one area of potential common ground, the task is politically tricky for reasons that go beyond partisan divisions: There are deep disagreements within both parties over the best direction to take K-12 policy.” Also, “the new Republican-controlled House could step up oversight of key Obama programs, including the $4.35 billion Race to the Top program.”

Minnesota Governor Seeks Another Run At Race To Top Funds.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune (1/7, Kaszuba) reported that Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton “said Friday he wants Minnesota to reapply for the federal government’s Race to the Top education money, a move that drew praise from Republicans and resurrected an issue that deeply divided former Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the state’s largest teachers union. Dayton said he has already talked briefly to US Education Secretary Arne Duncan and hopes to meet with him when Duncan comes to Minnesota on Jan. 21.” The Star Tribune added, “Republicans said the move showed that the new DFL governor, who initially was not supported in his campaign by Education Minnesota, the state’s largest teachers union, was not beholden to the union and might act independently from a longtime DFL constituency.”

Delaware Approves Schools’ Race To The Top Reform Plans.
The Wilmington News Journal (1/7, Dobo) reported that the Delaware Department of Education “has approved Race to the Top academic reform plans for four schools.” According to the News Journal, “As part of its Partnership Zones effort, the state will restructure 10 schools over the next four years. The effort is funded by $2.2 million of the state’s $119 million federal Race to the Top grant. Schools receive as much as $700,000 in money and technical assistance, but first, they have to come up with a plan approved by the state.”

Also in the News
Deasy Tapped As Los Angeles Schools Chief.
The Los Angeles Times (1/10, Blume) reports, “The selection of John Deasy to lead the nation’s second-largest school system, expected Tuesday, would give the Board of Education a leader who is eager to make sweeping changes and who has earned the respect of disparate and often warring forces in the Los Angeles Unified School District. … US Education Secretary Arne Duncan weighed in last week, saying Deasy ‘has been a thoughtful, aggressive leader in public education.’” According to the Times, “After joining the school district in August, Deasy carved out a role heading a controversial effort to revamp teacher evaluations to include the use of student test score data, a move vigorously opposed by the teachers union.” The Los Angeles Times (1/7, Blume) also carried a separate report on this story.

In Tough Times, Schools Try To Keep Homeless Students’ Education On Track.
The Los Angeles Times (1/9, Rojas) reported as jobs “are lost, houses are foreclosed and tenants are evicted, more families are being pushed into shelters, motels, even cars. In the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest, nearly 13,500 students were identified as homeless in the 2009-10 school year, records show, a 53% increase from five years ago.” Meanwhile, programs “attempting to help the children in these situations… face a sad dilemma: The same difficult economic times that create the need for such services also cause them to struggle financially.”

Students Learn About Nutrition Through Cooking, Activities.
The Washington Post (1/9, Lake) reported on a nutrition lesson taught by Mercer Middle School physical education teacher Benjamin Chiet, who “persuaded three classes of seventh-graders to prepare, cook and, ultimately, enjoy a meal made from whole-wheat flour, spinach, pumpkin and low-fat cheese.” Chiet said, “Childhood obesity is a huge problem that we try to combat every day in physical education class, and for most children and families, it starts because of a simple misunderstanding of nutrition and how to incorporate healthy foods into everyday meals.”

Rhee Taking Education Reform Message Nationwide.
The AP (1/10, Armario) reports that former DC schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee “is continuing her fight to improve the nation’s classrooms through a new organization, Students First. This time, she’s hoping to better tap into discontent with the state of public schools across the country.” According to the AP, “On Monday, she’ll announce the group’s agenda, focusing on three areas: the teaching profession, empowering families with information and choices; and developing more accountability.”

North Carolina District Buffeted By Controversy Amid Re-Segregation Fears.
The Washington Post (1/12, McCrummen) reports that unlike many school districts across the nation, some of the best and most diverse schools in Wake County, NC “are in the poorest sections” of Raleigh, NC. However, “over the past year, a new majority-Republican school board backed by national tea party conservatives has set the district on a strikingly different course,” by abolishing “the policy behind one of the nation’s most celebrated integration efforts. And as the board moves toward a system in which students attend neighborhood schools, some members are embracing the provocative idea that concentrating poor children, who are usually minorities, in a few schools could have merits – logic that critics are blasting as a 21st-century case for segregation.” The Post notes that recently, “federal education officials visited the county, the first step toward a possible investigation.”

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In the Classroom
Parents Push For More Free Play Time For Kindergartners At New York City School.
The New York Times (1/12, Otterman) reports, “Some kindergarten parents at Public School 101, a graceful brick castle in Forest Hills, Queens, wanted more free play time for their children; so they decided to do something about it. Gone were the play kitchens, sand and water tables, and dress-up areas; half-days were now full days.” Subsequently, there were “whiteboards, and the kindergartners, in classes of up to 27, practiced reading and math on work sheets on desks at P.S. 101, also known as the School in the Gardens.” According to the Times, “Time and space for imaginative play in city schools seem to be shrinking as the academic emphasis on reading and math grows, said Clara Hemphill, who researches the city’s schools.”

On the Job
North Carolina District Chief Recommends Cutting 1,500 Jobs.
The Charlotte Observer (Frazier, Helms) reports, “Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Superintendent Peter Gorman on Tuesday recommended cutting more than 1,500 jobs – including hundreds of teachers and assistants – to bridge a $100 million budget gap. His plan also calls for saving money by lengthening the day at schools around the county, and by cutting more than a thousand children from the Bright Beginnings preschool program.” According to the Observer, “The 1,500 jobs would represent about 9 percent of CMS’ 16,000 employees. Gorman didn’t immediately specify how many of the cuts are teaching positions.”

New Jersey Governor Calls For Range Of Education Policy Overhauls.
The New York Times (1/12, Pérez-Peña) reports that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) “signaled Tuesday that his second year in office will be as full of conflict and wrenching change as his first, calling for more deep cuts in state spending and public employee benefits, and a broad education overhaul that quickly drew scorn from Democrats.” According to the Times, Christie “devoted the largest part” of his first State of the State address “to plans that would profoundly alter the way schools operate, including stripping teachers of tenure and paying them based partly on student achievement. … Mr. Christie said that the worst public schools should be closed, reiterated his call for the state to pay private-school tuition for students in failing public schools, and called for a major expansion of charter schools.”

Court Sides With New York City In Lawsuit Over Release Of Teacher Ratings.
The Christian Science Monitor (1/12, Paulson) reports, “Monday’s ruling by a judge in New York paves the way for detailed information to be released about how individual teachers affect students’ test scores. The ruling would allow the New York City school district to release performance rankings for more than 12,000 of its teachers to the media outlets that have requested the information.” The Monitor adds, “New York’s teachers union, the United Federation of Teachers, has promised to appeal the decision, and the district won’t release the rankings until after the appeal.”

Law & Policy
Obama To Push For NCLB Reauthorization.
The Washington Post (1/12, Anderson) reports, “President Obama will mount a fresh attempt this year to rewrite the No Child Left Behind education law, a top administration official said this week, and key congressional Republicans said they are ready to deal. ‘The president is ready to move on this,’ Education Secretary Arne Duncan told The Washington Post.” However, some “Republicans say a big bill could die of its own weight” and House Education and Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R) “has indicated that he might push instead for a series of small education bills. Duncan said Monday he was ‘open to that conversation’ but does not want to leave major problems unaddressed.”

Texas Governor Criticized Over Education Financing Policy Stance.
Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D) writes in a letter to the New York Times (1/12) regarding a January 7 column by Paul Krugman titled “The Texas Omen ” that in 2009, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) “used $3.25 billion in federal education money to replace state education funds, denying any additional support for Texas schools. When Congress considered providing new education financing for states last year, the Texas Democratic delegation worked to prevent history from repeating itself,” working “with Texas superintendents and major statewide education groups to craft a provision ensuring that $830 million of new education financing actually helps Texas schools.” However, Perry “refused to sign the three-page financing application because it requires him to use the money as Congress intended – for education. Five months later, Texas is one of two states that have not been awarded funds from this bill, and the governor continues to delay to the detriment of Texas schools.”

Safety & Security
Federal Government Website Seeks To Share Anti-Bullying Strategies.
Ryan Gray wrote in a blog for School Transportation News (1/12), “For children and youth to thrive in their schools and communities, they need to feel safe and be safe – socially, emotionally, and physically. That is the opening sentence on BullyingInfo.org, a Web site created by the federal government’s Interagency Working Group on Youth Programs to identify and disseminate ‘promising and effective strategies’ to combat bullying as well as to promote partnerships between stakeholders. … ‘We know that many programs are successfully addressing bullying and want to share those materials with others,’ says Kevin Jennings, assistant deputy secretary for the US Department of Education’s Education Department’s Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools who also chairs the Federal Partners in Bullying Prevention Task Force.”

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Facilities
Maryland District Residents Press For Construction Of New Middle School.
The Washington Post (1/12, Johnson) reports, “For more than six years, Prince George’s County [MD] real estate agents often have told young families looking to settle in the planned community of Fairwood that an elementary school would be built soon on a 15-acre plot set aside by the developer.” However, “late last year, enrollment projections for the area dropped” and in order to “justify the need for the new school, Prince George’s County school officials are considering closing one of two aging elementary schools.” According to the Post, when state and local funding “was committed to Fairwood, school officials projected that by 2016, the six elementary schools adjacent to Fairwood would have 600 more students than they had seats for. But then the school system redrew its boundaries countywide and moved sixth-graders from several of the elementary schools to a nearby middle school” which ultimately “prompted state officials to announce late last year that a new elementary school was no longer needed.”

School Finance
Half Of Detroit Public Schools May Be Closed.
The Detroit News (1/12, Chambers) reports, “Detroit Public Schools would close nearly half of its schools in the next two years, and increase high school class sizes to 62 by the following year, under a deficit-reduction plan filed with the state. The plan, part of a monthly update Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb gives the Department of Education, was filed late Monday to provide insight into Bobb’s progress in his attempt to slash a $327 million deficit in the district to zero over the next several years.” According to the Detroit News, “Bobb has said school closures, bigger classes and other measures would be needed if he cannot get help from lawmakers to restructure finances in the state’s largest school district.”

Florida Districts Awarded Race To The Top Funds.
Florida’s Treasure Coast Palm (1/12, Tyko) reports, “The St. Lucie County [FL] School District is getting nearly $5 million in federal Race to the Top dollars. School officials learned Monday the district will receive $4,949,987 over the next four years as part of the state’s $700 million prize from Race to the Top, a federal education reform grant competition.” According to the Treasure Coast Palm, “Of the state’s prize, half of the money will be distributed to approved school districts to carry out locally developed education reform plans. The state is using the other half of the funding to develop an array of programs and strategies designed to aid all school districts in areas such as improving their lowest-performing schools, recognizing and rewarding their highly effective teachers, and increasing the academic achievement of all students.”

Florida’s Naples Daily News (1/12) reports, “The Florida Department of Education announced Monday that the Lee County School District has received $9 million in Race to the Top funds. Lee County was one of five in the state approved for the funds, bringing the total number of Florida districts receiving full approval to their Race to the Top grant to 29.”

Also in the News
Los Angeles School Board Names Deasy Superintendent.
The AP (1/12, Hoag) reports, “The Los Angeles Unified school board on Tuesday promoted an administrator nationally known for an ambitious and aggressive stance on education reform to lead the nation’s second-largest school district. In an widely anticipated move, Deputy Superintendent John Deasy will replace current Superintendent Ramon Cortines, who will retire April 15.” According to the AP, “A $142 million budget deficit, a 50 percent dropout rate, overseeing the handover of struggling campuses to outside operators and overhauling entrenched teacher tenure and evaluation policies are some of the thorniest challenges the new superintendent will face. … District unions have criticized the board for not conducting a national search and the United Teachers Los Angeles said in a letter that Deasy’s selection should be delayed.”

The Los Angeles Times (1/12, Blume) reports that nothing Deasy has “done defines exactly how he will run the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest, which has been hammered by budget cuts, increasing class sizes and layoffs, and which remains beset by low student achievement and community schisms. … One annual goal: increasing the rate of students who graduate from high school within four years by 6 percentage points; another: raising the number of ninth graders who test as proficient in algebra by 4 percentage points.” NBC Los Angeles (1/11, Ebright) also covers this story in a report on its Website.

LATimes Calls For Overhaul Of California Education Leadership Structure.
The Los Angeles Times (1/12) editorializes, “For the two decades that California has had a secretary of education, the position has never made much sense” as the post “has no real authority” and thus, “Gov. Jerry Brown was right to get rid of it; that was an easy save of almost $2 million a year.” However, “the secretary of education wasn’t the real problem. The underlying mistake is contained in the Constitution, which mandates an elected superintendent. Ideally, Brown would be able to do away with that post and the appointed Board of Education, bring the Education Department under his wing and streamline the bulky and often-contradictory administration of the public schools.”

New York Archdiocese Says It Plans To Close 27 Schools.
The New York Times (1/12, Vitello) reports, “The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York announced on Tuesday that 26 elementary schools and one high school that had received heavy subsidies in recent years because of declining enrollment would be closed at the end of the current school year. The announcement capped a two-year review process and represented the largest school consolidation in the history of the archdiocese, which includes 2.5 million Catholics in a sprawling territory stretching from Staten Island to Sullivan County.” The Times adds that the “archdiocese has promised to find places in other parochial schools for all of the roughly 4,700 students affected by the closings.”

Report Documents Low Academic Achievement Across Michigan.
The Detroit News (1/13, Lewis) reports, “Detroit Public Schools is not necessarily Michigan’s lowest performing district, according to a” new report by the Education Trust-Midwest, which “lists several districts across Michigan that performed below the Detroit district on some state tests among African-American students, including Pontiac, Oak Park, Clintondale, Taylor, Grand Rapids, Saginaw, Flint and Jackson. The report also says Michigan is near the bottom in student performance on national assessments, and that many of the state’s schoolchildren are considered proficient only because of lax standards.” The Detroit News adds, “According to the report, ‘Becoming a Leader in Education: An Agenda for Michigan,’ 84 percent of Michigan fourth-graders meet state reading standards, but only 30 percent are proficient on the National Assessment of Education Progress exam.”

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In the Classroom
Idaho Education Chief Seeks Classroom Technology, Instruction Overhauls.
The Twin Falls (ID) Times-News (1/13, Botkin) reports, “Technology is just one piece of” Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna’s “‘Students Come First’ proposal, aimed at overhauling public education in Idaho with a three-pronged approach of technology, effective educators and transparent accountability. It comes at a time when the public schools budget is lean, and budget cuts have led to everything from fewer class days to slashed field trips and music programs.” According to the Times-News, “For students, it would mean investment in technology and new classroom equipment…and increased virtual education options, with the Idaho Education Network playing a key role.”

Plan To Close Achievement Gap In Minneapolis Includes School Closure.
KARE-TV Minneapolis (1/12, Xiong) reported on its Website, “Four Seasons Elementary School is St. Paul’s first year-round school. However, it may not open again next fall because the school could close under a new three year plan to tackle the district’s persistent achievement gap.” According to KARE, “The plan calls for some schools like Barack and Michelle Obama Service Learning to add grades, while others like Open World Learning and Four Seasons will lose them” and the “district will also cut 16 magnet school programs.”

Virginia District Pulls Error-Filled History Textbook.
The Washington Post (1/12, Sieff) reports that Arlington, VA “school officials decided Wednesday to pull a textbook in which historians have found dozens of errors. ‘Based upon the recent information about the number and scope of errors identified in the Grade 4 Social Studies textbook, Our Virginia: Past and Present, Arlington Public Schools (APS) officials announced today their decision to remove all print copies of the textbooks from circulation and use in Grade 4 classrooms,’ officials wrote in an email to parents.” According to the Post, “Five Ponds Press announced Monday that it will provide free corrected editions of the books to school districts across the state in July.”

Law & Policy
New Jersey Governor Presses For Education Reforms.
The New York Times (1/13, Hu) reports that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) “tough-on-schools approach in a state that has zealously protected its public schools – and its teachers – has already put him at loggerheads with legislative leaders, unions and some parents in New Jersey. And on Tuesday, the governor…used his State of the State address to push his education agenda further by calling for an end to teacher tenure, on top of his support for merit pay for teachers based partly on student achievement and adoption of a voucherlike system that would give students in low-performing schools other options.” According to the Times, Christie’s “latest salvo has placed New Jersey center stage in the increasingly rancorous national debate over education” and it “also increases pressure on teachers and their unions, which are under criticism nationally as educators, lawmakers and taxpayers try to lower costs and improve results.”

DC Earns Top Marks For Charter School Laws.
The Washington Times (1/13, Simmons) reports, “As unions move to organize charter-school employees, former D.C. Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee rolled out a taut school-reform agenda that pushes charter expansion and public-private vouchers, and she said the untold number of charter teachers she has encountered are not ‘interested in joining a union.’ Ms. Rhee’s proposal and comments came as the District of Columbia won the No. 1 spot for its charter-school laws, which are touted in a new Center for Education Reform study for supporting school and teacher autonomy.” According to the Times, “With Ms. Rhee looking on Wednesday, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie called union demands problematic for school reform and fiscal responsibility,” calling for teacher merit pay, ending teacher tenure and the expansion of charters in his State of the State address.

ESEA Reauthorization Faces Numerous Hurdles.
Nick Anderson wrote in a blog for the Washington Post (1/12), “Every year since 2007, the education world has wondered whether Congress will revise” NCLB, yet each year, “lawmakers have punted. Will 2011 be any different? There are plenty of reasons for skepticism. First, congressional Republicans have their eyes on other matters, including spending cuts” and if the “Education Department budget takes a hit — and it’s hard to see how it won’t be a big, inviting target for the new House GOP majority — that might not bode well for bipartisan compromise on the school testing and accountability policies at the heart of the 2002 education law.”

Obama May Push From ESEA Renewal In State Of The Union Address. Alyson Klein wrote in a blog for Education Week (1/12), “Rumor has it that the president is going to make a big push for renewing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in his State of the Union address to the newly divided Congress, slated for Jan. 25. US Sen. Tom Harkin, the chairman of the Senate, Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, is aiming for the panel to consider a bill by Easter, and then bring the measure to the floor in late spring or early summer, according to Justine Sessions, a spokeswoman for the committee.”

Court Case On Breast Cancer Bracelets Garners Attention Nationwide.
USA Today (1/13, Martin) reports, “School districts nationwide have their eyes on a federal court case in Pennsylvania, which will address whether students should be allowed to wear breast-cancer awareness bracelets that have become a controversy in multiple states. The bracelets – which proclaim ‘I (heart symbol) boobies!’ – have been banned in some districts.” USA Today adds, “The case arose after two middle-school girls were prohibited from wearing the bracelets in the Easton (Pa.) Area School District in October.” USA Today adds, “The Easton case is the only one the ACLU has initiated, but” ACLU lawyer Mary Catherine Roper “said she has corresponded with colleagues in Oregon, Utah, Wyoming, Nevada and Delaware.”

Facilities
Maryland District Chief Postpones Plan To Build Elementary School.
The Washington Post (1/13, Johnson) reports, “Prince George’s County [MD] school officials have once again postponed plans to build an elementary school in Fairwood, a planned community near Bowie. Fairwood residents have been fighting for their own school for more than six years” yet “Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. said Wednesday night that ‘there’s no way to move that project forward’ at this point, as state officials have decided there is no need for it.” Though “the Fairwood project has been delayed, Hite said it has not been killed” as future “school-boundary changes could restore the need for the school, he said.”

Florida District’s School Construction Funds Running Low.
The Orlando Sentinel (1/13, Weber) reports, “Fallout continues from the failed school construction sales tax in Seminole County [FL], with district officials scrounging for cash to complete needed projects and pay old building debt. The days of making every county school bright, shiny and up-to-date are over – at least during the current economic turmoil.” According to the Sentinel, “Over the next five years the district will have only about $50 million a year in revenue for school repairs and construction. Nearly half, about $23 million, already is committed each year toward repaying old school construction debt.”

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School Finance
Class Sizes Would Rise Under Baltimore County Superintendent’s Budget Proposal.
The Baltimore Sun (1/13, Bowie) reports, “Class sizes would rise in Baltimore County next school year under Superintendent Joe A. Hairston’s budget proposal, which includes a freeze on filling about 200 vacant teaching positions, even as the system experiences a surge in enrollment. Hairston, who presented his plan to the school board Wednesday night, is also proposing a 5 percent decrease in central office and individual school budgets that would require principals to cut back on purchasing supplies and equipment.” According to the Sun, “Hairston’s $1.2 billion operating budget for the fiscal year beginning in July would increase over last year by $6.5 million, or 0.5 percent” assuming “state funding will increase slightly and county funding will hold steady.”

Cuts In Education Funding Likely, Florida Senate President Says.
The Orlando Sentinel (1/13, Deslatte, Garcia) reports that Florida “Senate President Mike Haridopolos signaled Wednesday that the Legislature was unlikely to take up any big-ticket tax cuts this year given Florida’s $3.62-billion projected budget shortfall, and that education could also face big cuts to patch the holes. Haridopolos said policymakers would be passing a budget this spring without any new tax increases, which means they would have to make dramatic cuts to health care and education to make the math work.” Gov. Rick Scott (R) “has proposed to cut school property taxes by $1.4 billion and make up the millage reduction with more state dollars.”

Missouri Lawmakers Consider Education Funding Cuts.
The AP (1/13, Lieb) reports that Missouri state Sen. Victor Callahan (D) “outlined about $80 million of potential cuts to public schools Tuesday as senators began reviewing around 1,000 e-mails containing cost-saving suggestions from the general public. The Senate’s second annual ‘Rebooting Government’ initiative is intended to identify ways of saving money for a cash-strapped state that is facing a projected budget gap of several hundred million dollars for the upcoming fiscal year.” According to the AP, “The ideas discussed Tuesday ranged from the complex, such as changes to the state’s highly technical school aid formula, to the simple, such as picking up trash less frequently from state institutions.”

Also in the News
New York City Charter School Questions Motivations Behind Its Closure.
The New York Times (1/13, Chen) reports that last Month, the New York City Department of Education announced that the Ross Global Academy “would be closed because of poor performance” and now the charter school “is claiming that the true reason for its fall from grace is not what happened in the school, but something much more ironic. Money. In a letter to state education officials this week urging a reversal of the city’s decision, the school says that its newly renovated building on East 12th Street has been promised to Girls Prep, another politically connected charter school on the Lower East Side that has long been yearning for better real estate.” Also, the “letter also questions whether there was any connection involving Girls Prep’s chairwoman, Sarah Robertson, the daughter-in-law of the prominent financier Julian Robertson, and $25 million in contributions made in recent years by the Robertson Foundation to three entities closely associated with the former schools chancellor, Joel I. Klein.”

Chinese Students’ High Scores In International Tests Come At A Cost.
The Los Angeles Times (1/13, Stack) reports, “Chinese adolescence is known as a time of scant whimsy: Students rise at dawn, disappear into school until dinnertime and toil into the late night over homework in preparation for university entrance exams that can make or break their future. So it came as little surprise when international education assessors announced last month that students in Shanghai had outperformed the rest of the industrialized world in standardized exams in math, reading and science.” However, “even as some parents in the West wrung their hands, fretting over an education gap, Chinese commentators reacted to the results with a bout of soul-searching and even an undertone of embarrassment. … In a sense, this is the underbelly of a rising China: the fear that schools are churning out generations of unimaginative worker bees who do well on tests.”

USDA Calls For Overhaul Of School Lunches.
USA Today (1/13, Hellmich) reports, “The government is calling for dramatic changes in school meals, including limiting french fries, sodium and calories and offering students more fruits and vegetables. The proposed rule, being released Thursday by the US Department of Agriculture, will raise the nutrition standards for meals for the first time in 15 years.” According to the AP, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack “says addressing the childhood obesity problem is critical for kids’ health, future medical costs and national security, as so many young adults are too heavy to serve in the military.”

State Takeover A Possibility For Schools In Louisiana District.
The Baton Rouge Advocate (1/14, 4B, Roberts) reports, “The St. Helena School System is like an ailing patient who needs healing,” Louisiana Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek “told the St. Helena School Board Thursday night. And one solution, Pastorek said, would be the state taking over the system’s two remaining schools. St. Helena’s middle school is already under the control of the state’s Recovery School District.” According to the Advocate, “Pastorek said that the St. Helena public school system faces three significant problems: a financial one, a facilities problem, and an academic problem.”

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In the Classroom
New York Education Officials Overhaul Curriculum Standards.
The Buffalo (NY) News (1/13) reported, “Students as young as kindergarteners would be required to learn more math skills under new standards for New York’s public schools to be in place by the coming school year. The state Board of Regents on Tuesday approved changes in the statewide curriculum and testing to enforce the requirements, which include the higher standard for math in kindergarten and first grade.” The Buffalo News adds that another policy change “will require students to be taught how to better interpret literature from a wide variety of genres and a spectrum of American and world cultures.”

University Of Chicago Researchers Find Writing About Test Anxiety May Improve Grades.
The AP (1/14, Blankinship) reports that a new study by University of Chicago researchers found that “a simple writing exercise can relieve students of test anxiety and may help them get better scores than their less anxious classmates.” University of Chicago associate professor of psychology Sian L. Beilock and co-author Gerardo Ramirez, a graduate student, “found that students who were prone to test anxiety improved their test grades by nearly one grade point – from a B-minus to a B-plus, for example – if they were given 10 minutes before an exam to write about their feelings.” The two “believe worrying competes for computing power in the brain’s ‘working,’ or short-term memory.” The idea to test the theory came “from the use of writing to combat depression.”

Virginia BOE Pulls Its Approval Of Two Textbooks.
The Washington Post (1/14, Sieff) reports, “The Virginia Board of Education on Thursday withdrew its approval of two elementary school history textbooks that a panel of historians found to have dozens of errors. The Washington Post reported in October that ‘Our Virginia: Past and Present,’ a fourth-grade textbook, asserted that African American soldiers fought for the South during the Civil War.” According to the Post, “Despite the withdrawal of approval, a school system does not have to stop using the books. The board also ordered a review by experts of any approved textbooks published by Five Ponds Press.”

Maryland Elementary School Uses Army Theme To Motivate.
The Washington Post (1/14, Leaderman) reports, “Lewisdale Elementary School’s faculty has a clear strategy for boosting student assessment scores: they’re going to war. For the third year, the Hyattsville-area [MD] school is encouraging students to do well on the Maryland School Assessment test in March by likening the test to a battle. … The motivation prompted by the army theme has been a key part of students’ success on the tests over the past two years, Principal Melissa Glee-Woodard said.”

On the Job
Los Angeles School Officials Announce Plan To Split Up Low-Performing High School.
The Los Angeles Times (1/13, Song, Blume) reported, “Los Angeles school district leaders announced Wednesday that they will split low-performing Jordan High School into three small schools that will be run by outside groups. All current employees will have to reapply for their jobs or work elsewhere.” According to the Times, “It marks the second time the Los Angeles Unified School District has targeted a campus for such a forced makeover. Fremont High School, located in Florence south of downtown, was also ‘restructured’ last year, a move that drew fierce criticism from the teachers union and resulted in the departure of most teachers.” The Times adds, “Teacher union leaders said they had not been told of the impending move and were disappointed. Restructuring ‘has not been proven to work anywhere they’ve done it,’ said Gregg Solkovits, a union vice president.”

LATimes Backs Move To Split High School, Bring In Outside Operators. The Los Angeles Times (1/14) editorializes, “Ordinarily, we’d rail against a decision by the Los Angeles Unified School District to hand over a school to outside operators without a vote of the teachers, without consulting parents, without an open discussion or an opportunity for existing staff to offer a competing proposal. But Jordan High School’s record isn’t ordinary. The school performs so poorly that only 2% of its students are proficient in math; the picture for English isn’t much better.” According to the Times, “In the future we would rather see L.A. Unified make more of an effort to improve its own schools – as it did by reconstituting Fremont High – than outsource them without public discussion or competing proposals.”

Law & Policy
New Jersey Supreme Court Questions Legality Of Education Cuts.
The Star-Ledger (NJ) (1/14, Calefati) reports that the New Jersey Supreme Court has “requested a ‘special master’ to gather more information and issue a report on the latest battle over state education funding by March 31, according to an order posted on the court’s website. For a second time, the court asked Superior Court Judge Peter Doyne to serve as its fact-finder” and he “will be asked to decide whether Gov. Chris Christie’s nearly $1 billion in cuts to state education aid last year violate the constitution’s requirement for ‘thorough and efficient education for New Jersey school children.’” Also, because “the court’s most recent Abbott v. Burke decision came with an expectation that the state would provide full education funding for three years – an obligation Christie broke – the legal burden now falls to the state to prove that the present levels of funding are sufficient.”

Duncan Urges School Districts To Maintain Racial Diversity In Schools.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan writes in a letter to the Washington Post (1/15) regarding a January 12 front-page article titled “‘In N.C., a new battle on school integration ” that “America’s strength has always been a function of its diversity, so it is troubling to see North Carolina’s Wake County School Board taking steps to reverse a long-standing policy to promote racial diversity in its schools…The board’s action has led to a complaint that has prompted an investigation by our Office for Civil Rights, but it should also prompt a conversation among educators, parents and students across America about our core values.” Duncan adds, “In an increasingly diverse society like ours, racial isolation is not a positive outcome for children of any color or background. … I respectfully urge school boards across America to fully consider the consequences before taking such action.”

Safety & Security
School Security Protocols Questioned In Wake Of Tucson Killings.
World Magazine (1/13, Belz) reported, “Could the lessons learned from mass shootings on school campuses such as Columbine and Virginia Tech have helped law enforcement prevent what happened last Saturday in Tucson? … School campuses have generally focused on ferreting out threats by establishing threat assessment teams instead of beefing up security presence or adding metal detectors.” According to World Magazine, “The trick for law enforcement and school administrators is discovering which angry individuals are about to take action. ‘Sure there’s red flag there. There are red flags in lots of places. A lot of times there are clues there for years and years and years and no one does anything about it,’ said Bill Modzeleski, a Department of Education official who oversaw the reports on school shooters after Columbine and Virginia Tech. ‘You can’t say it’s anybody who acts strange-in some schools, that would probably include a significant part of the population.’”

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Facilities
New Orleans School District Weighs Demands For School Facilities Money.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune (1/14, Chang) reports, “On Wednesday night,” numerous school construction “agendas were aired multiple times at a meeting called by the Recovery School District to discuss which school programs will be assigned to which sites as it moves forward with a $1.8 billion overhaul of New Orleans’ aging and flood-devastated school facilities. The massive construction project, made possible by a historic FEMA settlement, takes place at a time of both uncertainty and opportunity.” According to the Times-Picayune, “In the short term, due to years of neglect as well as storm damage, there are not enough usable buildings. … For the longer term, charter schools are jostling for a piece of the $1.8 billion in construction projects.”

School Finance
Kentucky Slashes Education Funding.
WYMT-TV Hazard, KY (1/13, Downing) reported on its Website, “Officials with the Kentucky Department of Education said an increase in the number of students in Kentucky schools combined with a state budget shortfall means districts will be asked to do more with less. … The state has slashed almost fifty million in school funding across the Commonwealth. That adds up to nearly a two percent cut.” According to WYMT, “‘This is something that could have an effect that ripples out for this fiscal year, next fiscal year, and who knows, maybe even fiscal years after that,’ said Lisa Gross, with the Kentucky Department of Education.”

Showdown Looming In Kansas Over School Spending.
WDAF-TV Kansas City, MO (1/13, Hall) reported on its Website, “A school budget battle is brewing in Kansas after newly-elected Governor Sam Brownback announced plans to slash the state’s budget, and those cuts could cause more pain to an already-hurting education system. During his State of the State address on Wednesday, Brownback said that overall spending on education to school districts across the state would actually increase under his proposed budget, which seeks to reduce overall state spending by six percent. But educators here in the metro say that is not necessarily the case.” According to WDAF, “The governor’s budget increases spending per pupil” yet the budget “decreases the so-called base state aid, or the amount the state pays each district to educate its students.”

Maryland Districts Face Major School Funding Challenges.
The Washington Post (1/14, Spivack, Laris) reports, “Leaders from Montgomery [MD] and Prince George’s [MD] counties prepared for the start of General Assembly session this week with what has become a recession-era routine – they carefully craft expensive wish lists, then scramble for whatever they can get. And this year promises to be even tougher.” According to the Post, “It is becoming increasingly difficult to square ambitious spending requests from Maryland’s two biggest counties with fiscal realities in Annapolis. Opportunities for less-painful state budget fixes have been used – as have federal stimulus dollars, which the state put toward key projects and school spending.”

Also in the News
Agriculture Secretary Proposes Overhaul Of School Nutrition Guidelines.
The Washington Post (1/14, Carman) reports, “Calling it not only a national health issue but also a military one, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Thursday proposed to overhaul the nutrition guidelines for public school meals for the first time since 1995, when Americans were mostly alarmed by the fat content of food. The proposed rules are far more wide-ranging and would gradually reduce sodium, limit starchy vegetables, ban most trans fats, require fat-free or lowfat milk, increase whole grains, add more fruits and vegetables, and, for the first time, limit the number of calories children consume daily.” According to the Post, “Experts on nutrition and school lunch programs generally welcomed the proposed guidelines, which only slightly modify the original recommendations by the Institute of Medicine, the independent ‘health arm’ of the National Academies.”

Maryland Parent Uses Robocall To Retaliate Against School Officials.
The Washington Post (1/14, George) reports that Aaron Titus, a parent of students enrolled in Prince George’s County, MD schools, recorded a robocall sent to school officials to complain about a 4:30 a.m. robocall he received from the district announcing a school opening delay. According to the Post, “Robocalls are a widely accepted fact of family life for those with children in school – an efficient way for school districts to spread the word about emergency closings and for schools to announce everything from state testing days to back-to-school night. … Usually such calls are placed ‘in the 6 o’clock hour, and sometimes the 5 o’clock hour,’” said schools spokesman Darrell Pressley, “with a concern for safety and a recognition that not all families have easy online access. This robocall was pegged for the 4 o’clock hour. … ‘It’s the first time – and the last time,’ he said of the timing.”

Incoming Pennsylvania Governor Nominates Tomalis To Lead Education Department.
The Philadelphia Inquirer (1/14, Hardy) reports that Pennsylvania Gov.-elect Tom Corbett “reached back into the Ridge administration Thursday to select his nominee to lead the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Ronald J. Tomalis, 48, served from 1995 to 2001 as executive deputy secretary of education under Education Secretary Eugene Hickok, who championed vouchers and charter schools, among other initiatives.” Also, from “2001 to 2004, Tomalis worked in the US Department of Education, where he managed implementation of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, popularly known as No Child Left Behind.”

Miami District Enrolling Students In Virtual Labs Without A Teacher.
The New York Times (1/18, Herrera) reports that more than “7,000 students in Miami-Dade County Public Schools” are “enrolled in a program in which core subjects are taken using computers in a classroom with no teacher. … These virtual classrooms, called e-learning labs, were put in place last August as a result of Florida’s Class Size Reduction Amendment, passed in 2002,” which “limits the number of students allowed in classrooms, but not in virtual labs.” According to the Times, other districts across the nation are implementing similar programs, as in “Chicago Public Schools, high schools have ‘credit recovery’ programs that let students take online classes they previously failed” and “Omaha [NE] Public Schools also have similar programs that require physical attendance at certain locations.”

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In the Classroom
New York School Reeling After Dismissal Of Principal.
The New York Times (1/14, Virshup) reported, “Dr. Jose Maldonado-Rivera, the charismatic and controversial head” of Columbia Secondary School, “a four-year-old selective school in Harlem, had weathered an investigation last summer into the drowning of a sixth grader on a field trip to a Long Island beach. Now, just as the school seemed to be regaining its footing after that tragedy,” he has “been dismissed for having what city officials called ‘an inappropriate financial relationship’ with the school’s former parent coordinator, Monica Marin-Reyes.” According to the Times, “Throughout its history, the school had faced financial challenges – partly because Dr. Maldonado-Rivera, who had never taught in a New York City public school, never mind run one, was caught off guard by a drop in city funding; and partly because of its ambitious program, including a rich range of experiential learning adventures each June.”

“Mathemusician” Aims To Make Math Engaging.
The New York Times (1/18, Chang) reports, “Mathematicians over the centuries have thought long and deep about how tightly things, like piles of oranges, can be packed within a given amount of space.” According to the Times, Vi Hart, “has an audacious career ambition: She wants to make math cool. … She calls herself a full-time recreational mathemusician, an off-the-beaten-path choice with seemingly limited prospects. And for most of the two years since she graduated from Stony Brook University, life as a recreational mathemusician has indeed been a meager niche pursuit.” According to the Times, “At first glance, Ms. Hart’s fascination with mathematics might seem odd and unexpected. … At second glance, the intertwining of art and math seems to be the family business. Her father, George W. Hart, builds sculptures based on geometric forms.”

Five Years After Katrina, Teacher Tills Soil Of Lower 9th Ward.
The New York Times (1/16, Wilson) reported, “Nat Turner, a former history teacher at the Beacon School in Manhattan,” is “the founder of Our School at Blair Grocery, a fledgling educational venture and commercial urban farm in the heart of the Lower Ninth Ward. Operating out of a former black-owned grocery store wrecked by 14 feet of water and on two empty lots, the enterprise is an unusual hybrid of G.E.D. training and farm academy. With its emphasis on experiential learning, the school is also a clear rejection of the test-heavy emphasis of No Child Left Behind.”

On the Job
In Role Reversal, Students Help Train Teachers.
The New York Times (1/14, Hu) reported, “In a role reversal,” Syidah O’Bryant “and other teachers at Brick Avon Academy are getting pointers from their students this year as part of an unusual teacher training program at 19 low-performing Newark {NJ] schools. … The training program, which is supported by a federal grant, is being run by the National Urban Alliance for Effective Education, a nonprofit group based in Syosset, N.Y.” According to the Times, “The half-dozen students who participated told their teachers that they learned better when they could move around, interact with classmates and use computers and the Internet – prompting Ms. O’Bryant to joke that she should find a way to give tests on Facebook. But afterward, the teachers said they saw ways to incorporate the students’ ideas into their teaching methods.”

Budget Crisis May Cause Texas Teachers To Lose Jobs.
The New York Times (1/16, Smith) reports, “Among the many ideas for reducing” Texas’ “huge budget shortfall, one in particular is gaining traction among lawmakers examining the $35 billion the state spends on public education: eliminate the class-size cap of 22 students per teacher for kindergarten through fourth grade. It is also the proposal generating the most anxiety in the public education community. The effect on the quality of education that pupils would receive in more-crowded classrooms is fiercely debated, but the intent is to reduce districts’ personnel costs and allow them, if needed, to eliminate teacher positions.”

Efforts Underway In Numerous States To End Teacher Tenure.
The Christian Science Monitor (1/14, Khadaroo) reported, “In their bids to reform K-12 education, state leaders in New Jersey, Florida, and Idaho have all called…for eliminating teacher tenure. If the legislatures go forward with such proposals, they’ll join more than a dozen states that have recently changed their teacher evaluation and dismissal systems or are considering such moves.” According to the Monitor, “The momentum sprang in part from incentives in the Obama administration’s recent Race to the Top competition for stimulus funds.” Though “tenure reform enjoys support from both Democrats and Republicans, some observers see such calls as polarizing rhetoric that could ultimately harm efforts to improve education.”

New Jersey Governor Puts Spotlight On Teacher Tenure.
NPR (1/17, Sanchez) reported on its Website, “Since his election in 2009, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has been a relentless critic of schoolteachers. Christie wants to make it a lot easier to fire ineffective teachers by eliminating tenure.” According to NPR, “Education was a big part of Christie’s speech but he zeroed in on tenure, saying that it made it almost impossible for schools to get rid of bad teachers. The time to eliminate tenure is now, Christie said. And that has infuriated teachers, who argue that bad teachers are indeed let go.”

Law & Policy
Duncan Criticizes North Carolina District’s Diversity Policy Decision.
The Raleigh News & Observer (1/15, Goldsmith, Hui) reported, “The turmoil over Wake County [NC] schools reached the top of the federal Department of Education Friday, as Education Secretary Arne Duncan criticized Wake’s decision to discard its school diversity policy in a letter published by the Washington Post. Duncan’s comments came near the end of a tumultuous week for Wake’s 143,000-student system, which remained locked in a battle over a review of its accreditation with the powerful AdvancED agency. Both the accreditation agency’s probe and an investigation by the Office for Civil Rights of Duncan’s department were prompted by an NAACP complaint about the Wake system.”

The AP (1/15, Breen) reported, “The US Secretary of Education has singled out the school board in Raleigh, N.C., for criticism over its decision to end a busing for diversity program. In a letter published Friday in The Washington Post, Secretary Arne Duncan wrote that other school districts around the country should think twice before following Wake County’s lead. … The board’s decision is being investigated by the education department’s Office for Civil Rights.”

WRAL-TV Raleigh, NC (1/14) reported, “The national accreditation group at odds with the Wake County Board of Education over whether an upcoming review of the panel’s effectiveness is unjust is standing by its insistence that the process will be fair. Atlanta-based AdvanceEd, the parent company of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Council on Accreditation and School Improvement, plans to review the Wake County school system next month after a complaint filed last year by the North Carolina NAACP alleging that some board members want to segregate the school system.”

California Educators Debate Proposed “Parent Trigger” Law.
The Los Angeles Times (1/17) reported, “After months of debate and reams of revisions,” California “education officials were expected to vote last week to finalize details laying out how” the parent trigger “law is supposed to work. But that vote was postponed because a newly appointed state Board of Education announced that it needed more time to consider the issues. The law is intended to allow parents to petition for dramatic changes at struggling schools.” According to the Times, “Several education groups say the previous board gave short shrift to their concerns, instead rushing to approve rules favorable to the charter-school industry. Gov. Jerry Brown replaced a majority of the board in one of his first official acts, installing some members viewed by critics as having more traditional union sympathies.”

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Special Needs
More Autism Schools Proposed In New Jersey.
The New York Times (1/16, Hu) reported that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) “has proposed creating additional specialized public schools for educating children with autism in New Jersey, a departure from the current practice in many communities of integrating those children into neighborhood schools. The governor proposed creating ‘centers for excellence’ in every county, suggesting that such schools could save money for districts and ensure a higher quality of instruction.” According to the Times, “Parents and advocates are split over the idea of creating specialized schools for children with autism, reflecting a larger debate nationally over whether those children are best served in separate programs or in general-education classes.”

School Finance
Schools Tested By Budget Cuts Learn New Strategies.
NPR (1/17, Abramson) reported on its Website, “The size of classes in schools around the country is growing” as 50 percent of “districts responding to a recent poll say they are increasing class size because of budget pressures. Many school officials fear this will hurt students.” However, “some education reformers say there are ways to boost class size and save money at the same time.” The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Marguerite Roza “is pushing for adoption of a number of efficiency measures that would help schools, even when fatter budgets return. One suggestion is to create a rigorous teacher evaluation system so schools know which teachers are most effective.”

Also in the News
Miami District Receives Influx Of Well-Off Haitian Immigrants.
The New York Times (1/16, Winerip) reports, “Last year after the earthquake in Haiti, Alberto M. Carvalho, superintendent of the Miami-Dade schools – the fourth-biggest district in the nation, with 345,000 students – expected to enroll thousands and thousands of survivors arriving from the devastated country. He was wrong. A year later, his district has 1,403 survivors – the highest number in the nation, but far below what he predicted.” Carvalho “expected most to be poor” yet many were of “‘a higher social status,’” Carvalho said. “Definitely middle and upper-middle class.” According to the Times, “Carline Faustin, who works in Haitian affairs for the Miami-Dade schools, said it made sense that the survivors here were middle or upper class. ‘They’re the ones who can afford the visas, the paperwork, the flights back and forth to establish US residency,’ Ms. Faustin said.”

Celebrity Chef Jamie Oliver Aims For Nutrition Overhaul Of Los Angeles Schools.
The Los Angeles Times (1/17, MacVean) reported, “Jamie Oliver, the celebrity chef who is beating the drums for a school lunch revolution, received a warm reception this weekend from hundreds of the people who make and serve food to children every day. It’s the Los Angeles Unified School District that isn’t so welcoming.” According to the Times, “Oliver, who moved to Los Angeles with his family earlier this month, has so far failed to get L.A. Unified to reverse its decision not to let him – and his reality television show – into the country’s second-largest school system.” However, the “second season of ABC’s Emmy-winning ‘Food Revolution,’ scheduled for spring, will go on with or without the L.A. school district, Oliver said last week.”

School Buses Add Cameras To Catch Drivers Endangering Students.
USA Today (1/18, Shephard) reports, “School districts nationwide are trying out video cameras as a way to deter drivers from passing buses that are loading or unloading children. Districts in Dallas County, Texas, Montgomery and Frederick counties in Maryland and Cobb County, Ga., are among the latest to test the cameras on some school buses in their fleets.” According to USA Today, “Michael Warner, associate director of fleet maintenance for the Cobb County School District, says an incident there in December 2009 prompted them to install cameras on two of their buses last spring. ‘A bus was stopped, unloading students, and a car behind the bus stopped and a second car behind that car swerved, went around the right side of the bus and ran over a kindergarten girl and killed her,’ Warner says.”

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In the Classroom
More Schools Using iPads In The Classroom.
The New York Times (1/5, Hu) reports, “A growing number of schools across the nation are embracing the iPad” as an education tool, though “spending money on tablet computers may seem like an extravagance” amid fiscal crises in many districts. Also, “some parents and scholars have raised concerns that schools are rushing to invest in them before their educational value has been proved by research. … But school leaders say the iPad is not just a cool new toy but rather a powerful and versatile tool with a multitude of applications, including thousands with educational uses.”

Maine District Undergoing Technological Transformation.
The Weekly Observer (ME) (1/5, Balentine, Wood) reports, “New technology has stepped front and center in the minds of educators aiming to take advantage of the new digital revolution to further students’ grasp of everything from history to home economics.” According to the Observer, schools in the Sanford, ME area “are utilizing laptops, netbooks and e-readers to break down the boundaries of education, further students’ breadth and depth of knowledge and maybe even put a little more fun into the process of learning key essentials of a 21st-century education. These efforts are a glimpse of education’s future, which state educators believe will be free of textbooks and where laptops, e-readers and tablet computers like Apple’s iPad render traditional textbooks obsolete.”

Detroit District To Spend $49 Million In Stimulus Funds On Classroom Technology.
The Detroit Free Press (1/5, Dawsey) reports, “Detroit Public Schools will spend $49 million in federal money to push technology in the district, including distributing 40,000 new laptop computers to students in grades 6-12 for use in class, as well as more than 5,000 new desktop computers. … The computers are being funded by stimulus money under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.” According to the Free Press, “The massive technology infusion totals 50,000 pieces of equipment — including 4,300 printer/scanners and more than 500 HP desktop computers for the 138 early childhood classrooms in the district.”

On the Job
Teachers, Parents Protest Florida Governor’s School Reform Ideas.
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel (1/5, Fitzpatrick) reports, “In a quiet show of opposition to changes proposed by [Florida] Gov. Rick Scott’s education transition team, some parents and teachers across Florida wore red and lit up Facebook with messages of support for public schools. As part of a grassroots campaign, they posted pictures of themselves and their children in red, with some changing their profile photos to incorporate red and others putting up images of a single red T-shirt.” According to the Sun-Sentinel, “Scott’s team late last month recommended the state revisit merit pay for teachers, expand school voucher programs and alter how public schools are funded.”

Law & Policy
Controversy Brews Over State-Mandated English Policy In Arizona.
NPR (1/4, Sanchez) reported on its Website, “Up until the late 1990s, schools in Arizona relied on various approaches to teaching English-language learners. Bilingual education was especially popular, although with mixed results, so it was banned in 2000″ and in “its place, the state mandated a highly prescriptive four-hour block called Structured English Immersion that some teachers today call inadequate.”

Florida Districts Facing Fines For Breaking Class Size Law.
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel (1/5, Fitzpatrick) reports, “More than half of Florida’s school districts, including Broward and Palm Beach counties, face hefty fines for breaking the state’s class-size law – but it’s not clear yet how much state officials will force them to pay. Palm Beach County, the state’s worst offender, was officially notified late last week it faces a $16.6 million fine. Broward, which came in fifth behind Miami-Dade, Duval and Collier counties, faces a $3 million penalty.” According to the Sun-Sentinel, “the Florida School Boards Association, with at least 20 school districts backing it, has threatened to sue the state over the penalties.”

Massachusetts Governor Urged To Continue School Reform Efforts.
The Boston Globe (1/5) editorializes, “At this time last year, the [Massachusetts] Legislature handed Governor [Deval] Patrick powerful tools to convince federal funders that the state could lead the way in education reform. A few months later, Massachusetts emerged from a competitive field with a $250 million Race to the Top education grant. … Now the Patrick administration must use the new law and funds to close the achievement gap between low-income and middle-class students, redeem underachieving schools, and expand school choice in Massachusetts.”

Special Needs
Los Angeles Charter Schools To Receive More Special Education Funds.
The Los Angeles Times (1/5, Blume) reports, “Local charter schools will receive more money to educate disabled students and more freedom from the Los Angeles Unified School District in the process, under an agreement approved Tuesday by the Board of Education. The board unanimously approved the pact, which will cost the cash-strapped school system millions of dollars because the district will now give charter schools state money that it previously kept for traditional schools’ special education programs.” However, “failing to make the deal could have cost the district many millions more if charters exercise a new right to contract for special education programs.”

Special Education Costs Could Imbalance Connecticut District’s Budget.
The Record-Journal (CT) (1/5, Buchanan) reports, “Costs for an unexpected number of special education students could put the [Cheshire, CT] Board of Education as much as $500,000 in the red by year’s end. The board is requesting help from the Town Council to pay special education bills rather than raid accounts for textbooks and extra-curricular activities, according to school board Chairman Gerald Brittingham.” According to the Record-Journal, “Courts and the state Department of Children and Families can order the placement of Cheshire special education students in out-of-town facilities, some of which are as far away as Ledyard or even out of state, School Superintendent Greg Florio said.”

Detroit District To Lay Off School Bus Attendants For Special Needs Children.
The Detroit Free Press (1/5, Dawsey) reports, “For the second time in two years, Detroit Public Schools plans to lay off school bus attendants who help special education and disabled students. Keith January, president of the AFSCME Local 345, which represents the bus attendants, said layoff notices were mailed out Monday to 88 of 175 bus attendants.” January “said the district plans to provide attendants only for students whose individualized education plans require a bus attendant.” The AP (1/5) also covers this story.

Dog That Helps Epileptic Boy Will Get Two-Week Tryout At Virginia School.
The Washington Post (1/5, Turque) reports that Fairfax County, VA “school officials and the family of an epileptic 12-year-old boy have worked out an agreement that will allow him to attend school with his specially trained service dog on a two-week trial basis. Beginning Tuesday at Fort Belvoir Elementary School, Andrew Stevens will have Alaya, a 5-year-old German shepherd who Andrew’s parents say is trained to detect and respond to seizures that their son experiences as a symptom of Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, a severe form of epilepsy.” According to the Post, “School officials said last week that teachers and aides in Andrew’s special-education classroom can respond to emergencies at least as well as the dog,” and the “family’s predicament has drawn intense publicity, including an appearance on ‘Today’ on Tuesday morning by Andrew, his mother, Nancy, and Alaya.”

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Facilities
Kansas District Spends $64.9 Million On School Construction Projects.
The Leavenworth (KS) Times (1/4, Richmeier) reported, “After paying all of the contractors, the Leavenworth public school district will have spent $64.9 million on school construction resulting from the 2008 bond issue, according to a district official. Voters approved a $57.8 million bond issue” yet “district officials have relied on additional sources of revenue such as money from the school system’s capital outlay fund and interest made from the bond money.” According to the Times, “The $64.9 million total includes $57.8 million from the bonds, $3.5 million in capital outlay money, $3.1 million in grant funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and $380,000 in interest from the bond money.”

School Finance
State Officials Facing Numerous Fiscal Challenges.
Education Week (1/4, Cavanagh) reported, “Despite bleak fiscal conditions that could thwart some of their priorities, governors and state lawmakers-bolstered in some cases by new Republican majorities-are expected to press forward this year with ambitious education proposals that could include changing teacher job protections and expanding school choice. Newly elected and returning officeholders go to work this month as states struggle to climb out of the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression, with many warning that K-12 education-historically insulated from the budget ax-is likely to face severe cuts.” Education Week notes though “state tax revenues have improved somewhat recently, 15 states already have reported new budget shortfalls since the fiscal 2011 year began last summer, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.”

Missouri Schools Unlikely To Get Money Owed By State.
The AP (1/5, Lieb) reports, “Missouri schools are due a nearly $255 million state funding increase next year. But they’re unlikely to get it.” According to the AP, “Budget documents reviewed Tuesday by The Associated Press show public schools would need about an 8 percent funding increase to provide the full amount called for by a state law that distributes basic aid to Missouri’s schools” yet “Gov. Jay Nixon’s budget director said the governor will not recommend full school funding when he submits a budget to state legislators Jan. 19.”

Kansas Delays School Aid Payments.
AP (1/5, Hanna) reports, “Kansas delayed half of the aid payments due to its public school districts at the start of the new year for a few days because of concerns about a short-term cash crunch, an official confirmed Tuesday. Elaine Frisbie, deputy state budget director, told The Associated Press that $98 million in funds that normally would have reached school districts Monday won’t get to them until the end of this week.” Frisbie “said the state decided to be cautious after its tax collections in December were about $22 million short of expectations.”

Virginia District Establishes Second Foundation To Help Bolster Finances.
The Washington Post (1/5, Sieff) reports, “Crippled by a protracted budget crunch, Fairfax County’s [VA] school system has redoubled its efforts to funnel private-sector dollars to public school classrooms, establishing a second education foundation to attract donations from local businesses. On Monday, officials introduced the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce Public Schools Education Foundation, a partnership between the school system and the county’s largest business association.” According to the Post, “School districts across the country increasingly have turned to the private sector to cover budget shortfalls or pay for new programs” yet “Fairfax has become one of the rare ones served by more than one foundation.”

Also in the News
New Jersey Governor Seeks To Relax Rules On Who Can Lead Schools.
The New York Times (1/5, Hu) reports that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) “is pressing for regulations that would allow some New Jersey school districts to hire superintendents without traditional academic backgrounds or experience, in an effort to change confining state rules like those that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg had to surmount to win approval for Cathleen P. Black, his choice for New York City schools chancellor. Mr. Christie is proposing that requirements for superintendents be eased in low-performing districts, where at least half the children are failing state tests, saying he wants to open the door to more candidates with strong management and leadership skills.” Christie’s “proposals would lower the minimum academic standard for a superintendent from a master’s to a bachelor’s degree, and waive additional requirements, including a 150-hour graduate internship in educational leadership and passing a superintendent’s assessment.”

Oklahoma State Superintendent-Elect Says Education Secretary Will Be An Asset.
The AP (1/5) reports that Oklahoma state “Superintendent-elect Janet Barresi says the decision by Gov.-elect Mary Fallin to appoint an Oklahoma secretary of education makes sense. Barresi told The Associated Press on Tuesday there will be no competing messages coming from her and Phyllis Hudecki when it comes to educational policy in Oklahoma.” According to the AP, “Fallin’s predecessor, Gov. Brad Henry, did not have an education secretary although he has been lauded as an education-friendly governor.”

New Jersey Test Results Show Poverty Contributes To Poor Performance.
The Press of Atlantic City (NJ) (1/4, D’Amico) reports, “The academic performance of New Jersey students living in poverty continues to lag far behind that of their nondisadvantaged peers, preliminary results of state tests given to public school students in 2010 show. New Jersey students from socioeconomically disadvantaged families, identified as those in the free- and reduced-fee meal program, remain far behind their peers in every grade in both math and language arts, the test results show.” The Press of Atlantic City adds, “The issue is even more pressing as the state struggles to reach benchmark passing rates required by” NCLB.

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In the Classroom
Education Department Launches Civil Rights Probe Of Texas School.
The Star-Telegram (TX) (1/3, Ayala) reported that the Education Department “has launched an investigation into allegations that minority students were discriminated against at Arlington Heights High School, federal officials confirmed Monday. Specifically, the department’s Office of Civil Rights will investigate whether school officials discriminated against African-American and Hispanic students in disciplinary action and in opportunities to make up absences, agency spokesman Jim Bradshaw said.” The Star-Telegram noted that in “November, the Texas Education Agency closed its review of the same allegations without action.”

Green Bay School District Classrooms Receive Technology Upgrades.
The Green Bay (WI) Press-Gazette (1/3, Zarling) reported that Green Bay, WI district “tech workers took advantage of the holiday break to swap out aging desktop computers with faster models at the school, as well as work on projects at a handful of other elementary schools. It’s all part of the district’s overall technology upgrade, which stems from a $16.7 million spring referendum in which voters overwhelmingly approved spending $11 million for facilities and building maintenance projects as well as $5.7 million in technology needs.” According to the Press-Gazette, “District officials plan to replace about 5,000 desktop and laptop computers, and add projectors and document cameras to about 1,100 classrooms.”

Michigan Governor Urged To Accelerate Education Reforms.
The Detroit News (1/4) editorializes, “Education reform was one of the areas where former [Michigan] Gov. Jennifer Granholm posted good success, adopting a more stringent high school curriculum and tougher accountability standards for teachers. But Michigan lags so far behind in education performance that new Gov. Rick Snyder will have to accelerate the pace of reform if he is to make the state competitive for knowledge economy jobs.” According to the Detroit News, “Snyder must push the pace of change into the fast lane, where other states are traveling.”

On the Job
Ohio State University Program Helps Career-Changers Enter Teaching.
The Columbus Dispatch (1/4) reports that Ohio State University “received a $13 million federal grant last year to improve teacher education. A key goal was to develop a direct pipeline to bring teachers trained in high-need areas (math, science, foreign languages) to Columbus schools.” According to the Dispatch, “During the five-year grant, Ohio State’s College of Education and Human Ecology hopes to send Columbus 600 bachelor’s graduates and 120 more with master’s degrees in the subjects the district needs most” via Ohio State’s Project ASPIRE program.

Law & Policy
Duncan Calls For Bipartisan Cooperation On Education Policy.
Politico (1/4, Epstein) reports that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan “thinks Democrats and Republicans can find common ground when it comes to updating the law that funds elementary and secondary schools. ‘Few areas are more suited for bipartisan action than education reform,’ Duncan wrote in an op-ed published Monday in The Washington Post.” According to Politico, “Duncan homes in on several areas of possible consensus: ‘flexibility and fairness’ in accountability policies, more spending on teachers and principals and new ways to help at-risk schools and students.”

The AP (1/4, Pace) reports, “The first weeks of the new year will be an early test of how” President Obama “will deal with a divided Congress, and whether he can build on the victories he secured during the final days of the lame-duck legislative session. … In an editorial in the Washington Post Monday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said lawmakers from both parties are already working together to draft a reauthorization” of NCLB, “and said, ‘few areas are more suited for bipartisan action than education reform.’”

Stephen Krashen, professor emeritus at the University of Southern California, wrote in a blog for the Washington Post (1/3), “The plan presented in [ED]‘s Blueprint for Reform calls for an astonishing amount of testing, far more than we have now with No Child Left Behind. The only people I know who support the testing plan have spent very little time in schools, haven’t read the Blueprint, or just aren’t listening to real education professions or students.” Krashen added, “There is no evidence that there is a crisis in teacher quality, no evidence that teacher quality has declined.”

Safety & Security
Nearly All Massachusetts Schools File Antibullying Proposals.
The Boston Globe (1/4, Schweitzer) reports, “Ninety-nine percent of Massachusetts school districts filed bullying-prevention plans with the state by the Dec. 31 deadline – a marked turnaround from nearly two weeks ago when just 60 percent had complied with the mandate. Only six schools – two public, one charter, and three private special education schools – failed to file plans with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education as required by the new law that seeks to protect students from bullying in schools and beyond.” According to the Globe, “The law, signed by Governor Deval Patrick last May after the suicide of bullied South Hadley student Phoebe Prince, requires schools to adopt clear procedures for reporting and investigating cases of bullying, as well as methods for preventing retaliation against those who report problems.”

Education Stakeholders Tackle Bullying Epidemic.
The Shreveport Times (LA) (1/3, White) reported, “According to the American Justice Department, one out of four children will be bullied by another youth. The National Education Association reports that an estimated 160,000 students miss school every day out of fear of attack or intimidation by another student.” According to the Times, “Beaux Wellborn, cofounder of the Bully Suicide Project and assistant director of planning and development of Campus Harmony, was a victim of bullying while attending Northwood High School in Shreveport. The bullying became so bad at one point he even attempted suicide. … Turning his experience into something positive, he has made it his mission to bring awareness to the dangers of bullying.”

Arizona Teen Takes Aim At Gay Bullying.
The Arizona Republic (1/4, Wang) reports, “A teenage activist has notified officials at every school in Arizona that they need to put a stop to bullying of gay and lesbian students or face a lawsuit. Caleb Laieski, 15, e-mailed a letter to more than 5,000 school administrators, city-council members and state lawmakers demanding improved measures to fight discrimination.” According to the Republic, “The letters warn school officials that they must institute policies specifically prohibiting gay harassment by students, teachers and administrators.”

Advocates To Press For Passage Of Michigan Anti-Bullying Bill.
The Detroit Free Press (1/4, Walsh-Sarnecki) reports, “Supporters of a proposed anti-bullying law that wasn’t passed in the last session of the [Michigan] Legislature are promising to introduce a similar bill after the new legislative session begins this month. The bill has been named Matt’s Law, for 14-year-old Matt Epling, who took his life in 2002 after being bullied by high school students.” Epling “is one of 11 young people in Michigan who have killed themselves over bullying since 2001, including two during the last two months, according to Matt’s father, Kevin Epling, who is co-director of BullyPolice USA, an anti-bullying advocacy group.”

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Facilities
After Fire, DC School Relocates To New Site.
The Washington Post (1/4, Turque) reports, “One week ago, the Takoma Educational Center’s new home had no heat, running water or kitchen facilities to feed its 328 students. … The good news was that the former Meyer Elementary School” in DC “was still a building with ‘solid bones,’ said Anthony DeGuzman, director of the D.C. school facilities office. District officials were left scrambling over the holidays for a new facility after a three-alarm fire Dec. 22 caused $2 million worth of damage to the second and third floors of Takoma’s building,” and though it “took a remarkable effort to restore Meyer,…the school opened on time Monday morning for Takoma students.”

Virginia Planetarium Receives Last-Minute Gift Allowing It To Stay Open.
The Washington Post (1/4, Sieff) reports, “Four decades after it opened on the heels of the Apollo 11 voyage to the moon, the David M. Brown Planetarium in Arlington County [VA] didn’t look like it would survive 2010. If the planetarium didn’t raise $240,000 for renovations by the end of 2010 and $400,000 by June, county schools Superintendent Patrick K. Murphy said he would have to shut it down.” However, Preston Caruthers, an Arlington businessman and philanthropist has pledged “$100,000, enough to keep the facility open. … Volunteers have been frantic in their efforts to raise money for the renovations, hosting benefit concerts and sponsorship drives and trying to establish the planetarium’s role in local science and math curricula.”

School Finance
Pennsylvania Districts Facing Major Budget Shortfalls.
The York (PA) Dispatch (1/4, Shaw) reports, “An incoming governor, a $4 billion-plus deficit, disappearing stimulus funds and a shifting state budget schedule will all contribute to ‘the worst budget year, in terms of uncertainty, in maybe the last two decades.’ That’s what Jay Himes, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials, calls the upcoming budget year for school districts.” According to the Dispatch, “York County school officials have said as much during recent school board meetings, with board members and business managers saying they are having a tough time pinpointing how state funding will shape up in the 2011-12 school year.”

New Jersey Supreme Court To Weigh In On Constitutionality Of Governor’s Education Cuts.
The Star-Ledger (NJ) (1/3) reported, “For almost three decades, the court case Abbott vs. Burke has been a fault line running through New Jersey government. The original 1985 decision on school funding, which has diverted billions of dollars toward education in the state’s poorest communities, still divides residents and elected officials by demographics, economics and party politics.” According to the Star-Ledger the “case will burst back into the spotlight” this week as the “state Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments for Wednesday over whether Gov. Chris Christie’s cuts in education spending are unconstitutional.”

Also in the News
New York City Schools Chancellor Embarks On School Tour.
The New York Times (1/4, Santos) reports that Cathleen P. Black, “who officially began her job as New York City schools chancellor on Monday, has been visiting schools for weeks. But the tour on Monday, more than an introduction to the system, was a tightly choreographed showcasing of the Department of Education’s biggest successes and newest programs, like using technology to help teachers in the classroom and breaking up big schools into small ones.” Black “visited one school in each borough, serving different grades, most of them with similar student populations: primarily black and Latino students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a snapshot of a system where minorities are the majority and poverty is pervasive.”

The AP (1/4) adds that Black “started work Monday as chancellor of the nation’s largest public school system, vowing to put the ‘pedal to the metal’ as she visited schools in each of New York City’s five boroughs. ‘For me, this is a dream. It’s a dream job, a dream opportunity, a chance to make a difference,’ Black said at Public School 262 in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, the first stop on her tour.” Reuters (1/4, Allen) also covers this story.

New Jersey Governor Dismisses Several County Superintendents.
The Asbury Park Press (NJ) (1/3, Jordan, Bradshaw) reported that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s (R) “overhaul of the state education system has continued with the executive county superintendents for eight of the New Jersey’s 21 counties being booted from their jobs. The executive county superintendents for Bergen, Burlington, Cape May, Hunterdon, Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean and Somerset – all of whom had expiring three-year appointments and were typically being paid $120,000 annually – were told last Thursday not to come to work this week because they wouldn’t be reappointed.” The Park Press added, “Michael Drewniak, Christie’s spokesman, said there should have been nothing surprising about the moves, since the county education chiefs were appointed by a Democrat, former Gov. Jon Corzine.”

Arkansas Official Calls For Improvement In Bus Safety Law.
The AP (1/3) reported that an Arkansas “education official says a new Arkansas school bus safety law needs to be improved if it is to become practical. The law that took effect Saturday says all new buses bought by a school district must have an electronic or written warning to drivers.” According to the AP, “Written warnings must be displayed on the bus’s rear emergency exit and read ‘It is a violation of Arkansas law to pass a school bus from any direction when it is stopped to load or unload a child.’ Mike Simmons, the senior transportation manager for the state Division of Public School Academic Facilities and Transportation, says the statement is so wordy it will be hard to put it in lettering large enough for drivers to read at a glance.”

The Los Angeles Times (12/14, Muskal) reports that “the bill reauthorizes the federal nutrition program, a $4.5-billion measure that expands free school meals for the needy.” First Lady Michelle Obama with regard to the bill, “We can agree that in the wealthiest nation on earth, all children should have the basic nutrition they need to learn and grow. … Nothing is more important than the health and well-being of our children. Nothing.”

USA Today (12/14) reports that when he signed the new law at Harriet Tubman Elementary School in Washington, D.C., “President Obama paid joking tribute to its most prominent supporter: first lady Michelle Obama. ‘Not only am I very proud of the bill,’ the president said, ‘but had I not been able to get this passed, I would be sleeping on the couch.’”

CNN (12/14) also quotes the President as saying that “the bill is about ‘giving our kids the healthy futures they deserve. … Right now across the country too many kids don’t have access to school meals.’” He added that “even when they do…too often the meals aren’t sufficiently nutritious.”

Education Week (12/14) reports that “part of the child-nutrition law has been paid for through a $2 billion cut to the nation’s food-stamp program, an offset opposed by advocacy groups like the Food Research and Action Center in Washington and the School Nutrition Association, a coalition of school food-service directors based in Oxon Hill, Md.” The groups say, however, that the administration has assured them that it “will work to recover funds for food stamps, which is the largest nutrition program administered by the Agriculture Department.” AFP (12/14), the Grand Rapids Press (12/14, Murray), the Seattle Times (12/14), the New York Daily News (12/14, Bazinet), the MSNBC (12/14) “First Read” blog, and the PBS (12/14, Devore) “NewsHour” blog also cover the story.

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In the Classroom
Study Predicts How Long It Will Take To Close Achievement Gaps In Several States.
Education Week (12/14) says that a report released Monday “by the Center on Education Policy…breaks new ground by estimating the length of time it will likely take to close [achievement] gaps in a sample of states.” According to the report, “if states continue their current pace of progress…it could take decades” to close the gaps between students of different races and social situations. “In Washington State, for example,” the report “predicts it will take 105 years to close the gap between white and African-American students in 4th grade reading,” compared to 12.5 years to narrow the gap for the same groups of students in Louisiana. Meanwhile, “the gap between whites and Native Americans in 4th grade reading in Colorado is growing rather than narrowing.” To draw these and other conclusions, the center “looked at the state testing data for all grades…under the No Child Left Behind Act” and at “data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress.”

The Augusta Chronicle (12/14, Wermers) reports that Jack Jennings, president and chief executive of the Center on Education Policy, said in a statement, “This report shows that states can raise student achievement and can narrow achievement gaps. … But it also makes clear that we need to do more. Gaps aren’t narrowing fast enough. This is not fair for the students who are behind, and it’s not good for the country.”

The Houston Chronicle (12/14, Mellon) reports, “White schoolchildren in Texas continue to outperform their peers in reading and math, but black and Hispanic students slowly are making gains to close the gap in test scores, according to” the study. Researchers noted that “74 percent of [Texas'] Hispanic students passed” TAKS math tests last year, “up from half in 2005. The passing rate for black children grew from 44 percent to 66 percent.” White students also improved, but at a slower rate, “from 75 percent passing the state test to 88 percent.” However, researchers pointed out that “their analysis of average scores on the TAKS – rather than the more commonly cited passing rates – found that the achievement gap widened in some cases, such as in fourth-grade reading.”

Michigan District Launches “Classrooms Of The Future.”
The Grand Rapids (MI) Press (12/14, Scott) reports that Rockford Public Schools has launched six “Classrooms of the Future” this school year – “two each at the elementary, middle and high school.” These classrooms differ from others because they are “set-up to foster collaboration and communication.” For instance, instead of sitting in “single desks lined up in a row,” students in classrooms of the future sit “face to face at tables of five or six at each four points with interactive whiteboards at three different angles.” The school district “set aside $500,000 in a prior bond issue to assist with” creating the classrooms. “It is partnering with [the company] Steelcase, which reached out to the district to be a prototype to gather data on how the learning environment and student achievement.”

“School Of The Future” In South Carolina Will Use Museum, Inquiry-Based Instruction.
The Charleston Daily Mail (12/14, Harold) reports on a “school of the future” proposed for South Carolina’s Kanawha County school system. The district received a $8.83 million grant form the state School Building Authority “to build the new elementary” school which will “use ‘project-based learning,’ allowing students to learn all the core subjects – math, reading, writing, science and social students – through one long-term project.” Henry Nearman, principal of J.E. Robbins Elementary, “was selected last month to lead” the new school, which he says “will operate on a ‘museum, inquiry-based model,’ that will have students finding the way of learning most comfortable for them.”

Study Says Low-Performing Public Schools Stay Open For Years With Little Improvement.
Education Week (12/14) reports that according to a study by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and Basis Policy Research in North Carolina, “the lowest-performing public K-8 schools often linger in that state for years, neither improving enough to get off accountability life support nor being shuttered completely.” The study also found that “persistently failing charter schools fare no better than regular public schools.” Researchers looked at low-performing K-8 schools “in the 10 biggest charter school states: Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin” and also found that “charters were more likely than noncharter public schools to improve moderately rather than dramatically, but only 9 percent of either group of schools made at least moderate improvement.” The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (12/14, Richards) also covers the story.

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Law & Policy
More States Allowing Students To Waive Physical Education Classes.
USA Today (12/14, Schulte, Dooley) reports that even with “growing concerns about obesity among young people, the number of states that allow students to waive or substitute physical education classes has grown from 27 to 32 since 2006″ according to the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE). Instead of taking physical education classes, students in these states can “enroll in interscholastic sports, marching band, cheerleading or other activities.” Stephen Jefferies, a public health professor at Central Washington University, said that “the increase in waivers” come from “efforts within school districts to save money.” Meanwhile, “The number of states that allow waivers for health issues, disabilities or religious reasons has risen from 18 to 30 since 2006.” Online physical education is also an option in some schools. These classes “combine study about health and nutrition with exercise students do on their own.”

New York City Sets More Stringent Guidelines For Teacher Tenure.
The New York Times (12/14, Santos) reports that the New York City Department of Education on Monday released new guidelines for granting teachers tenure. Under the new rules, principals must “base their decisions on an elaborate system that measures teachers’ success in and outside the classroom, including student performance on standardized tests. The principals then have to explain their recommendation in three paragraphs.” Teachers will be rated as either “highly effective, effective, developing or ineffective…in each of three categories: ‘instructional practice,’ ‘professional contributions’ and ‘impact on student learning.’” They must get “a rating of effective or highly effective for at least two consecutive years in all three categories” in order to be considered for tenure. “But the city is not setting limits on how many teachers can earn each rating or how many can earn tenure.” The Times notes, that many principles support the new rules, but the teachers union is much less enthusiastic about them.

Continuous Learning Calendar Aimed At Helping Students Retain Information.
The Oklahoman (12/14, Rolland) reports that the Oklahoma City School Board on Monday approved a continuous learning calendar proposed by Superintendent Karl Springer “in hopes that it would help turn around struggling schools by reducing the amount of information students forget over a three-month summer, decreasing the time spent on review.” Ultimately, the new schedule will reduce the time for summer vacation from three months to two months. “Students still will attend the same number of school days, 173, with the school calendar starting on Aug. 1 and featuring two-week breaks in October and March, a three-week break in December and a three-day break for Thanksgiving.” Springer speculates that other Oklahoma school districts may also move to a continuous learning calendar. “I think we’re going to start something here that’s really going to be a change,” he said.

KFOR-TV Oklahoma City (12/14) adds for teachers, “the shorter break means they don’t have to spend as much time getting students up to speed in August.”

Also in the News

Some Schools Allow Students To Check Out Laptop Computers From Library.
Fort Bend (TX) Now (12/14) reports on a laptop checkout program launched by the Fort Bend Independent School District at seven elementary, middle, and high schools. “Each school will receive twelve netbooks which” students can check out from the library “to take the netbook home overnight to complete assignments, work on technology literacy skills, or access provided tutorial content.” The computers are all “equipped with a full suite of district approved applications for student use, inclusive of filtered web browsing through Internet Explorer.” Bob Arena, Principal at Jones Elementary School, is quoted as saying, “The Check It Out program will help open doors that have previously been closed for some students.” Fort Bend Now notes that the school district chose schools for the program “based on technology literacy assessment scores along with economic need.”

NEA in the News
California District Mulls Over How To Place New Teachers Hired With Edujobs Funding.
The Palo Alto (CA) Daily News (12/14, Eslinger) reports, “Months after it had to lay off about 35 teachers, the Redwood City School District has received enough one-time federal funds to hire 20 or so teachers for the rest of the school year.” District officials will meet Wednesday to discuss “the best way to use the new teachers.” According to the Daily News, “the district wants the new hires to help current teachers,” but the teachers union “wants the new teachers to be given their own classrooms” so that “class sizes overall could shrink closer to pre-layoff levels.” Deputy Superintendent John Baker told the Daily News that “moving students into new classes mid-year could be ‘somewhat stressful’ for” students. Meanwhile, Bret Baird, vice president of the Redwood City Teachers Association, said, “If it’s done right, I don’t believe it’s so traumatic. … The kids would get more individualized attention for the rest of the year.”

California’s Teacher Force Shrinking, Report Says.
The AP (12/15) reports, “The number of public school teachers has reached a decade-low in California, and the job is getting less attractive amid state budget cuts,” according to a new study released Monday by the nonprofit Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning. The number of teachers in the state has dropped from 310,361 in 2008 to a 10-year low of “just under 300,000 this year,” the report says. The Sacramento Bee (12/14, Gutierrez) reported that the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning attributes the drop to “massive cuts to education over the past three years” that “have made it difficult for teachers to meet rising expectations.”

The Bakersfield Californian (12/15) editorializes that the reduction in California’s teaching force is “an alarming trend, made worse by our longstanding tendency as Americans to undervalue the honorable profession of teaching.” The Californian asserts, therefore, “We need to chip away at that perception before we’re forced to put automatons in charge of packed classrooms.”

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In the Classroom
Marketing Students Take High School Store Online.
The Petersburg (VA) Progress-Index (12/14, Burchett) reported, “As some small businesses struggle to stay afloat, Dinwiddie High School’s store is flourishing,” as “marketing students are expanding their customer base and sales potential by going online.” The store’s online business “allows potential customers to peruse merchandise 24 hours a day, seven days a week with convenient, secure transactions using Pay-Pal.” And, “by expanding their product line, the Generals have increased their profit potential, but a traditional store would require maintaining large inventories and projecting the type of items, colors and sizes that would be in greatest demand.” However, “an online presence eliminates those problems, since products can be produced upon demand.” The article noted, “Students design, produce, market and sell their merchandise not only for Dinwiddie High School, but also for other schools, clubs, sports teams and local businesses.”

US Education Lag Attributed To Focus On Intelligence Rather Than Hard Work.
Educator and author Jonathan Zimmerman writes in the Christian Science Monitor (12/15) that “a standardized test administered to 15-year-olds in over 60 countries,” in which “the US came in 17th in reading, 23rd in science, and 31st in math,” is being frequently cited as an indicator that something is wrong with the US education system. “There’s something to that,” Zimmerman writes. “But there’s more to it than that. Put simply, Asians believe that hard work is the prime determinant of their success. By contrast, Americans and other Westerners typically ascribe academic performance to innate ability.” He cites a study which found that students praised for being “smart” did worse on a test than students praised for being “hard working.” Zimmerman writes, “The moral of these stories seems clear: If you want kids to succeed, don’t talk about their intelligence.” Instead, he argues, encourage them to work hard.

On the Job
Teacher Absenteeism Stalls High School’s Improvement Effort.
The Providence Journal (12/15, Jordan, Borg) reports, “With as many as 15 percent of its teachers out of work on any given day, the transformation effort at Central Falls [RI] High School is being threatened. So far, 15 teachers have resigned” and six “other teachers have gone out on long-term leave this fall. And as many as a half-dozen teachers call in absent each day for various reasons, ranging from illness to bereavement.” According to the Journal, “Education leaders had hoped to turn the struggling, 840-student school around this year, buoyed by a new leadership team, a bold plan and $2 million in federal grants” yet “instruction has been so uneven and so much class time has been lost that 453 students received ‘no grade’ for at least one subject on their report card for the first quarter.”

Law & Policy
Some Florida Districts Ban Synthetic Marijuana.
The Orlando Sentinel (12/15, Weber) reports that Florida’s Seminole County School Board “adopted an emergency policy Tuesday night that specifically makes possession, sale or use of” synthetic marijuana “an infraction with consequences the same as if it were the real stuff,” up to expulsion. While some states have already outlawed the substance, fake marijuana “increasingly available” in stores throughout Central Florida. The Drug Enforcement Administration’s ban of the product does not go into effect until Dec. 24, and “is for one year while federal health officials decide whether the man-made compounds used in [it] should be added to the list of controlled substances.” Other area school districts are considering “following Seminole’s lead,” and some already have policies in place banning “substances such as synthetic pot.” WFTV-TV Orlando (12/15) reports that the substance banned in Seminole County, K2, “is coated with chemicals and when smoked has similar effects to marijuana.” It is “also know as spice” or “legalized marijuana.”

Arizona Districts Working To Create Medical Marijuana Policies. Arizona’s East Valley Tribune (12/15, Reese) reports, “Arizona’s voter-approved law legalizing medical marijuana has left a number of decisions to be made” as local governments “must figure out where dispensaries can be located” and “school districts must make clear what’s acceptable and what’s not for students and staff.” The East Valley Tribune adds, “School district policies already address student use of prescription drugs,” yet regulations are not clear for “employees, such as school bus drivers” as though “state law may allow medical marijuana use, federal comes into play with commercial driver’s licenses.”

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School Finance
California Teachers, Education Officials Suggest Alternatives To School Budget Cuts.
Bloomberg News (12/15, Palmeri) reports that during a two-hour forum held Tuesday, “California teachers and school administrators asked Governor-elect Jerry Brown (D) to increase taxes and refrain from cutting their budgets.” Brown convened the meeting to discuss “closing projected [state] deficits of $28.1 billion” in the next year-and-a-half. Tom Torlakson, superintendent-elect of the Education Department says that “California voters have approved $82 billion of education- related bond issues since June 2003, illustrating ‘a sign of support from the local community.’” At the meeting local school officials suggested that more available funds “be devoted to online education” and that Race to the Top funding “be shifted to a national program that aids poorer school districts.”

The Los Angeles Times (12/14) “PolitiCal” blog reported that state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, who was also at the meeting, “grew visibly frustrated by some of the comments about increasing funding on programs such as online education, given the gravity of the state’s financial hole.” Lockyear proposed 25 percent cuts “across the board.” The PolitiCal blog added that “Educators appeared shaken by Lockyer’s remarks.” David Sanchez, president of the California Teachers Association, is quoted as saying, “There is no more meat on this bone to carve, the only thing left is amputation.”

The San Francisco Chronicle (12/14, Buchanan) also reported that “Education leaders at the event pleaded for flexibility from the state regulations and laws that force districts to spend money on certain programs. Several people also said that education spending had suffered enough from budget cuts over previous years and that Brown should look elsewhere for savings.”

Detroit Public Schools To Get $225,000 From GM Car Auction.
The AP (12/15) reports that “the Detroit school district says a charity auction of the first Chevrolet Volt offered for sale is bringing in $225,000 for science, technology and other programs.” A spokesperson for the district “says Chevrolet will announce the winner and present a check to the Detroit Public Schools Foundation after verifying the bid.”

The Detroit Free Press (12/15, Gardner) notes that “Bidding opened on Nov. 30 at $50,000 and appeared to stop at $185,000 on Dec. 3 with no competing bid offered until 5:43 p.m. Tuesday, 17 minutes before the auction’s 6 p.m. deadline.” Then, it became “a frantic down-to-the-wire exchange between two people with screen names ‘Volter’ and ‘ChargeOn.’” General Motors Co. plans to reveal the identity of the winning bidder – “ChargeOn” — at an “event Thursday night.”

CNNMoney (12/15, Valdes-Dapena) gives details about the auctioned vehicle, noting that “the sticker price for the car, a Chevrolet Volt with the ‘Premium Trim Package’ of options, including leather seats plus a back-up camera, is about $45,000,” according to GM spokesman Monte Doran.

Also in the News

Study Shows Ways Flu Can Spread In A High Schools.
WLS-TV Chicago, IL (12/14) reported that a new study from Penn State University published online in “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,” indicates that there are “more than 750,000 opportunities for the [flu] to spread daily” in high schools nationwide. “The main reason is because teachers, students and staff are in close proximity which makes it easy to spread the illness.”

Health Day (12/14, Goodwin) reported that the study was conducted “by outfitting students and teachers with wireless sensors,” simulating “how the flu might spread through a typical American high school.” Researchers then “ran computer simulations using the ‘contact network’ data collected at the high school” and found that “their predictions for how many would fall ill closely matched absentee rates during the actual H1N1 flu pandemic in the fall of 2009.”

NEA in the News
Van Roekel: US Should Learn From Example Of Nations Leading In Education.
National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel writes in an opinion piece for USA Today (12/15) that “the worst thing” the US can do in its efforts to improve education “is adopt unproven policies in the rush to reclaim our leadership position.” He asserts, “Policies that the National Education Association (NEA) has supported – stronger teacher preparation and more autonomy in the classroom – echo” recommendations from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) “for boosting US performance.” Canada and Finland, two nations that PISA ranked high in education have “strong teachers unions and evaluation systems that identify, support and advance effective teaching,” Van Roekel adds, noting that those “international reforms mirror the work of” NEA affiliates in Florida and Maryland, among others. He concludes, “The lesson from PISA is clear: Respect teachers and treat them like professionals. The US should focus on what leading countries are doing and learn from their example.”

North Carolina Educator One Of Five Nationwide To Receive Horace Mann Award.
North Carolina’s News & Record (12/15) reports that Teresa Lawrence McNeill, a math teacher at Page High School in Greensboro, North Carolina, “is one of five educators across the country to win the Horace Mann Award for Teaching Excellence.” She will receive $10,000, “technology for her classroom, a technology education experience for her students presented by the Pearson Foundation, a check for Page High to be spent at the discretion of the principal, and a trip to China at the end of the school year.” The honor also comes with “an expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C., to be recognized at the NEA Foundation’s annual gala Feb. 11,” and makes McNeil eligible to win the 2011 National Education Association Member Benefits Award for Teaching Excellence.

Cerf To Be Nominated As Next New Jersey Education Commissioner.
The Star-Ledger (NJ) (12/17, Calefati) reports, “Christopher Cerf, a former New York City deputy schools chancellor described as ‘one of the most talented and sophisticated people in education in America today,’ will be nominated as New Jersey’s next education commissioner, two people briefed on the nomination said tonight. Gov. Chris Christie is expected to formally nominate Cerf, a 56-year-old Montclair resident, next week, according to one of the two people.” According to the Star-Ledger, “If confirmed by the state Senate, Cerf would take over an embattled department that has been without a commissioner since August, when Bret Schundler was fired after the state lost $400 million in federal education aid, and an education system has been under relentless attacks by Christie.” The Wall Street Journal (12/17, Fleisher, Martinez) also covers this story.

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In the Classroom
AP Exam Scores Show Persistent Achievement Gap In Maryland District.
The Washington Post (12/17, Birnbaum) reports, “The percentage of Prince George’s County [MD] high school seniors taking at least one Advanced Placement exam is rising, as is the percentage of those achieving passing grades. For the Class of 2010, the percentage taking an AP test rose to 35 percent, up from 27 percent for the Class of 2009, according to data released by the school system.” The Post adds, “The data also reflect lingering gaps in achievement among different groups” as “African American students received passing marks on 17.5 percent of the exams they took, and Hispanic students received passing marks on 30.3 percent of the exams. White students, meanwhile, received passing marks on 59.3 percent of exams.”

Illinois Education Officials Move To Close Testing Loophole.
The Chicago Tribune (12/17, Malone) reports, “Come April, Illinois 11th-graders will need to sweat through two days of state testing before they can advance to the senior class. Illinois education officials approved the new rules Thursday, taking aim at a loophole some schools used to keep academically weak juniors from taking the test, thereby avoiding accountability for their scores under federal law.” According to the Tribune, “About 8 percent of Illinois 12th-graders skipped the PSAE when they were in their third year of high school, according to a review by the US Department of Education earlier this year.”

On the Job
Arizona District To Test New Teacher Evaluation System.
The Arizona Republic (12/17, Faller) reports, “Scottsdale [AZ] schools will test a new teacher-evaluation system anonymously this spring, using sets of student-achievement data to measure teacher effectiveness. Starting in 2012, all Arizona public school teachers will be evaluated in a new way – including measurements of how well students have progressed academically under a teacher.” Under the current system, teacher “evaluations include Arizona’s Instrument to Measure Standards test scores, but they only compare scores from year to year, using different groups of students. The new system will analyze individual student growth over the year.”

Georgia District Considers Expanding Charter Options.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (12/17, Badertscher) reports, “Fulton County [GA] is among the few school districts that have formally started examining their three options: charter systems, IE2 systems or the status quo.” According to the Journal-Constitution, “IE2 systems and charter systems enter into contracts with the state, committing to higher academic achievement in exchange for flexibility on issues such as teacher pay, class size and the courses they offer. The basic difference: The policy decisions still largely come from the top in IE2 systems, and they are made more at the school level and with more parental involvement in the charter systems.”

Law & Policy
Ohio Education Colleges To Be Put To Test.
The Columbus Dispatch (12/16, Pyle) reported, “Ohio will soon become the first state in the nation to grade colleges on how well they train teachers to help students succeed. Chancellor Eric D. Fingerhut announced 15 measures yesterday that will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the education colleges at Ohio’s public and private universities.” According to the Dispatch, “The schools will submit annual data on how well their students do on the state teacher licensure exam, as well as on a ‘value-added’ component that is being developed by the State Board of Education as part of Ohio’s Race to the Top plan.”

Safety & Security
GAO: Laws Fail To Keep Sex Offenders From Working In Schools.
The Washington Post (12/17, Anderson) reports, “People with a record of sexual misconduct are often able to land positions in public and private schools as teachers, support staff, volunteers or contractors, slipping through a system of background checks meant to thwart them, federal investigators reported Thursday.” According to the Post, 11 of the 15 cases reviewed by the GAO “showed that offenders who had previously targeted children were able to obtain positions in schools. ‘Even more disturbing,’ the report concluded, they were able in at least six cases to use those positions to abuse more children.”

The Christian Science Monitor (12/17, Khadaroo) adds, “The GAO report follows a 2004 Department of Education report estimating that millions of students experience sexual misconduct by a school employee at some point between kindergarten and 12th grade.” According to the Monitor, House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D) requested the GAO report and is quoted saying, “Our schools have a fundamental obligation to children and parents that all students are safe at school. What we see here is a major violation of that trust.”

Play At Virginia High School Puts Spotlight On Bullying Epidemic.
The Washington Post (12/17, George) reports that on Friday night, students at Langley High School in McLean, VA “are to take the stage…for the opening of ‘The Laramie Project,’ a play that has been a nationwide phenomenon for a decade but that students say is particularly relevant now, in the aftermath of a spate of bullying incidents and suicides that have included gay teens. … The events in the play go back to 1998, when [Matthew] Shepard was driven to a remote area and robbed, tortured, beaten and tied to a fence by two men who met him in a bar.” According to the Post, “The play is not a depiction of the 21-year-old Shepard’s death but rather a series of monologues that tell the stories of those affected: friends, family, religious leaders, doctors, professors, police, protesters, the accused.”

Duncan Highlights Best Practices For Bullying Policies.
School Transportation News (12/17, Gray) reports that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan “distributed a memo to state leaders outlining key components of strong state bullying laws and policies that can be used to develop or revise anti-bullying legislation or policies. … All governors, chief state school officers and state education boards received today’s memo, which is linked to the Obama Administration’s commitment to prevent bullying in schools.” According to School Transportation News, “The memo also recognized several states for their innovative approaches in addressing bullying, which the Department of Education has said extends beyond the classroom and playground and into and around school buses.”

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Facilities
Virginia District Unveils Plan To Renovate Aging School Buildings.
The Washington Post (12/17, Sieff) reports, “In preparation for a projected enrollment boom, Fairfax County [VA] education officials unveiled a plan Thursday to renovate a slew of aging schools at a cost of $805 million through the next decade. The plan also funds renovations at 27 schools, as well as the construction of one middle school and one elementary school.” The Post adds, “An unexpected savings of $31 million from lower than estimated construction costs for recent projects will help the district accelerate its plan – which is awaiting School Board approval – moving schools up the district’s renovation list by several years.”

Flaws In Design Of ’70s-Era DC School Building Analyzed.
Mike DeBonis writes in a column for the Washington Post (12/17), “This week, we learned that” DC’s “Dunbar Senior High School will be razed as soon as 2013. That fall, if all goes as planned, students will attend a new, glassy, airy Dunbar next door.” According to DeBonis, “The design process began only a couple years after the 1968 riots decimated inner-city neighborhoods” and “the buildings subsequently designed for those neighborhoods, in essence, had to be riot-proof – made of sturdy concrete or metal or other materials that would be difficult to vandalize. Glass, and hence sunlight, was essentially prohibited. … The combination of riot-proof design and open classrooms in a high-rise made Dunbar an exemplar of what” Robert C. deJongh, the school’s architect, “calls a generation of ‘grim and brutal’ structures ‘designed to keep occupants in and everyone else out.’”

School Finance
Connecticut Legislators Seek Settlement In Education Funding Case.
The Hartford Courant (12/17, De La Torre) reports, “Bridgeport [CT] legislators on Thursday began a campaign to pressure Gov.-elect Dan Malloy to negotiate a settlement in a 5-year-old lawsuit that calls for overhauling the way the state pays for its public schools. At the core of the suit, Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding v. Gov. M. Jodi Rell, is the argument that the state’s existing education cost-sharing formula is a broken system that places the burden on local property taxes to support school spending.” The suit “is projected to go to trial around 2014, and beyond that would likely be appealed for years – too late, coalition supporters said Thursday, for students who are now languishing in underfunded classrooms.”

Vermont School Budget Cuts Fall Short Of State Recommendations.
The Burlington (VT) Free Press (12/16, Walsh) reported, “Vermont Education Department officials are planning to count money today — and the tally could come up short. Early indications suggest the $23 million in school spending cuts sought under a state budget-cutting measure will not materialize.” According to the Free Press, “Wednesday was the deadline for school officials to respond to the recommendations set by the Vermont Education Department in August. … Education Department Chief Financial Officer Bill Talbott said he expects the cuts to total less than $23 million and said the task for the next few days is to see how much less.”

Maryland District Chief Proposes Series Of Budget Cuts.
The Washington Post (12/17, Birnbaum) reports, “Prince George’s County [MD] school employees’ pay would be frozen and middle school sports would be eliminated under a budget proposal released Thursday by Schools Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. The budget request…is for $1.69 billion for fiscal 2012, an increase of $49 million more than current levels and the latest indicator of how school systems hope to cope with straitened fiscal times and a decrease in federal stimulus money.” The Post adds, “Federal stimulus money has softened the impact of local and state funding cuts for the past two years. But much of it will no longer be available next year, and Prince George’s is budgeting for $103 million less.”

Maryland District Officials Weigh Budget Options.
The Baltimore Sun (12/17, Burris) reports, “Anne Arundel County [MD] Board of Education President Patricia Nally says she is ‘happy’ with Superintendent Kevin Maxwell’s $969 million operating budget recommendation, which calls for a $37.5 million increase over last year. After hearing Maxwell outline the budget at Wednesday night’s board meeting, Nally said that she was confident that the board and county executives will work together on funding the budget to keep the school system on its ‘journey from good to great.’” According to the Sun, “The General Assembly’s maintenance-of-effort requirements state that counties must appropriate operating budget funds on a per-pupil basis for local K-12 schools in an amount no less than the per-pupil amount of the previous year.”

Also in the News

New York City Launches Effort To Overhaul GED.
The Queens Chronicle (12/16, Yurcan) reported that New York City “has announced it is launching a pilot program to ‘modernize’ the General Educational Development test to better prepare those who take it for college. Mayor [Michael] Bloomberg, along with US Education Secretary Arne Duncan and city schools Chancellor Joel Klein, announced the program, which is designed to prepare more GED candidates for careers and post-secondary education.” According to the Queens Chronicle, “The program is offered at District 79 schools, which were established to help students succeed by providing diverse and innovative educational opportunities that combine academic instruction with meaningful youth development, according to the DOE.”

Civil Rights Groups Cry Foul Over Texas School Curriculum.
The AP (12/21, Graczyk) reports, “Two civil rights organizations are seeking a federal review of public school education in Texas, accusing state school administrators of violating federal civil rights laws after curriculum changes approved earlier this year by the Texas Board of Education. The request to the US Department of Education made by the Texas NAACP and Texas League of United Latin American Citizens on Monday contended that the curriculum changes passed in May ‘were made with the intention to discriminate’ and would have a ‘stigmatizing impact’ on African-American and Latino students.” According to the AP, “The request, signed by Gary Bledsoe, president of the state NAACP, and Joey D. Cardenas Jr., state director of Texas LULAC, asked that implementation of the curriculum changes and new standardized tests be stopped for being racially or ethnically offensive or historically inaccurate.”

The Houston Chronicle (12/21, Scharrer) reports, “A school curriculum teaching children about violent Black Panthers while playing down Ku Klux Klan violence against blacks is not only inaccurate but discriminatory, the Texas NAACP and LULAC said Monday in a joint complaint filed with the US Department of Education. The complaint asks the department’s Office of Civil Rights to review Texas’ new social studies curriculum standards approved by the State Board of Education and to take legal action if the state tries to implement the standards the groups call ‘racially or ethnically offensive,’ as well as historically inaccurate.”

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On the Job
Central Falls, RI School Officials Defend Turnaround Plan.
The Providence Journal (12/21, Jordan) reports, “Despite a high rate of teacher absenteeism, school officials on Monday defended their ambitious plan to transform Central Falls [RI] High School. School Supt. Frances Gallo and Deputy Supt. Victor Capellan described several changes they say are succeeding at the 840-student school, including creation of an active parent organization and a new program for students who are at risk of becoming dropouts.” However, “in response to the reports of unusual numbers of sick days and long-term leaves, the teachers’ union said Monday that lack of student discipline, ‘the constant threat of dismissal’ from their jobs, and the failure by administrators to fill vacancies quickly are also part of the tumultuous picture at the school during the last four months.”

Massachusetts Teachers Would Tie Own Rating To Standardized Test.
The Boston Globe (12/21) reports that Massachusetts’ “largest teachers’ union, embracing a concept shunned by many educators, plans to offer a proposal today to use student test scores to help judge which teachers deserve promotions and which ones should be fired. The report from the Massachusetts Teachers Association, to be released at a state Board of Education meeting, positions the union as an active participant – and an unusual one, for a labor organization – in pushing an issue that is highly polarizing among teachers.” The “association says that the change is inevitable and that teachers would be better off shaping it.”

Most Want Easier Way To Fire Underperforming Teachers, Poll Finds.
The AP (12/19) reported, “An overwhelming majority of Americans are frustrated that it’s too difficult to get rid of bad teachers, while most also believe that teachers aren’t paid enough, a new poll shows. The Associated Press-Stanford University poll found that 78 percent think it should be easier for school administrators to fire poorly performing teachers.” However, “overall, the public wants to reward teachers – 57 percent say they are paid too little, with just 7 percent believing they are overpaid and most of the rest saying they’re paid about right.”

New Hampshire Teacher Contract Talks Hit Roadblocks.
The North Andover (MA) Eagle Tribune (12/21) reports, “A tough economy usually means rough sledding at the [teacher] contract table, and there are no rubber stamps for pay deals. In Southern New Hampshire, teacher contracts are in place for about half the school districts.” According to the Eagle Tribune, “Windham is hung up on a proposal from the School Board for a major change in the way teachers get paid. They want to introduce a merit pay system in a new contract.”

Congress May Change “High Qualified” Teacher Rules.
Valerie Strauss wrote in a blog for the Washington Post (12/20), “Should teachers still in training programs be considered ‘highly qualified’ to teach kids? The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently ruled that they aren’t, but some members of Congress think so.” According to Strauss, “Senators have included in key legislation language that would allow teachers still in training to be considered ‘highly qualified’ so they can meet a standard set in the federal No Child Left Behind law” Strauss added, “There are surely some teachers still in training who are excellent teachers. But to declare that all of them are ‘highly qualified’ doesn’t make them so.”

Law & Policy
K-12 Funding To Stay Flat Under Continuing Resolution.
Alyson Klein wrote in a blog for Education Week (12/20), “After Democratic leaders failed to enact a giant spending bill that would have included a modest boost for education, the US Senate has agreed to pass a temporary measure that would freeze spending at current levels for most of the federal government, including the US Department of Education, until March 4. That means a new Congress, in which Republicans control the majority in the House and have a greater margin in the Senate, will get to decide on final spending levels for fiscal year 2011, which started back on Oct. 1.” According to Klein, “But new money for education programs that was in the Senate’s omnibus spending bill…won’t be included in the stop-gap measure.”

Duncan, Senate Republicans Talk ESEA Renewal.
Alyson Klein wrote in a blog for Education Week (12/20), “No one is expecting the more-conservative Congress and the Democratic administration to cooperate on much next year. But reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is one area where there’s a glimmer of hope for compromise between the two parties.” Klein added, “The two top GOP senators on ESEA renewal, Sen. Michael B. Enzi, of Wyoming, and Sen. Lamar Alexander, of Tennessee, both have a history of working across the aisle on education issues” and the two “met last week with GOP lawmakers on the Senate education committee to get a sense of their thinking” and also met with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan last week.

Colorado Lawmakers Face Tough Choices On School Funding.
Education News Colorado (12/20, Engdahl) reported that Colorado legislators “face tough decisions next session about whether to cover the loss of local tax revenues or force school districts to eat those cuts.” Education News Colorado added, “It’s widely expected that state support of schools will be no better than flat next year” and flat “funding is an effective cut for schools, because they don’t get money to cover additional costs created by enrollment growth and cost increases. The enrollment projections predict increases of just under 1 percent, about 7,000 students, in each of the next two school years.”

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Safety & Security
New York City Will Require Police To Produce Regular School Arrest Reports.
The New York Times (12/21, Rosenberg) reports, “The New York City Council voted on Monday to require the Police and Education Departments to produce regular reports on arrests, summonses and suspensions of public school students, a victory for civil liberties advocates who say that the school police have sometimes been too aggressive in trying to keep order. The measure, which was introduced in August 2008, was approved unanimously after compromises were made to satisfy the police and education officials.” According to the Times, “Groups like the New York Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund have complained for years that the school safety officers, who are members of the Police Department, as well as regular police officers tend to overreact, making arrests or writing summonses for infractions as minor as writing on a desk.”

School Finance
Maryland Governor Considering Five Percent Cut For Public Education.
The AP (12/21, Nuckols) reports that Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) “is considering a 5 percent across-the-board cut in state aid for public education. State Budget Secretary T. Eloise Foster has proposed the cut, which the governor’s office says would save more than $200 million.” The AP adds, “O’Malley’s spokesman says the possible cut is merely ‘an option presented to the governor’ but that it speaks to the severity of the state’s fiscal situation.”

Bridgeport, CT Looks To Settle Education Funding Lawsuit.
WCBS-AM New York (12/20, Schneidau) reported on its Website that Connecticut State Representative Chris Caruso says the City of Bridgeport “gets about 75 percent of its school funding from the state, but it’s not enough to adequately educate the city’s 20,000 students, many of who really require special education. … Carsuo says many of the kids lack proper textbooks and writing materials. He says Governor-Elect Dan Malloy, who as mayor of Stamford, was an original plaintiff” in a lawsuit against the state over school funding, “has indicated his willingness to try to settle it.”

Also in the News
Cerf Nominated To Become Next New Jersey Education Commissioner.
The Star-Ledger (NJ) (12/21, Rundquist) reports, “Vowing to focus on ‘issues that have long been neglected’ in public education, [New Jersey] Gov. Chris Christie Monday introduced former deputy New York City schools chancellor Christopher D. Cerf as the state’s next education commissioner. At a press conference in the Statehouse, Christie called Cerf…someone whose ‘record of reform and innovation…is well known’ and whose ‘philosophical approach in many areas of education is in line with mine.’” According to the Star-Ledger, Cerf “called for the need to reform the state’s worst schools, closing the ‘shameful’ achievement gap between ‘those born to economic circumstances that are positive and those born to poverty.’”

Bloomberg News (12/21, Dopp) reports, “New Jersey Governor Chris Christie nominated Christopher Cerf, a former deputy chancellor of the New York City school system, to be the state’s next education commissioner. Cerf, 56, would replace Bret Schundler, whom Christie fired in August after the state lost $400 million in federal school funding because of an error on an application.” The AP (12/21) also covers this story.

Legal, Practical Implications Of School Holiday Observance Analyzed.
Boston University religion professor Stephen Prothero writes in an op-ed for USA Today (12/21), “The school committee in Cambridge, Mass., stirred up a hornet’s nest of controversy when it voted in October to include a Muslim holiday on its academic calendar. … Elsewhere across America, public school districts are wrestling with whether the First Amendment requires inclusion or exclusion when it comes to recognizing religious holy days.” Prothero adds, “As these celebrations expand, the demands of the Constitution and of pragmatism, which now run in opposite directions, will merge, forcing us to do what we are eventually going to have to do: Whittle our public school holy days down to zero.”

NEA in the News
NEA Executive John Wilson To Retire.
Erik Robelen wrote in a blog for Education Week (12/20), “John Wilson, who has served as the National Education Association’s executive director for a decade, is planning to retire in August, according to a blog post by Mike Antonucci of the Education Intelligence Agency. NEA President Dennis Van Roekel has named John Stocks, currently the union’s deputy executive director, to fill the post, Antonucci says.” Robelen added, “Wilson made an unsuccessful run to become the NEA’s president in 1989, losing to Keith Geiger.”

Teaching Improvements Help Boost California School’s Performance.
The Los Angeles Times (12/22, Felch, Song, Poindexter) reports that Edwin Markham Middle School “has been considered one of the worst middle schools in California, despite the best efforts of” a series of “principals and an army of well-intentioned reformers, including big-hearted volunteers, private foundations, corporate sponsors, the city attorney’s office and – most recently – the mayor of Los Angeles. In the last seven years alone, they tried changing the curriculum, reducing class size, improving school safety, requiring school uniforms, opening after-school programs and spending a lot more money per pupil.” However, the “one thing they didn’t do was improve the teaching – at least, not until last year, when layoffs swept out many of the school’s worst performers and test scores jumped, a Times analysis found.”

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In the Classroom
Study: More Testing Seen For High School Students.
Education Week (12/21) reported, “High school is becoming a focus of increased testing, as more states tie diplomas to some type of assessment and require other exams that are not linked to graduation, according to a study released today. In its ninth annual examination of high school exit-exam trends, the Center on Education Policy notes the continuation of key assessment trends in high school and the addition of new trends that, taken together, suggest a net increase in testing is taking shape for high school students.” According to Education Week, “The Washington-based research and policy group found a continued rise in the number of states using an exit exam, which it defines as a test students must pass in order to graduate.”

Oregon District Using Education Department Grant For Arts Project.
The Oregonian (12/21) reported that the Beaverton (OR) School District “was one of 49 education groups in the nation to be awarded a federal Investing in Innovation grant, also called i3. The 39,000-student district will use the money over five years for the Arts for Learning Lessons Project.” According to the Oregonian, “The program, which starts this spring, incorporates drama, music, dance, drawing and other arts into the curriculum. It eventually will be used in all 33 of the district’s elementary schools in grades third through fifth.”

GAO Study Shines Light On Student Mobility.
Education Week (12/21, Zehr) reported, “About 13 percent of children in the United States change schools four or more times before enrolling in high school, and job loss, home foreclosures, and homelessness may be driving up student mobility as Americans move in search of employment or affordable housing, according to a report released yesterday by the US Government Accountability Office. The report is based on an analysis of US Department of Education data from 1998 to 2007.” According to Education Week, “The GAO researchers supplemented their analysis with interviews conducted in March and April with educators at eight schools in six school districts across three states.”

Florida Governor-Elect’s Transition Team Seeking Numerous School Reforms.
The St. Augustine Record (FL) (12/22, Haughney) reports, “Florida schools should enact a number of changes championed by former Gov. Jeb Bush, including expanding school choice, eliminating teacher job protection and basing educators’ pay on student performance, members of Gov.-elect Rick Scott’s transition team said Tuesday. The governor-elect’s education team released briefing documents of recommendations that it was making to the incoming governor, who will take office in two weeks.” According to the Record, “Scott, throughout the campaign, maintained his support for school choice efforts and also appeared recently with advocates for the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program, which sends low income students to private schools.”

On the Job
Boston Teachers Union Urged To Accept Use Of MCAS Scores In Teacher Rating.
The Boston Globe (12/22, Johnson) reports, “The Boston Teachers Union should join other educators throughout Massachusetts and endorse plans to use student test scores to help determine teacher effectiveness, Superintendent Carol Johnson told union leaders yesterday. In a letter to the Boston union, Johnson praised the decision by the Massachusetts Teachers Association to tackle one of the most divisive issues in today’s education-reform debate.” According to the Globe, “The school system, the local union, and the state teachers association all agree that a new evaluation process must include observations of how teachers function in the classroom as well as student performance,” however, “using results of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System to evaluate teachers is a deal-breaker for the Boston union.”

Maryland District May Lay Off Nearly 1,000 Teachers.
The Gaithersburg (MD) Gazette (12/22, Skalski) reports, “Prince George’s [MD] schools chief William R. Hite said Monday evening that 1,000 teachers may have to be laid off if the county is unable to close an anticipated $89 million budget gap. The school system released budget documents Dec. 16 showing an anticipated $140 million shortfall in the $1.69 billion fiscal 2012 education budget, but officials identified about $51 million in cuts that they said do not directly impact classrooms.” According to the Gazette, “The proposed cuts include eliminating middle school sports, which is estimated to save $800,000, freezing pay and eliminating some other school system positions, such as custodial, central office and instructional staff.”

AFT Chief Comes To Defense Of Teachers At Troubled Rhode Island High School.
The Providence Journal (12/22, Jordan) reports, “The turbulent effort to transform Central Falls [RI] High School needs a ‘midcourse correction,’ the national president of the American Federation of Teachers said Tuesday. In response, state Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist said it’s still possible to fix the school if local and state school leaders sit down and talk – and if AFT president Randi Weingarten can get her member teachers in Central Falls to recommit to the plans for change.” The Journal notes that the “mile-square city of Central Falls drew national attention this year when every teacher at its high school was fired in a battle over education reform.”

Study Highlights Effectiveness Of Talented Teachers.
Catherine Rampell wrote in a blog for the New York Times (12/21), “Earlier this year my colleague David Leonhardt wrote about a new study that found that a good kindergarten teacher could greatly improve students’ future earnings. On that basis, an especially strong kindergarten teacher is arguably worth about $320,000 a year, which is the present value of the additional earnings that a full class of students can expect to earn over their careers.” According to Rampell, “Now another working paper, by Stanford’s Eric A. Hanushek, gets similar results, arguing that a minor improvement in teacher quality could have a big effect on test scores, especially as they compare to those of other countries.”

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Law & Policy
Virginia Urged To Adopt Common Standards.
The Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot (12/22) editorializes, “During a recent visit from US Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Gov. Bob McDonnell promised to address shortcomings in Virginia’s math Standards of Learning. Indeed, state education analysts were already hard at work comparing the SOLs to common academic standards developed by the National Governors Association.” Though “the improvements now being contemplated to Virginia’s SOLs are real and welcome, the common core standards are still the surest and best pathway to excellence.”

Safety & Security
Education Department Investigating California District’s Handling Of Bullying Claim.
The AP (12/22, Leff) reports, “Federal education officials are investigating a school district in a Central California town where a 13-year-old boy committed suicide after allegedly being harassed by classmates because he was gay, a spokesman for Education Secretary Arne Duncan confirmed Tuesday. The probe was launched in response to a complaint from Seth Walsh’s mother that Tehachapi Unified School District employees failed to adequately address the years of bullying that preceded her son’s death last Sept. 28, spokesman Justin Hamilton said.” The AP adds, “Seth was one of at least seven gay teenagers whose suicides this fall – all occurring within a month – focused renewed attention on the pain inflicted by peers who mock other children because of their sexual orientations.”

The Bakersfield Californian (12/22, Barrientos) reports, “Education and legal officials confirmed Tuesday that the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights is investigating the Tehachapi Unified School District’s handling of bullying claims connected with the death of Seth Walsh, who hanged himself in September after complaining about being harassed because of his sexuality. The investigation is perhaps the first time the department has investigated a gender harassment, bullying claim since October, when it sent out letters to school districts setting guidelines for bullying prevention and warning of reprimands to those who didn’t follow them.”

Facilities
New York City Embarks On Major School Building Campaign.
The New York Times (12/22, Satow) reports, “The education sector, and especially the School Construction Authority, has become big business in the world of New York City real estate. As residential condominiums, office towers and other private sector projects have faltered, the authority has swooped in to take advantage of lower construction costs, amenable landlords and available land to pursue an aggressive expansion.” According to the Times, “This year, the S.C.A. has built a record 26 new facilities, creating room for 17,500 students.”

New York City Sparring With EPA Over Plan To Check Schools For PCBs.
The New York Times (12/22, Navarro) reports, “The Environmental Protection Agency plans to begin inspecting school buildings in New York City next month for contamination with the toxic chemicals known as PCBs in response to a pilot study that found that the substance was leaking from old light fixtures in some schools. The decision follows an exchange of letters between the federal agency and city officials that show the two sides disagreeing over the urgency of addressing a problem that the city says could affect 750 to 850 of about 1,200 school buildings and cost about $1 billion if all the old fluorescent fixtures throughout the school system were to be replaced.” The Times adds, “Elevated levels of PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, were found last summer in the first three school buildings tested in the pilot study, and light fixtures were replaced at all three.”

Declining Costs Allowing For More Renovation Projects In Virginia District.
The Fairfax (VA) Times (12/22, Hobbs) reports, “Built in the 1960s, Langley High School in McLean [VA] is operating by 50-year-old standards.” However, “the school, and 24 others in the Fairfax County Public Schools system, received some good news last week. A decline in construction costs has generated a savings of $31 million for the school system during the past three years, and will allow an accelerated renovation schedule for schools listed as capital improvement projects during fiscal 2012-16.”

School Finance
Virginia District’s Fiscal State Improving.
The Lynchburg (VA) News & Advance (12/21, Pounds) reported, “An early indicator suggests that the Lynchburg City Schools will face less severe budget cuts this upcoming year than last. Superintendent Paul McKendrick told school board members Tuesday that state budget cuts to the division likely would total less than $900,000 under Gov. Bob McDonnell’s proposed budget submitted to the General Assembly Dec. 17.” According to the News & Advance, “In contrast, last year, the division cut about $8.7 million, or 10 percent, from its budget.”

Also in the News
Teen Birthrate Hits Record Low.
The Washington Post (12/22, Stein) reports, “The rate at which US women are having babies continued to fall between 2008 and 2009, federal officials reported Tuesday, pushing the teen birthrate to a record low and prompting a debate about whether the drop was caused by the recession, an increased focus on encouraging abstinence, more adolescents using birth control or a combination of those factors. The birthrate among US girls ages 15 to 19 fell from 41.5 to 39.1 births per 1,000 teens – a 6 percent drop to the lowest rate in the nearly 70 years the federal government has been collecting reliable data, according to a preliminary analysis of the latest statistics.”

NEA in the News

Appeals Court Rejects Suit Over NEA Annuity Plan.
Mark Walsh wrote in a blog for Education Week (12/21), “A federal appeals court has upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit alleging that the nation’s largest teachers’ union aggressively marketed retirement annuities that charged fees that were ten times as much as those for comparable products. A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, in San Francisco, ruled unanimously on Monday that the National Education Association’s Valuebuilder annuities were not regulated by the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 and, thus, the plaintiffs’ lawsuit could not go forward.” According to Walsh, “The annuity plan was challenged by NEA members who work for the South Kitsap School District, in Washington state, and the El Dorado Union High School District, in California.”

The San Diego Union Tribune (12/2, Persinger) reports that the new policy aims to balance “post-graduation recruiting efforts across the San Diego Unified School District.” Leading up to the school board’s vote, much of the discussion among parents and students focused on “the presence of military recruiters on campus, some of whom have had – until now – unfettered access to students as they determine their post-high school plans.” But, “Board member John de Beck, who introduced the policy two weeks ago, said despite all the fuss on military recruiters, the policy was never meant to eliminate them from campuses.”

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In the Classroom
Mock Wedding Stresses Healthy Relationships.
The Springfield (OH) News Sun (12/2, Gildow) reports on “a mock wedding ceremony staged in Kenton Ridge High School’s auditorium” earlier this week as part of the school’s Managing Family Transitions class, which has “spent the semester discussing healthy and unhealthy relationships, dealing with family crisis and issues teens face in dating.” The mock ceremony “was stressing the importance of healthy relationships.” The article notes, “This is the first year the class – which falls under the heading of family and consumer science – relied heavily on community resources such as the Marriage Resource Center and the Community Hospital Health Services Foundation for the sex education component.” Last year, the state passed a law “requiring school districts to develop and implement policies to prevent and address teen dating violence.”

Etiquette Course Instructs Middle School Students In Manners.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (12/1, Richards) reports on an elective class in etiquette offered at the Concordia University School and Young Leaders Academy. During the students’ first class they practiced formal introductions and table manners. At the end of the course, students are rewarded with “a formal five-course lunch or dinner at Bacchus restaurant downtown.” Assistant Principal Danielle Davis “said students’ behavior changed instantly” after the first class, and that “they were attentive, thoughtful and respectful.” Camille Monk, who leads the class and started the business behind it, Etiquette and Protocol School of Wisconsin, was “trained and certified in Georgia at the American School of Protocol.”

Survey Of Utah Principals Shows Most See State-Funded Arts Program As Effective.
The Salt Lake Tribune (11/2, Schencker) reports that a survey of principals in Utah shows that most believe “a state-funded arts learning program is making a difference in” their schools. The survey by Dan Jones & Associates asked principals about “their perceptions of the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts Learning Program, which” pairs art specialists with classroom teachers to “integrate art with other subjects.” All survey respondents said that “the effect of the program was either ‘definitely positive’ or ‘probably positive.’” The Salt Lake Tribune notes that the program needs about $4 million more state funding in order to continue next school year.

New Jersey District Seeks To Approve New Health Academy For High School.
New Jersey’s Shore News Today (12/2, Wompierski) reports the Egg Harbor Township School District “hopes to approve a new Allied Health Academy program at the high school in time for the 2011-2012 school year.” The program has seen “around five years of research and development” since it was initially considered. Rodney Velardi, the school’s supervisor of science, “said the academy would be an asset to the Egg Harbor Township School District because of the growing number of careers in the medical field, adding that the academy would be ideal for students who are considering careers in health care.” The program would include “a second set of classes for students to take in addition to their regular science courses,” such as “honors genetics and pathology, honors anatomy and physiology, honors forensic science, sports medicine, neuroscience, and a senior experience class that incorporates observation and fieldwork.”

On the Job
New Mexico Educational Retirement Board Considers Raising Teacher Contributions.
KFOX-TV El Paso, Texas (12/2, Anaya) reports, “proposed changes to retirement benefits for public school teachers and colleges in New Mexico has some Las Cruces teachers outraged.” A new plan by the New Mexico Educational Retirement Board would ask “teachers to pay an additional half-percent of their salary into the pension fund and” would require that they “stay an additional 10 years before retirement.” According to the retirement board, the changes are “necessary to keep the retirement fund sustainable.” It will vote on the changes Dec. 9.

More Than 1,000 Los Angeles District Classified Staff Lose Jobs.
The Los Angeles Times (12/1, Rojas) reported, “More than a thousand Los Angeles Unified School District employees – including those who staff school offices, run libraries and maintain campuses – will be without jobs Wednesday amid the latest round of budget reductions this year in the nation’s second-largest school district. Thousands of others will be shifted to new workplaces, with some taking positions with less pay and fewer hours.” According to the Times, district officials “said no teachers are included in this round” and “the reductions and reassignments affect 4,700 employees in various classified positions.”

The AP (12/1) reported, “About 150 employees of the Los Angeles Unified School District are protesting the layoffs of about 1,000 non-teaching staffers scheduled to lose their jobs Wednesday.” According to the AP, School Superintendent Ramon Cortines “says the district faces a $142 million deficit for the 2011-2012 school year.”

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Law & Policy
House Delays Vote On Child Nutrition Bill.
ABC News (12/1, Khan) reported on its Website, “The House of Representatives today delayed a vote on the $4.5 billion child nutrition bill that would ban greasy food and sugary soft drinks from schools. The legislation has triggered criticism for its hefty price tag and new nutritional requirements that some say shouldn’t come from the federal government.” The AP (12/2, Jalonick) notes, “the $4.5 billion bill…would give more needy children the opportunity to eat free lunches at school and make those lunches healthier.” According to the AP, “If the bill were amended, it would be sent back to the Senate with little time left in the legislative session.”

California Court Says Parents Can Force Schools To Provide Physical Education.
The AP (12/1) reported that a California appeals court ruled on Tuesday that “parents can force public schools to provide state-mandated physical education.” The “ruling overturned a Sacramento trial judge’s decision in an east bay Albany school district case” in which “a parent sued the district to force it to offer the required physical education.”

The San Francisco Chronicle (12/1, Tucker) noted that in California, elementary schools must “offer 200 minutes of physical education every 10 days, an amount that rises to 400 minutes in middle or high schools, not including lunch or recess.” The Sacramento trial court decision said that “the state’s physical education rule was advisory rather than a requirement and that a private party, like a parent, had no standing to enforce the law anyway.” But in their ruling, judges of the appellate court said, “We conclude (the law) means what it says and that, while individual school districts may have discretion as to how to administer their physical education programs, those programs must satisfy the 200-minute-per-10-school-day minimum.”

Parents Banding Together To Challenge “Inappropriate” Content In School Books.
USA Today (12/2, Tang, Marklein) reports, “Parents have long raised concerns about school and library books – children’s and young adult books, and sometimes dictionaries – often for inappropriate content. The number of reported challenges in the past 30 years has hovered between about 400 or 500 each year, says Deborah Caldwell-Stone, an attorney with the American Library Association.” Though “challenges once were mostly launched by a lone parent, Caldwell-Stone says she has noticed ‘an uptick in organized efforts’ to remove books from public and school libraries” and recent complaints have “stirred emotional argument over just how much freedom should be extended to students in advanced courses.”

Safety & Security
Wisconsin School Where Hostage Taking Occurred Showed Effects Of Training.
ABC News (12/1, Burry, et al.) reported that Marinette High School in Wisconsin had undergone “training drills last fall about how to respond to a potential school shooter.” This week, when 15-year-old student Sam Hangel “took teacher Valerie Burd” and “his 24 other classmates hostage,” Burd “stayed on the phone with police who called the classroom…and directed arriving students to the safety of the library.” ABC News adds that Hengel’s classmates “took a cue from their teacher, engaging [him] in hours of small talk to try to ease the tense situation.”

Wisconsin District Has Plan To Prevent, Respond To School Crises. Wisconsin’s Journal Times (12/1, Fiori) reported, “Park High School Principal Dan Thielen held a special meeting of his school’s crisis response team Tuesday morning following an incident” at Marinette High School. He also sent a written reminder to staff “to staff about crisis protocol.” Said Thielen, “The big thing I emphasize with staff is to remain calm in a situation like what happened up in Marinette.” The Journal Times adds that according to Racine Unified spokeswoman Stacy Tapp, “the district’s schools are adequately prepared to both prevent and also respond to crisis situations involving students and staff.” It “has a crisis response team and plan,” and it regularly “conducts safety and security audits of school buildings.”

Facilities
New Jersey Governor Urged To Lift ban On School Construction Projects
Shavar D. Jeffries, board chair of Newark (NJ) Public Schools, and David G. Sciarra, executive director of the Education Law Center in Newark write in an op-ed for New Jersey Newsroom (12/2), “For decades, Newark students have attended school in buildings that are among the oldest, most obsolete and dangerous in New Jersey, if not the nation.” Jeffries and Sciarra add though a badly needed school construction initiative was launched prior to the inauguration of Gov. Chris Christie (R), since taking office he has halted school construction projects across the state. They conclude that numerous education stakeholders “have waited far too long for this very basic education reform. We urge all those concerned about the Newark public schools to let Governor Christie know that it’s time to build Newark’s ‘shovel ready’ new schools.”

Also in the News

Blogger Lists Five Favorite Virtual Tools For “Classroom Chores.”
Sarah Kessler wrote at Mashable (12/1) about five “virtual tools for tackling some of the most common classroom chores.” They include an online grade book by SchoolCircuit that allows parents and students “easy access” and is simple for teachers to manage. Another tool, “Backboard, enables groups to access a shared document and make notes and corrections. It saves time in group projects, draft assessments and even grading.” ClassMaker, meanwhile, lets teachers “make online assessments that are graded instantly;” PlanbookEdu is an online lesson plan book that makes it simple to “share plans with substitute teachers, colleagues and administrators.” Kessler also mentions a $4.99 iPhone app for taking attendance that “was created by a teacher.”

NASA To Give Away Pieces Of Space Shuttle To Schools.
W.J. Hennigan wrote in a blog for the Los Angeles Times (12/1), “Starting Wednesday, NASA is giving away 7,000 space shuttle heat shield tiles to schools and universities that want to pique their students’ interest in the shuttle program with a little piece of space history. … With the shuttle program slated to end next year, NASA said the offer was made to ‘preserve the program’s history and inspire the next generation of space explorers, scientists and engineers.’”

Evolution Debate Intensifies Amid Vote On Textbooks In Louisiana.
Education Week (12/1, Robelen) reported, “Louisiana’s state school board is gearing up for a debate next week over a set of proposed life-science textbooks, amid complaints that they don’t provide information questioning the theory of evolution. But defenders of the texts say the criticism of evolution’s treatment is misguided and appears to be part of a thinly veiled agenda to promote a religiously infused creationist or ‘intelligent design’ perspective on the origins of life.” Education Week added that the state board of education “voted 8-4 last month to recommend the books” and “the two state lawmakers on the panel, who both have leadership roles on education, cast ‘no’ votes.”

NEA in the News
Stakeholders Await Announcement Of Permanent New Jersey Education Commissioner.
The New Jersey Spotlight (12/2, Mooney) speculates as to whether or not New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) will give the state’s “acting” education commissioner, Rochelle Hendricks, “the formal job” of education commissioner. The Spotlight points out that Hendricks’ “public refusal last month to attend the annual convention of the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), one of Christie’s archenemies, removed little doubt she would follow” his lead. Many education advocates are waiting eagerly for Christie’s decision. Derrell Bradford, executive director of Excellent Education for Everyone, a “school choice advocacy group,” said, for instance, “If she’s going to be the person, we need to know. … We’re 10 months into trying to implement Christie’s reform plans.”

Rhee Among 18 Leaders Appointed To Florida Education Transition Team.
The Washington Post (12/3, Anderson) reports, “Former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle A. Rhee has joined the education transition team of Florida Gov.-elect Rick Scott, according to a statement from” Scott’s office. As part of the team, Rhee will help Scott “find innovative ways to create a new education system for a new economy,” the statement said. Rhee also issued a statement on the move, saying, “I am happy to be of service to Governor Elect Scott and the state of Florida. .. When it comes to improving our schools for our children, I will work with Democrats, Republicans, Independents and people who have general interest in making schools great for our children.”

The Miami Herald (12/2, McGrory) reported that 17 other people were also on the list of education transition team appointees. The Orlando Sentinel (12/3, Balona, Roth) reports that “the vast majority of the people named to Scott’s education transition team…are from Florida, and some have been called upon by previous governors for guidance.” Besides Rhee, Scott’s other “Champions of Achievement” include Jonathan K. Hage, the president of Charter Schools USA, who has also advised helped both governors Jeb Bush and Charlie Crist; “Patricia Levesque, executive director of Bush’s Foundation For Florida’s Future…and Julio Fuentes, president of Florida State Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.”

The St. Petersburg (FL) Times (12/3, Marshall) reports that MaryEllen Elia, superintendent of the Hillsborough County school district, is “the only representative from traditional public K-12 schools” included among the 18 members. The St. Petersburg Times lists all the members of the team.

Ben Smith writes in his Politico (12/2) blog, “The word that Michelle Rhee will advise Rick Scott’s transition is another signal that Florida is about to emerge as the central battleground in the education wars.” He added, “The well-funded education reform movement has some of the energy and money you’d expect to find around a third party and leaders like Jeb Bush and Michael Bloomberg; it’s a space to watch as 2012 approaches.” Florida’s Sun-Sentinel (12/3, Alanez) and the Palm Beach (FL) Post (12/2, Fitzpatrick) also covered the story.

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In the Classroom
Texas’ New Standardized Tests To Be Longer, More Difficult.
The Dallas Morning News (12/3, Stutz) reports, “Texas students will have to answer more questions – and spend more time in class answering them – when the state’s new student testing program is rolled out for the 2011-12 school year. A preview of the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, sent to school districts Wednesday also indicated that college and career readiness rather than minimum skills will be the focus for older students.” The Morning News notes, “Students will have less opportunity to guess at multiple choice questions as more open-ended items appear on tests – particularly in math and science – requiring students to come up with original answers.” The article also includes a list of “the key changes discussed in the report.”

Tennessee Raises High School Graduation Rates With Coaches, CTE.
The Tennessean (12/3, Ragland-Hudgins) reports, “Strategies to get high school students to graduate on time like those implemented by the Rutherford County seem to be working.” The county had a graduation rate of 91.3 percent in 2009. Don Odom, assistant superintendent of instruction and curriculum for Rutherford County Schools, “said when the system implemented graduation coaches in 2007, the focus was on seniors who lacked enough credits to graduate.” The focus has since been expanded to younger students. “We’re trying to pick up the ones coming out of the middle grades because that transition is hard for them,” Odom said. The state as a whole has seen success in raising graduation rates. At Oakland High School, Principal Bill Spurlock has “found that career and technical education students at his school have a higher graduation rate.” Also, “communicating with the staff, he said, has helped tremendously in developing new approaches to help students.”

High School May Get Program Focusing On Cyber Security.
The St. Petersburg (FL) Times (12/3) reports on “plans for a new, cutting edge technology program at Countryside High School [that] are taking shape” in Pinellas County. “The details of the program, called the Institute for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, or ISTEM, are a work in progress.” However, the most recent “draft of proposed offerings” focuses on a cyber security program as well as “study paths for database programming and digital video production.” Recently, “the Science Center of Pinellas County teamed up with Raytheon, SRI International and St. Petersburg College to kick off a cyber security education program. Bill Lawrence, director of Pinellas County Schools advanced studies and academic excellence, said the district hopes to work with members of the team to hone elements of the ISTEM program, chief among them, cyber security.”

Eight States Selected For Math And Science Study.
The Aurora (CO) Sentinel (12/3) reports, “Colorado will be among eight states to participate in a new math and science study for eighth graders, an assessment that will reach approximately 50 schools in 28 local districts.” The 2011 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study will take place next spring, and will compare date from the selected states with “student achievement information from more than 60 countries.” Schools in Alabama, California, Connecticut, Indiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota and North Carolina were also selected by the Department of Education to take part in the study. Colorado Commissioner of Education Dwight Jones said, “Participating in this study will yield that information and we deeply appreciate the cooperation of those districts and schools that have agreed to assist with this study.”

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Law & Policy
House Approves Child Nutrition Act.
The New York Times (12/3, Pear) reports, “Congress gave final approval on Thursday to a child nutrition bill that expands the school lunch program and sets new standards to improve the quality of school meals, with more fruits and vegetables.” The bill championed by First lady Michelle Obama would be financed, in part “by a cut in food stamps starting in several years.” The Times adds that President Obama is expected to sign the bill.

The AP (12/3) reports that the bill would expand school lunch and dinner programs to include more children. Some lawmakers say the legislation could help “stem rising health care costs due to expanding American waistlines and to feed hungry children in tough economic times.” But opponents are concerned about its costs and say it is “an example of government overreach.”

‎The Christian Science Monitor (12/2, Paulson) reported that “the bill, formally known as the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, includes some of the biggest changes to the Child Nutrition Act since the program was started nearly half a century ago.” It provides “$4.5 billion over 10 years to child nutrition programs – the first time the federal government has increased funding for them in 30 years.” Also under the legislation, schools would be reimbursed 6 cents more than the current $2.68 “reimbursement rate…from the federal government for free school meals.”

USA Today (12/3, Eisler) adds, “On the safety front, the bill also includes provisions to better train school cafeteria workers and more quickly alert schools that may have received food that has been recalled because of contamination concerns.”

‎Politico (12/3, Phillip) reports that Michelle Obama said Thursday “that she is ‘thrilled’ that the legislation is close to the finish line. She called it ‘a groundbreaking piece of bipartisan legislation that will significantly improve the quality of meals that children receive at school and will play an integral role in our efforts to combat childhood obesity.’” The Chicago Tribune (12/3, Steffen), Reuters (12/3, Abbott), and AFP (12/3) also cover the story.

Some School Districts Pulling Out Of Race To The Top.
Education Week (12/2, Cavanagh) reported, “States are pushing ahead with efforts to make sweeping changes to education policy through the Race to the Top program, despite some of them having seen individual schools and districts back out of the process because of concerns over the time and money required to make those plans a reality.” According to Education Week, ED spokesman Justin Hamilton “said recently that states that make ‘significant alterations’ to their Race to the Top plans could risk losing their pots of federal cash. But he declined to speculate on how far states could go in changing those blueprints before crossing the line.”

Duncan Criticizes Automatic Pay Raises For Teachers Earning Master’s Degrees.
KLAS-TV Las Vegas, NV (12/2) reported on its Website that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan “says there’s little evidence students are getting any better education from teachers who have advanced degrees” yet students “at UNLV’s Masters of Education classes disagreed with Secretary Duncan’s statements.” The Clark County (NV) School District “faces tough budget negotiations with teachers next year” yet thus far, “no district leaders are proposing adjusting the way teachers with master’s degrees are paid. But with Secretary Duncan saying there’s little to show for that extra pay, the idea of adjusting salaries is now out there.”

Facilities
Kansas City School District Hires “Repurposer” To Rehabilitate Vacant Properties.
The Kansas City Star (12/2, Robertson) reported that the Kansas City School District has hired a repurposer “to turn vacant school properties back into community assets.” Shannon Jaax, president of the Kansas City chapter of the American Planning Association, will take on the role created through a partnership between the Board of Education and the city. “The details of the one-year contract are still being finalized. … But the combined salaries for Jaax and a support person will be less than $150,000.’ The board projected an overall budget for the process to be less than $500,000,” board President Airick Leonard West said.

Also in the News
Parents Increasingly Resisting Schools’ Requests For Volunteers.
The New York Times (12/2, D1, Stout) reported on the front of its “Home & Garden” section that mothers nationwide “are becoming emboldened to push back against the relentless requests from their children’s schools for their time.” In recent years, “as local and state economies continue to struggle, budget cuts to rich and poor school systems” have increased schools’ “reliance on unpaid parent help.” Some schools either have or are considering mandatory commitments “to a small amount of volunteer time.” According to the Times, “the heightened need and expectations are coming at a time when many parents have less and less time to give.” Gary Parkes, the PTA president at Carmel Elementary School in Woodstock, Georgia, told the New York Times, “People are so busy trying to stay afloat, they just do not have as much time as they would like to give.”

“Kalamazoo Promise” Helped Boost School Enrollment, Economy In Michigan City.
Columnist Conor Williams writes in The Washington Post (12/3) that in 2005, “a group of residents” from Kalamazoo, Michigan, “anonymously established and endowed ‘The Kalamazoo Promise,’ offering Kalamazoo public school graduates full tuition at any of Michigan’s prestigious public universities or colleges.” Their aim was not only to boost education, but also the local economy. Williams adds that according to the consulting firm McKinsey & Co., “in the Promise’s first two years, real estate values rose by 8 to 10 percent” and “Kalamazoo public school enrollment increased by more than 1,000 students.” Several other “communities, including Detroit and Pittsburgh, are launching versions of a Promise program.” Williams asserts that while “different communities may need different models…there are ways to make it work.” He concludes that these types of local responses “to education and economic challenges is exactly what we need right now.”

Study Finds Disparities In School Punishment For Gay, Lesbian Teens.
The Washington Post (12/6, George) reports, “Gay and lesbian teens in the United States are about 40 percent more likely than their straight peers to be punished by schools, police and the courts, according to a” Yale University “study published Monday, which finds that girls are especially at risk for unequal treatment. The research, described as the first national look at sexual orientation and teen punishment, comes as a spate of high-profile bullying and suicide cases across the country have focused attention on the sometimes hidden cruelties of teen life.” The study finds that “for similar misconduct, gay adolescents were roughly 1.25 to 3 times more likely to be sanctioned than their straight peers.”

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In the Classroom
Fewer Than 400,000 Illegal Immigrant Students Estimated At Texas Public Schools.
The Dallas Morning News (12/5, Hobbs et al.) reported that because Texas “schools do not track students’ legal status,” it is unknown “how many illegal immigrants” are enrolled. An analysis of “little-known state data,” however, provides “a range that is lower than many people might expect,” the Morning News added. According to researchers, “between 125,000 and 150,000 illegal immigrants attended Texas public schools in 2009.” This cost “taxpayers more than $1 billion a year.” At the most, the state has “about 400,000 illegal immigrant students,” based on the fact that 92 percent of students in the state have “Social Security numbers on file.”

Dallas District Officials Seeking To Add More Teach For America Instructors. The Dallas Morning News (12/3, Haag) reported, “Dallas school officials asked trustees Thursday to approve a boost in the district’s participation in Teach for America” as a “report by the district said that the program has been a success and that the performance of the 174 Teach for America teachers, measured by the district’s Classroom Effectiveness Index, outranked other teachers in math and language arts.” According to the Morning News, “The district wants to add 120 Teach for America teachers next year.”

Maryland District Expanding Integrated Curriculum In Elementary Schools.
The Washington Post (12/6, Birnbaum) reports that Maryland’s Montgomery County school district has “a $2.25 million agreement with Pearson…to develop and market a new elementary school curriculum” that teaches “multiple topics…through one theme.” But, according to “Montgomery teachers…the new method, which they call an integrated curriculum, pushes much further,” because it “involves more analytical skills than the old methods.” Montgomery school officials first rolled out the new curriculum, much of which is available online, in kindergarten classrooms, and this year, “112 schools are trying it in first grade.” Eventually, it may “reach all grades at all schools.”

Network Of Chicago Schools Emphasizes Collaborative Teaching.
The Chicago Tribune /Hechinger Report (12/6, Garland) reports, “The Academy for Urban School Leadership – which manages 19 schools in Chicago, including 12 that were designated for ‘turnaround’ because of poor academic performance – employs the technology to help speed up the time it takes new teachers to learn the basics of classroom management. Underlying the new gadgetry, however, is a deeper innovation that is spreading across the country” culminating in “a growing effort to open up classroom doors and transform teaching from a solo endeavor into teamwork. It’s a quiet reform in an era of more extreme moves such as firing principals, opening charter schools or splitting dropout factories into smaller schools.”

Student Experiment To Launch With Endeavour.
KSTU-TV Salt Lake City, Utah (12/5) website reports, “Hillcrest High School students will be part of NASA’s final” Endeavour mission. Although it reports the mission will take place in February, the article notes the group is “one of 16 teams selected from across the country to send a science experiment aboard NASA’s Endeavor Space Shuttle. Out of 447 entries from high school students, Keltson Howell, Megan Dolley and Nicos Liodakis made the cut to load their experiment on the space shuttle Endeavor.” The experiment “will test the effects of microgravity on the development of an African Pond Frog. Two eggs will be sent on Endeavor and two eggs will be kept on Earth to serve as a control to compare development.”

Maryland District Touts AP Scores.
The Washington Post (12/5, Birnbaum) reports, “The cross-Potomac staring match between the schools of” Montgomery, Maryland and Fairfax, Virginia – two of the highest performing districts in the US — on Friday after Montgomery Superintendent Jerry D. Weast “pointed out in a letter to his school board that the number of passing AP scores among African American and Hispanic students in Montgomery – 3,235 – was higher than the total number of those students who took AP tests at all in Fairfax – 1,746.” The Post points out that Fairfax schools have “about half as many African American students and the same number of Hispanic students, contributing factors in why Montgomery’s participation numbers are higher.” WTOP-FM Washington, DC (12/5) also covered this story in a report on its Website.

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On the Job
Retention Gap Expanding Between White, Minority Teachers.
Miller-McCune (12/5, Burns) reported that according to researchers, droves of minority teachers “are going in one door and out the other.” Over the last 20 years, “the number of teachers of color has doubled to 640,000,” but they “still represent only 17 percent of the teaching workforce,” according to a study by the University of Pennsylvania. Moreover, the study says, “minority teachers…have been changing schools and abandoning the profession at higher rates than whites,” and that “gap is widening.” The reasons for the high turnover rates among minority teachers may include “poor working conditions in the high-poverty, high-minority urban schools where they are concentrated.” Also, the teachers often want “want more influence over school direction and more autonomy in the classroom to teach what works.”

Analysis: Los Angeles Would Have Far Fewer Teacher Layoffs If Quality Were A Factor.
The Los Angeles Times (12/4, Song et al.) reported that “quality-blind layoffs are just one vestige of seniority rules introduced decades ago to promote fairness and protect teachers from capricious administrators.” The Times looked into how “about 2,700 seniority-based layoffs in the Los Angeles Unified School District in the last two years” have impacted student achievement based on the performance data of roughly 1,000 “elementary and middle school teachers.” It found that about 190 of the teachers laid off by the district “ranked in the top fifth in raising scores and more than 400 ranked in the top 40 percent.” Also, according to the Times, “far fewer teachers would be laid off if the district were to base the cuts on performance rather than seniority.”

Pennsylvania Leads States In Number Of Teachers Strikes.
The AP (12/5, Scolforo) reported that teacher strikes occur “more often in Pennsylvania than in all other states combined.” But even though “more than half the nation’s teacher strikes have occurred in Pennsylvania every year since 2004, their frequency is actually far lower than it once was.” The AP notes that “thirty-seven states do not permit teachers to strike,” and some constituents hope that with a new governor and a new majority in the state Legislature, more progress will be made “in what has been a long crusade to ban strikes” in Pennsylvania.

Safety & Security
Schools’ Safe Practices Include Clothing Color Restrictions.
The Modesto (CA) Bee (12/5, Austin) reported that due to gang violence in “the south Modesto neighborhood by Bret Harte Elementary and Hanshaw Middle School,” school officials have implemented “safe practices at both schools,” including “careful regulation of colors, particularly at the middle school.” For instance, Hanshaw does not allow “bright red or royal blue” clothes to be worn on campus. “At Bret Harte, children are allowed to wear blue – the school color – and khaki or shades of brown and blue jeans…but no red.” The Modesto Bee lists several other precautionary measures the schools have implemented in order to promote a safe learning environment.

Classroom “Go-Kits” Include Supplies For Lock-Downs, Long-Term Evacuations.
The Berkshire (MA) Eagle (12/6, Smith) reports that the Central Berkshire Regional School District’s School Emergency Planning Council (SEPC) “recently completed a yearlong project to fund and assemble emergency ‘Go-Kits’ to put in every classroom and administrative office.” The kits comprise of “small backpacks filled with emergency and administrative supplies in the event students are locked-down in the classroom or need to be evacuated from a school for a prolonged period of time.” Items in the kits “include emergency blankets, drinking water pouches, face masks, writing utensils, flashlights, glow stick lights and emergency plans and forms.” The Eagle notes that “SEPC was able to secure at $13,431 grant from the Western Regional Homeland Security Advisory Council for the project back in April.”

Also in the News
New Website Designed As Platform For Youth To Write Novels.
The New York Times (12/6, Bosman) reports, “Figment.com will be unveiled on Monday as an experiment in online literature, a free platform for young people to read and write fiction, both on their computers and on their cellphones. Users are invited to write novels, short stories and poems, collaborate with other writers and give and receive feedback on the work posted on the site.” According to the Times, “The idea for Figment emerged from a very 21st-century invention, the cellphone novel, which arrived in the United States around 2008.”

Embattled New York City Schools Chancellor-Designate Defends Record.
The AP (12/6) reports that incoming New York City Schools Chancellor Cathie Black “defended her skills and experience as a manager of large, complex organizations in her first interview, broadcast Sunday on WABC-TV. … The 66-year-old Hearst Magazines chairwoman has faced criticism over her lack of education experience since being appointed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.” According to the AP, “Speaking about her decision to send her own children to private schools, Black said that ‘schools in New York City 15 years ago were not at the caliber that they are today.’”

The New York Times (12/6, Otterman) adds that Black “praised the work of Chancellor Joel I. Klein, saying that she was in ‘complete alignment’ with him, and that she agreed with all the measures he had put into place. … On labor issues, Ms. Black said that as negotiations for a new contract for city teachers moved forward, she planned to continue Mr. Klein’s efforts to increase the robustness of teacher evaluations, reconsider the policy of lifetime tenure and seek to change the law that requires layoffs to be determined by seniority.”

Schools Expect Parents To Monitor Students’ Internet Activity At Home.
The New York Times (12/5, A1, Hoffman) reported on its front page that the Internet’s “potential for casual, breathtaking cruelty, and its capacity to cloak a bully’s identity all present slippery new challenges to this transitional generation of analog parents.” They turn to schools for help, but are often “rebuffed because officials think they do not have the authority to intercede.” Parents are expected to monitor their own children’s online activity at home, as “overburdened school administrators and, increasingly, police officers who unravel juvenile cybercrimes, say it is almost impossible for them to monitor regulations imposed on teenagers.”

Rhee Launches Education Reform Advocacy Group.
The Washington Post (12/7, Turque, Anderson) reports, “Michelle A. Rhee, who often expressed impatience with politics in more than three years as D.C. schools chancellor, launched a new political organization Monday that plans to spend $1 billion bringing her aggressive brand of education reform to the national stage.” The group will address teacher recruitment, merit pay, “expanding school choice and fostering parent and family involvement.”

The New York Times (12/7, Gabriel) adds that StudentsFirst “will solicit memberships for as little as $5 per month, but it will also take advantage of changes in campaign finance laws that allow it to broadcast political advertisements paid for by rich individuals and corporations.”

Bloomberg News (12/7, Deprez) adds that in the “organization’s first year, Rhee aims to sign up 1 million members and raise $1 billion from corporate and philanthropic donors and from membership dues, she said. The group, whose headquarters location hasn’t been determined, will express opinions on legislation and endorse candidates” and “will have an annual budget of $200 million to $300 million, Rhee said.” The Wall Street Journal (12/7, Banchero) and Politico (12/7, Epstein) also cover the story.

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In the Classroom
Detroit Public Schools Recruits Community Volunteers For Reading Tutoring Program.
Miller-McCune (12/6, Vachon) reported on Detroit Public Schools’ efforts to recruit volunteers to tutor students in the critical area of reading. Low test scores throughout the district in both reading and math in 2009 “suggested to school officials that reading posed the most foundational problem, preventing progress in math and other areas.” In order to boost achievement, DPS Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb created the Call to Action for a new Reading Corps program. Most volunteer tutors do not have an education background, so “organizers have set up a 30-minute structured module. After a brief introduction, the tutor reads to the child for 15 minutes and is asked to retell the story in their words.” For 2010-11, “more than 5,700 volunteers offered to help, representing over 650,000 hours of tutoring.”

Wisconsin Virtual School Advocates Call For More Accessibility.
The Superior (WI) Telegraph (12/6, Nachreiner) reported that the Wisconsin Coalition of Virtual School Families are pointing to a “presented recently at an education conference in Washington DC by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush” in its case for expanding virtual education in the state. “Ten Elements of High Quality Digital Learning” says that online education can be a solution “to many education problems” and “stresses accessibility as a way to improve online education for states.” Wisconsin limits virtual public school enrollment to 5,250 students, a restriction that Julie Thompson of the Wisconsin Coalition of Virtual School Families says frustrates many families. The enrollment cap, she notes, “has resulted in waiting lists dragging on through summer.”

Law & Policy
Judge: Detroit Schools Emergency Manager Has Limited Say In Non-Financial Matters.
The AP (12/6) reported that Wayne County Judge Wendy Baxter ruled on Monday that Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb “exceeded his authority” when he did not consult school board members on issues “that go beyond money.”

The Detroit Free Press (12/7, Dawsey) reports that Judge Baxter’s decision “could dramatically change the power structure and reform efforts under way in the Detroit Public Schools.” Since his appointment in 2009, Bobb has made “decisions regarding school closures and curriculum in the school system.” The Free Press quotes Bobb as saying, “Judge Baxter’s ruling is a step backward and endorses the past academic policies which, along with the financial practices and the overall direction of the school district, were a total failure. There’s nothing in the Board’s academic plan that sets measurable goals for the district .. The ruling fails to address the basic question of how to separate the academics from the financials.”

The Detroit News (12/7, Schultz) reports that school board members, meanwhile, “praised the ruling, declaring it an early Christmas gift. They pledged to reassess Bobb’s academic decisions, including quarterly benchmark tests of students.” The Detroit News also notes that “the decision comes as Bobb is trying to persuade the Michigan Legislature to free up $400 million to help mend deficits in DPS and 40 other districts.”

Salt Lake City Schools To Consider Anti-Discrimination Policy For Gay Students, Faculty.
The AP (12/7) reports that the Salt Lake City, Utah, school board today will consider implementing “an anti-discrimination policy including protections for gay students and faculty. … The district already identifies color, disability, national origin, pregnancy, race, religion and gender as protected classes.”

The Salt Lake Tribune (12/7, Winters) reports that “Advocates for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community have asked that the Board of Education go further and also add gender identity and expression to the policy to protect students and employees who are transgender or who express their gender in ways that differ from social norms.” District officials say that if the policy is adopted, Salt Lake City would be the first school system “in Utah to do so.”

Incoming New York City Schools Chief Critical Of Teacher Tenure System.
The New York Daily News (12/6, Kolodner) reported, “The icy relationship between the” New York City “Education Department and the teachers union shows no sign of thawing under the new schools chancellor. Incoming schools chief Cathie Black blasted tenure for teachers” in a interview aired on WABC-TV (New York, NY). According to the Daily News, “Outgoing Chancellor Joel Klein worked unsuccessfully for years to get rid of a provision that allows the least senior teachers to be laid off first. Black, 66, said she’s also against the policy because it could cause the system to lose ‘younger, newer, fresher ideas.’” The Wall Street Journal (12/6, Rutkoff) also covered this story.

Black Faces Steep Learning Curve. The New York Times (12/7, Dominus) reports, “During an hourlong visit to Public School 33 in Chelsea on Monday morning,” incoming New York City schools Chancellor Cathleen Black “missed no opportunity to smile and say hello to school employees, from the office assistants to the person she later called the safety adviser (safety officer, but O.K., she is still new).” According to the Times, “It is all new to Cathie Black: the knees, the numbers, the needs of the nation’s largest school system, where two-thirds of the students are poor enough to qualify for free meals. The current chancellor, Joel I. Klein, grew up in a housing project; Ms. Black, the chairwoman of Hearst Magazines, acknowledged Monday that she had never set foot in one.”

NAACP To Push For Longer School Day, Universal Kindergarten.
The AP (12/5) reported that the NAACP “says it will push for many changes in the nation’s schools as well as guarding against a return to segregated policies of bygone days as it wrapped up an education conference Saturday” in Raleigh, NC. NAACP President Benjamin Todd “told The News & Observer of Raleigh that other issues include longer school days, year-round attendance and universal kindergarten. … Wake County was chosen as the backdrop for this year’s meeting because of a school board vote to scrap a decade-old busing policy to achieve socio-economic balance in public schools” that has drawn a civil rights complaint from the NAACP and other groups.

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Safety & Security
Massachusetts District’s Bullying Prevent Program Gets National Recognition.
The Worcester (MA) Telegram & Gazette (12/6, Baldwin) reported on the West Boylston Bullying Prevention Program, which has recently gotten national attention, according to Superintendent Thomas J. Kane. “People magazine contacted us because they became aware of some of the things we were doing,” Kane told a crowd of parents last week. The district has since 2005 “had ‘bully boxes,’ where students can write about bullying incidents and ask for help.” With the boxes, “any student can report what is believed to be a bullying incident.” Additional “bullying-prevention efforts include direct instruction, teaching strategies, whole-school initiatives, various events and programs, school resources (such as guidance staff and peer programs), community resources (working with the police) and collaborating with families,” Kane said.

School Finance
Idaho District To Use About Half Of Jobs Bill Money To Restore Unpaid Furlough Days.
The AP (12/7) reports that Twin Falls (ID) public schools plan “to spend nearly half of their share of a $51 million pool of federal money given to Idaho to preserve teaching jobs.” That means about $650,000 of their $1.3 million cut will “restore four unpaid furlough days previously cut from teacher contracts.”

Federal Education Funding In Limbo.
Education Week (12/6, Klein, Samuels) reported, “Cash-strapped states and school districts wondering whether they will see an increase in federal funding this year will likely have to wait a week or more for Congress to complete action on a spending plan for fiscal 2011, which began Oct. 1.” Congress “could pass a year-long continuing resolution, extending all federal funding at fiscal 2010 levels until the end of fiscal 2011 next Sept. 30″ or “another stop-gap measure. .. Or-as many education advocates hope-they could use the extra time to reach agreement on a large budget bill that would finance most of the federal government for fiscal 2011.”

Also in the News
Obama Calls For “Sputnik Moment” In Education.
The AP (12/7, Werner) reports from Winston-Salem, NC, “Warning of a future where America could lag other nations, President Barack Obama called Monday for more spending on education, innovation and infrastructure to ensure that doesn’t happen.” The President told teachers and students at Forsyth Technical Community College in Winston-Salem, NC, that “it was time for an American ‘Sputnik moment’ — referring to the 1957 Soviet satellite launch that jolted the US into jump-starting its own space and science programs.” Said Obama, “We need a commitment to innovation we haven’t seen since President Kennedy challenged us to go to the moon.” Politico (12/7) also covers the story.

NEA in the News

New Jersey Education Association To Unveil Plans For Tenure Reform, Failing Schools.
New Jersey’s Record (12/6, Alex) reported that the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) “will unveil its plans for tenure reform and failing schools” today. NJEA spokesman Steve Baker said that the tenure reform proposal is “designed to address concerns [of the public] without getting the unintended consequences of eliminating tenure.” Also today, NJEA President Barbara Keshishian “will discuss the National Education Association’s Priority Schools Campaign, a reform initiative aimed at low-achieving schools,” which was launched this year. The campaign seeks to establish a “collaborative approach to school reform” that includes teachers, parents, and community members. New Jersey’s Star-Ledger (12/7) also covers the story.

Florida Lawmakers To Host Private Screening Of “Waiting For Superman.”
The Miami Herald (12/6, Kennedy) reported that “Florida lawmakers will host a private screening [today] of the film ‘Waiting for Superman,’” followed by a panel discussion about education. Florida Education Association spokesman Mark Pudlow responded to news of the movie screening, saying, “It’s a terribly skewed view of education. … But I’m sure the members will enjoy it immensely.” The Herald added that Gov.-elect Rick Scott (R) “is a fan of the film. … During the final weekend of the governor’s race, [he] rented out a Winter Park movie theater to air Waiting for Superman before an audience that included several low-income students whose tuition at an area private school was paid through the state’s Tax Credit Scholarship program.”

NJEA Reform Proposal Covers Teacher Firings, Technology Expansion.
The AP (12/8, Mulvihill) reports that the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) unveiled a plan that would “make it quicker for schools to fire bad teachers in a response to Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) constant refrain that the group is a roadblock to improving education.” The NJEA recommends that “the process… be moved from administrative law courts to arbitrators, who would have strict deadlines for coming up with final rulings.” In addition to the arbitration idea, the NJEA announced several other “initiatives to try to reform the state’s public school system.”

New Jersey’s Record (12/8, Brody) reports that under the plan “to fast-track tenure cases…it would take 90 days to remove a bad teacher instead of roughly a year.” Also “under the current system, dismissing a tenured teacher can easily cost a district more than $100,000 in legal fees and other expenses, such as paying teachers who are suspended while the legal process drags on.” The NJEA’s proposal is “modeled after a successful program in Massachusetts,” the record adds.

New Jersey’s Daily Record (12/7, Symons) reports that the proposal is “a much tamer version of tenure reform than the overhaul sought by Gov. Chris Christie, but NJEA officials said tweaks to the current system are what’s needed.” NJEA President Barbara Keshishian is quoted as saying, “The current system works. … After three years, a decision can certainly more than likely be correctly and comfortably made as to whether or not someone should keep their job.”

The New Jersey Newsroom (12/8) reports, “Other parts of the proposal include commitments to better serve the needs of students in early grades…the creation of a cadre of educational technology coaches to expand the use of technology in schools;” a mentorship program for new teachers aimed at retention; and “strong NJEA commitment to lend expertise, resources, and staff to help low-performing schools improve.” Keshishian told reporters Tuesday, “Our reforms take the view that professional educators should be involved in the development of reforms. .. Too many so-called reforms are based on politics and sound bites – and not on sound research and proven practice.” The Wall Street Journal (12/8, Fleisher) and NJ Today (12/7) also covered the story.

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In the Classroom
International Test Data Show US In Middle Of Pack In Math, Science.
The Christian Science Monitor (12/8, Paulson) reports, “American students made modest gains in science and math, but still lag significantly behind their counterparts around the world.” This is according to “the latest results from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) released Tuesday by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD),” which “show Asian students – particularly those from China, who participated in the exam for the first time in 2009 – at the top of the pack, with the United States generally in the middle or, in math, toward the bottom.”

Bloomberg News (12/8, Hechinger) reports, “Fifteen-year-olds in the US ranked 25th among peers from 34 countries on a math test and scored in the middle in science and reading, while China’s Shanghai topped the charts, raising concern that the US isn’t prepared to succeed in the global economy.” In the US, the test is considered “one of the most comprehensive measures of international achievement.” Unlike previous versions, “the test broke out the performance of China’s Shanghai region, which topped every country in all academic categories.” Bloomberg notes, “China’s success in Shanghai results from” the government’s embrace of “a more inclusive system in which all students are expected to perform at high levels,” according to the OECD. “China also raised teacher pay and standards and reduced rote learning, while giving students and local authorities more choice in curriculum.” The Washington Post (12/7, Anderson), the New York Times (12/7, A1, Dillon), and the Wall Street Journal (12/8) also covered the story.

California Graduation, Dropout Rates Increase.
The AP (12/8) reports, “California public high school students graduated at a higher rate in 2008-09 than the previous year, but more students also dropped out, according to data released Tuesday by the state Department of Education. The data showed that 70.1 percent of public school students graduated from high school during the 2008-09 school year-an improvement from 68.5 percent the previous year.” According to the AP, “African-Americans had the highest dropout rate at 36.9 percent, followed by Hispanics followed at 26.9 percent.”

Florida Homeless Students Increasing In Number.
The Miami Herald (12/7, Haughney) reported that the number of homeless student in Florida rose to 49,104 in 2009-10 from 6,201 in 2002-03. Schools are required to have “a homeless liaison” and often have to “devote extra attention to such students, because they’re extremely at-risk.” Moreover, “students who are declared homeless are enrolled in the free lunch program and given aid in other ways, such as clothing and transportation assistance.” Barbara Duffield, policy director for the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth, said that stimulus money has helped schools respond to the increase in homeless students, “but that is running out.”

On the Job
Teachers Learn How To Enhance Science Lessons With Hip-Hop.
WBTW-TV Florence, South Carolina (12/7, McClam) reported that science teachers in the Florence School District 3 “recently learned how to use hip-hop music to teach” at a monthly workshop of the Science Professional Learning Community. “This month’s speaker was Paul Morse of www.sciencehiphop.com. … Morse has created hip-hop songs on scientific inquiry, the cell, the periodic table, the rock cycle and other topics.”

Law & Policy
Parents Mobilize To Force Charter Company Takeover Of Failing California School.
The New York Times (12/8, A16, Medina) reports that more than 250 parents at McKinley Elementary School in Compton, California, “are using a new state law to force the failing school to be taken over by a charter school operator, the first such move in the country.” The law says that “if 51 percent of parents at a school sign a petition, it ‘triggers’ one of four actions, including takeover by a charter school.” Sixty-one percent of McKinley parents “signed the petition.”

The Los Angeles Times (12/7, Watanabe, Blume) noted that “the mobilization at McKinley has raised concerns.” Several district officials “said they were not aware of the petition drive before being contacted Monday by the media, and the state teachers union criticized the effort’s low profile.” Frank Wells, a spokesman for the California Teachers Association – an NEA affiliate, said that “the chosen charter, Celerity Educational Group, should have competed publicly against other possible choices.” But, while the new law does give districts “the right to verify the petition signatures,” it gives them “little room to block the parents’ chosen course,” according to Nicolas Schweizer, executive director of the state Board of Education.

Bills On Bullying Filed By Texas Legislators.
Texas’ Star-Telegram (12/7, Batheja) reported, “After a rash of widely publicized suicides by youths who were victims of bullying, the Texas Legislature next year will consider redefining how schools tackle the problem. At least seven bills related to bullying have been filed in advance of next year’s legislative session.” According to the Star-Telegram, “The issue has gained traction nationally after several suicides by youths who were alleged to have been bullied for being gay, including Asher Brown, 13, of Houston, who shot himself with his father’s handgun, and Tyler Clementi, 18, a Rutgers University student who jumped off a bridge.” The AP (12/7) also covered this story.

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Safety & Security
“Text-A-Tip” Lets Students Anonymously Notify Administrators About Potential Problems.
KMBC-TV Kansas City, Missouri (12/8) reports on the “Text-A-Tip” program that will soon be implemented in North Kansas City School District. Text-A-Tip will allow “students to anonymously text school officials about things going on in school that could lead to trouble,” including bullying. Submitted texts “would go to a server in Utah and then be forwarded to the school resource officer or other school administrators.”

Boys, Girls Show Different Concussion Symptoms, Study Shows.
The Washington Post (12/8, Siegel) reports, “According to a study presented Tuesday on Capitol Hill, boys and girls may present different types of symptoms after suffering a sport-related concussion. Data collected from 100 American high schools during the 2005-06 and 2006-07 academic years showed that while recuperation time is similar for both sexes, males reported more cognitive symptoms…while females reported more neurobehavioral (sleeping more than usual, drowsiness, fatigue, nervousness) and somatic (headache, nausea, sensitivity to light and noise, and balance problems) symptoms.” The Post notes that the “study will be published in the January issue of the Journal of Athletic Training.”

School Finance
Minneapolis Schools To Use $8 Million From Jobs Fund To Maintain Workforce.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune (12/8, Michell) reports, “Minneapolis School District leaders will use $8 million in federal funds to save 90 teaching jobs and prevent mid-year layoffs.” The jobs fund money will go toward “maintaining, not expanding, [the district's] workforce.” Stan Alleyne, a district spokesman, said Tuesday that layoffs were not being considered “as an option” to cover “a projected budget deficit that ballooned this fall when an arbitrator ruled that the district owed employees $17 million in back pay.”

Also in the News
Gates Foundation Forges Education Partnerships.
The AP (12/8) reports, “The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is helping traditional school districts in nine cities form partnerships with charter school organizations, to help both kinds of schools learn from each other and improve student learning. The collaboration agreements announced Tuesday in Denver will help schools there and in Baltimore, Hartford, Conn., Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Nashville, Tenn., New Orleans, New York City and Rochester, N.Y.” According to the AP most of the agreements “will focus on things like access to buildings, opening charter schools to students with special needs or those who are still learning English, and aligning school curriculum to the new national academic standards.”

The Tennessean (12/7, Hall) reported, “Nashville is one of nine cities selected by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as a model city for forging a working partnership between its school district, community and charter schools. … Part of Nashville’s compact agrees to allow district teachers to take three year leaves of absenses to work in a charter school and to share student tracking data and professional development.” The Denver Post (12/7, Meyer), the Baltimore Sun (12/7), KDVR-TV Denver (12/7, Jose), and NY1 News New York (12/7) also covered the story.

NEA in the News

Dismantling Education Department Could Be Tough Task.
Education Week (12/7, Klein) reported, “During the recent midterm election, a number of conservative Republican…took aim at scrapping a familiar target: the 30-year-old US Department of Education.” Education Week pointed out, however, that “if past attempts are any guide…a push to abolish the agency as a Cabinet-level department faces steep political and logistical hurdles.” President Jimmy Carter “won the first-ever presidential endorsement from the National Education Association,” in part because he “made creation of a Cabinet-level education department a key piece of his platform in the 1976 presidential campaign.” Meanwhile, “many lawmakers serving in Congress when legislation establishing the Education Department was passed worried that the agency would, essentially, be a voice in the federal government for the NEA.” Education Week added that since, the department was created in 1979, it has been targeted for elimination under some administrations, though the idea “never caught fire…with mainstream voters.”

Texas Releases Districts’ Student Achievement, Financial Ratings.
The Dallas Morning News (12/9, Holloway) reports that nine Dallas-area “school districts received a five-star rating from the Texas comptroller’s office Wednesday based on a complex new system that looks at both” Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills “score improvement and expenditures. … The ratings were released by Texas Comptroller Susan Combs as part of a report that rated the districts, listed ways districts might save money and introduced a website with massive amounts of data that can be used by the public.” The Morning News notes that the “numbers are based on data from the 2008-09 school year.”

The Houston Chronicle (12/9, Mellon) reports, “The Houston Independent School District is making above-average gains in student test scores but isn’t spending taxpayer money as efficiently as many of its suburban neighbors, according to a state study released Wednesday. … The study comes as school officials brace for major cuts – perhaps between $3 billion and $5 billion – due to a state budget shortfall.” According to the Chronicle, “The comptroller’s grades – dubbed FAST ratings, for the Financial Allocation Study for Texas – were based on a formula that adjusted for differences among districts, including salary levels and student demographics.”

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In the Classroom
Middle School In Memphis “Urkels” Students With Sagging Pants.
KETK-TV Tyler, Texas (12/9) reports that Bobby White, principal of Westside Middle School in Memphis, Tennessee, has “combined a popular TV character, an award system, and zip ties to turn [the school] into a no-sagging zone.” Now, “staff members walk the halls with zip ties” and when they find a student wearing saggy pants, they tie up the extra fabric, turning the student “into television character Steve Urkel. The popular character’s style of dress is now a verb at Westside Middle School.” Student Keldrion Vann told KETK, “It’s pretty embarrassing. … They can put your pants as high as your chest.” After Westside started “Urkling” students, it saw a more than 80 percent “drop in the number of people” needing to be zip tied, said teacher Shaka Greene. Greene, KETK adds, “is the reigning ‘Urkel’ award champ. The teacher started ‘Urkeling’ up to 80 students a week,” and “in five weeks, that number dropped to 18.”

Texas’ American Statesman (12/8) “Homeroom” blog noted that Westside Middle “even has a ‘Steve Urkel: War Against Saggy Pants’ wall, in which students…caught violating the dress code are displayed with their pants cinched all the way up.” Columnist James E. Causey also covered the story in his Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (12/8) “Uncommon Causey” blog.

Programs Encourage Elementary Students To Set College Goals.
Education Week (12/7, Adams) reported, “In the push to boost college-completion rates, high schools have often been the focus of college-readiness efforts, but now the reach is going even deeper into middle and elementary schools. Some educators feel it’s too late in high school to start introducing the concepts of college, high expectations, and academic achievement.” Thus, programs “are emerging to instill in young children the belief that they can go to college and promote the work ethic needed to make it.”

Dropout Rate Among Black California Students On The Rise.
The San Francisco Chronicle (12/8, Tucker) reports, “More than a third of California’s African American public high school students dropped out before graduation day, a startling number and one that’s on the rise, according to 2009 data released Tuesday. The 37 percent African American dropout rate, up three percentage points from the prior year, was far above that of any other ethnic subgroup” and “Hispanic students had the second highest rate at 27 percent.” The Chronicle adds, “The statewide statistics highlight a pervasive achievement gap in test scores and graduation rates that persists despite focused efforts to boost the academic performance of black, Hispanic and low-income students, state education officials said.”

On the Job
Thirty More Minnesota Districts, Charter Schools Adopt Q Comp Teacher Pay System.
The AP (12/9, Williams) reports that “seven school districts and 23 charter schools are joining Minnesota’s alternative system for evaluating and paying teachers – the signature education initiative under Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R), who leaves office next month.” Under the Q Comp program, started in 2006, school districts get “an additional $260 per student in state aid and additional levy authority.” In return, they must “agree to a system of professional development and evaluation for teachers that emphasizes teachers evaluating each other. It also links teacher pay to the test scores of their students.” KAAL-TV Austin, Minnesota (12/8) noted that “with the addition of 30 new schools and districts, 32% of Minnesota students are now taught by Q Comp teachers.”

Purdue Develops New Courses For Computer Science Teachers.
The Brazil (IN) Times (12/8) reported, “Faculty from Purdue’s Department of Computer Science and College of Education worked together to develop two new courses and create a computer science teaching supplemental licensure program for education majors. The program is part of Purdue’s National Science Foundation-funded Computer Science for the Education project that is part of a national initiative to expand by 2015 the number of high school educators who are qualified to teach computer science.” One course, “Contemporary Issues in Computing,” considers “how computing affects everyone in society and what the implications are for the future. ” The second, “Methods of Teaching Computer Science,” focuses on “effective techniques for teaching computational thinking and presents the latest research on how to teach computing concepts and programming skills.” The students will also “take four computer science courses in programming, discrete mathematics and data structures and algorithms to fulfill the program requirements.”

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Law & Policy
Parent Group Files Complaint Against Chicago Public Schools Over Flunking Policy.
The Chicago Tribune (12/9, Ahmed-Ullah) reports that Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE), “a nonprofit group representing Chicago Public Schools parents,” has filed a complaint with the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights against the district over its “policy of flunking…students who fail to meet cutoff scores on state standardized tests.” PURE says that the rule, which applies to third-, sixth- and eighth-graders, “disproportionately harms black and Latino students.” But, CSP officials defend the policy, saying “it would be a disservice to promote students who aren’t prepared to move up,” which they imply is what failing test scores indicate.

The Chicago Sun Times (12/8, Rossi) reported that in the complaint, PURE noted that “about 100,000 students have repeated a grade since 1996, at an estimated cost of $100 million a year.” WGN-TV Chicago (12/9, Kissinger, Crews) reports that PURE also “argues the practice of ending social promotions has accelerated the downward spiral of many affected students and led to an increase in the dropout rate.”

Oregon Releases Guidance For New Law Allowing Teachers To Wear Religious Clothing.
The Oregonian (12/9, Melton) reports that Oregon officials “released a policy Wednesday intended to help school districts apply [the state's] new law permitting teachers to wear religious clothing in the classroom.” It includes “a list of issues that should be addressed before restricting an employee’s religious dress,” such as “evaluating the size and visibility of the religious clothing, the number of employees wearing similar clothing, and whether the clothing could be perceived as an effort to convert students.” KEZI-TV Eugene (12/8, Skrzypek) noted that the Oregon Department of Education “says the guide is just intended as a model” and “schools are encouraged to use it when forming their own policy.” KPTV-TV Portland (12/8) also covered the story.

Detroit School Board To Review Programs Implemented By Bobb.
The Detroit News (12/9, Schultz) reports that “in the wake of a court ruling that takes academic control of Detroit Public Schools away from Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb, the elected school board is preparing to review which programs to keep for its 70,000 students.” In addition to re-evaluating initiatives such as “extended instructional time in math and reading” and “extended school days,” the board may also look at “the pending issuance of 35,000 netbooks to sixth- through 12th-graders, the volunteer reading corps program that pairs a tutor with pre-kindergarten students, and raising the academic eligibility requirements to play district sports starting in 2011″ – all programs implemented under Bobb. School Board President Anthony Adams has said, however, that even though he applauds the court ruling, “many of those programs support the board’s vision and have helped students.”

School Finance
Milwaukee School Budget Predictions Indicate Loss Of More Than 300 Jobs.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (12/9, Richards) reports that “preliminary Milwaukee Public Schools budget predictions for fiscal 2012 include a slight dip in student enrollment and the loss of more than 300 full-time jobs,” mainly due to “a drop in federal stimulus and education jobs money.” But Terry Falk, chair of the board’s Committee on Strategic Planning and Budget, said that until officials know how much schools will get in the new state budget, financial predictions will not “carry much weight.” He noted that “the state superintendent’s recent proposal to change the way schools in the state are financed” is still undecided upon. “Still, the anticipated drop-off of federal stimulus funds that poured into the district as part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and this year’s education jobs bill” is expected to leave the district with about $88.1 million less in the 2011-12 school year than in previous years.

Grand Rapids-Area School Districts Plan To Retain Teachers With “Edujobs” Funding.
The Grand Rapids Press (12/8, Scott) reported that “local school officials expect to retain teachers and programs next year with their share of $246 million of one-time ‘Edujobs’ federal aid.” Grand Rapids Public Schools, for instance, plans to use its $3.9 million share to preserve, instead of add, jobs. Meanwhile, according to Spokesman John Helmholdt, Grand Rapids “and other districts are waiting on the state’s January revenue estimating conference for a better idea of how the state school aid budget is shaping up.” Rockford Superintendent Michael Shibler said he hopes the district will use its $1.8 million on-time funding “to restore elementary music and art.”

Also in the News

Seattle Superintendent Apologizes For Publishing Incorrect College Readiness Figure.
The Seattle Times (12/9, Shaw) reports that “Seattle Schools Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson publicly apologized Wednesday for reporting that just 17 percent of the district’s graduates met the entrance requirements for four-year colleges, when the number was actually much higher.” The Times explains that “the 17 percent figure” was first published in 2008 and “was meant to be a measure of how many students were prepared to succeed in college, but that’s not how the district described it for at least a year. … District officials later quietly stopped using the number then recently revised it, without comment, to 46 percent.” Meanwhile, several “groups and politicians referred to” the 17 percent figure “in speeches, letters and newspaper editorials. As late as last August, former Mayor Norm Rice used it in arguing for changes he wanted to see in Seattle’s new teachers contract,” the Times adds.

Global Study Tracks Common Paths To Improving Schooling.
The Education Week (12/7, Sawchuk) reports, “Around the world, school systems whose students have posted gains over time on international exams also appear to have embraced common clusters of interventions at particular phases of their improvement, concludes a report released last week by” McKinsey & Co. According to Education Week, “Such commonalities appear to transcend differences in nationality, size, demographics, and school spending, according to the analysis, which has drawn praise and skepticism from academics who study international comparisons. Drawing from an analysis of nearly 600 reform strategies instituted across 20 international school systems over a quarter-century, the report…suggests that school systems seeking to improve could do well by taking cues from the strategies used by those with similar performance trends.”

Officials Teach Mexican Schoolchildren To Protect Themselves If Caught In Gun Fight.
Reuters (12/8) reports that safety officials in Acapulco, Mexico are training schoolchildren how to respond if they find themselves in the middle of a fire fight between gangs. The drills come as drug-related violence in Mexico becomes a more common part of everyday life. Reuters notes that only a few schools so far have had the training, but Acapulco officials want to bring it to more schools in the future.

More Than 700 Schools In The US Undergoing Turnaround Efforts This Year.
The AP (12/10, Blankenship) reports that 730 schools throughout the US are trying “to reinvent themselves this school year, and nearly a third have chosen the most difficult paths to get a piece of the more than $500 million set aside for transforming” low-performing schools. According to union leaders, turnaround efforts under No Child Left Behind “became less controversial as school district officials started collaborating with teachers instead of blaming them for their problems.” NEA President Dennis Van Roekel, for instance, is quoted as saying, “Our members are excited. They want to make a difference in these schools.” Van Roekel pointed out that schools’ “success also requires community and parent engagement, effective school leadership, more time for learning and staff collaboration, social services for children, and conditions that attract educators to the most needy schools.”

The Washington Post (12/20, Anderson) reports that “principals and at least half of the staff” have been replaced in about 150 of the schools nationwide that are undergoing changes to boost achievement, according to a report announced Thursday by the Obama Administration. The Post cites as an example G. James Gholson Middle School in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Van Roekel and Education Secretary Arne Duncan visited the school earlier this month. Gholson replaced two principals and half its staff after winning “a $2.7 million turnaround grant” from the federal government. Van Roekel said “that his appearance at Gholson was not meant to endorse a fire-the-faculty strategy. But he said, ‘I talked to the local [union] there and was impressed with the level of collaboration and parental engagement.’”

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In the Classroom
Indiana High Schools Adding Dual-Credit, Job Shadow Opportunities.
The AP (12/10) reports school officials in Indiana “hope to give even more students a chance to earn college credits by making more dual-credit courses available.” The plan gives students “a head start” if they pursue college, as well as “the confidence that they can succeed in college level courses, Whiteland Community High School interim Principal John Schilawski said.” Franklin Community High School, meanwhile, is not only hoping “to expand dual-credit opportunities,” it also “seeks to give students more chances to job shadow and earn college credits at the same time. The school already has an early-college program that lets students earn up to two years’ worth of college credit by the time they graduate.” The AP notes, “As dual-credit programs grow, schools plan to keep track of students after they graduate to see if giving them a head start on college pays off.”

Literacy Program Groups Students According To Reading Level.
The AP (12/9) reported on “a carefully constructed, leveled literacy program that monitors student literacy by pairing students with books by reading level.” Some teachers claim the reading instruction method has dramatically changed the way they teach. “The system places books into an A through Z letter scale. Level A books contain wide spacing, large pictures and large text, while Level Z books contain more text per page with few, if any, pictures.” It differs from “the traditional Basal system in which each student in the class reads the same book each week.” Teachers meet with small groups of students at different times throughout the day to monitor their reading progress and observe “how they respond to sentence structure and phonics.”

On the Job
Leaders Say Professional Development Should Be Part Of Educators’ Daily Work.
J. Alvin Wilbanks, CEO and superintendent of Gwinnett County Public Schools, and Stephanie Hirsh, executive director of Learning Forward, write in an opinion piece for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (12/10), “The debate on how to best improve student achievement” often excludes the “critical” issue of “teacher quality and how we should go about improving the quality of teaching in every single classroom.” The authors write that research shows teachers are “a key factor in a student’s academic success.” They assert that “the most powerful improvements occur when professional development is embedded into the daily work of every educator. That must be our goal.”

Voice Stress Can Lead To Health Problems In Teachers.
The Baltimore Sun (12/9, Vozzella) reported, “Teachers, like professional singers, are vulnerable to severe voice problems, according to…Johns Hopkins throat specialist. Dr. Lee M. Akst,” who advises teachers “to take voice stress seriously.” The American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery says that “one in 10 teachers has been forced out of the profession because” due to problems with their voice. And while some voice problems can “go away on their own…it’s hard for teachers to get the rest necessary to make that happen.” Akst pointed out that these problems are note extremely “not dangerous to personal health,” but they can lead to “an inflamed throat,” which “may also make it harder to tolerate the colds and flu that are already a professional hazard for anyone working around kids.”

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Law & Policy
California Settles With Rights Advocates Over Public School Fees.
The AP (12/9, Jablon) reported, “California school districts will no longer charge parents extra fees for textbooks, art supplies and other basic educational items under a lawsuit settlement announced Thursday.” Under the agreement letters will be sent “to every public school district and charter school operator in the state…encouraging them to review their fees.” In addition, California will “seek new laws that would broaden annual state audits to include determining whether schools charged illegal fees. The laws also would permit parents to complain about illegal fees and to be reimbursed.”

Howard Blume wrote in the Los Angeles Times (12/9) “LA Now” blog that ACLU attorneys filed a case against the state of California “in September after collecting numerous anecdotal examples of school districts charging fees for books and other basic educational materials, as well as for involvement in activities.” Attorneys involved in the matter said that “the tentative resolution…requires both court approval and follow-up legislation.” The San Diego Union Tribune (12/10, Magee) reports that the follow-up legislation “would require a standard complaint process for students, annual audits of such fees, fines for districts for charging them illegally, and resolution for families within 30 days of any illegal charges.”

KGTV-TV San Diego (12/10) and KCRA-TV Sacramento (12/10) also cover the story.

Plan To Return New Orleans Schools To Local Control Approved.
The AP (12/10) reports, “A complex plan that will allow some state-run schools in New Orleans to return to local control by 2012 won approval Thursday from the state education board, temporarily settling a dispute expected to end up in court. The Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education agreed to Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek’s recommendation for returning schools taken over by the state’s Recovery School District.” According to the AP, “Approval came despite criticism from New Orleans residents and local school board leaders that the plan creates too many hurdles.”

Washington Court Rules In Favor Of State On Special Education Funding.
The AP (12/10, Blankinship) reports, “The Washington Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the state is not shortchanging school districts in the way it pays for special education. In an 8-1 ruling, the high court affirmed a Court of Appeals ruling sparked by a lawsuit brought by a dozen school districts across the state in Thurston County Superior Court.” The Alliance for Adequate Funding of Special Education “has argued Washington districts have been forced to use money raised by school levies to support special education because they were not getting enough money from the state.” The Issaquah (WA) Press (12/10, Geggel) also covers this story.

School Finance
Funding Diverted From Boston-Area Classrooms To Cover Healthcare Costs, Report Says.
The Boston Globe (12/9, Levenson) reported that a report released by the Boston Foundation on Thursday said that “hundreds of millions of dollars the state has provided to [Boston-area] school districts to improve classroom education has instead been gobbled up by soaring health care costs for school employees.” According to the report titled “A Bargain Not Kept,” between 200 and 2007, “annual health care costs in school budgets grew by $1 billion, while state aid for schools grew by only $700 million.” Consequently, many “school districts have been forced to make painful spending cuts, in books, teachers, and teacher training.” The Globe notes that “the report dovetails with the Boston Foundation’s push to loosen union control over health care benefits.”

Nevada School District Officials Told To Expect Funding Cuts Of More Than 10 Percent.
The Las Vegas Sun (12/10, Ramirez) reports, “Clark County school officials who met with Gov.-elect Brian Sandoval this week to discuss the budget described the tone as gloomy and were told to brace for cuts in excess of 10 percent.” Dale Erquiaga, Sandoval’s senior adviser, said that “the governor’s staff was assuming the state budget deficit would be at least $1.2 billion.” And, some estimates have the deficit reaching “as high as $3 billion.” The Las Vegas Sun notes that “education – including higher education – accounts for more than half of all state spending and may bear the brunt of budget cuts. The Clark County School District’s annual budget exceeds $2 billion.”

Also in the News
Nebraska Launches School Information Website.
KCAU-TV Sioux City, Iowa (12/9) reported that Nebraska has launched a new website aimed at helping “parents research the state’s public schools.” In addition, the site will also “will also help schools identify areas that need improvement. But the public part of the website won’t identify individual students.” KHAS-TV Hastings, Nebraska (12/10, Rainey) notes that “the website was paid for by a 1 million dollar federal grant.”

Sources Say Bloomberg Sought Out Canada For New York Schools Chief Post Before Black.
The New York Times (12/10, A25, Hernandez) reports that publishing executive Cathleen P. Black “was not the first person” to whom Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) offered the position of public schools chief. According to two anonymous sources close to the matter, the mayor “tried to persuade Geoffrey Canada, the prominent Harlem education leader…to be chancellor, but Mr. Canada turned it down.” Canada’s schools are known for their “cradle-to-college approach” to education. For him, “becoming chancellor would have meant leaving behind the empire he had built in Harlem, which is depicted as helping children succeed against steep odds in a popular documentary, ‘Waiting for Superman.’” The Times notes that “the revelation suggests that Mr. Bloomberg conducted a wider search than previously thought, and that he may have been seeking a more traditional candidate in hopes of avoiding the withering criticism that has accompanied Ms. Black’s appointment.”

High Chinese PISA Scores Mask Education Weaknesses, Educator Says.
Jiang Xueqin, deputy principal of Peking University High School, writes in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal (12/10) that Chinese students’ high scores on the Program for International Student Assessment reflect excellent test-prep by Chinese educators, and masks the reality that Chinese schools fail to prepare students for higher education. Jiang urges a greater focus on writing skills, which he says are lacking among Chinese students.

Esther Cepeda writes in an op-ed for the Press-Telegram (CA) (12/10) that lackluster PISA scores for the US are not an indication “that we’re doomed – meaningful educational reforms to boost student achievement are already being tested across the country. But lacking a cultural shift of our own, America’s relatively affluent standard of living is keeping us from yielding the same academic achievements as our hungry No. 2 competitor,” China.

More Than 700 Schools In The US Undergoing Turnaround Efforts This Year.
The AP (12/10, Blankenship) reports that 730 schools throughout the US are trying “to reinvent themselves this school year, and nearly a third have chosen the most difficult paths to get a piece of the more than $500 million set aside for transforming” low-performing schools. According to union leaders, turnaround efforts under No Child Left Behind “became less controversial as school district officials started collaborating with teachers instead of blaming them for their problems.” NEA President Dennis Van Roekel, for instance, is quoted as saying, “Our members are excited. They want to make a difference in these schools.” Van Roekel pointed out that schools’ “success also requires community and parent engagement, effective school leadership, more time for learning and staff collaboration, social services for children, and conditions that attract educators to the most needy schools.”

The Washington Post (12/20, Anderson) reports that “principals and at least half of the staff” have been replaced in about 150 of the schools nationwide that are undergoing changes to boost achievement, according to a report announced Thursday by the Obama Administration. The Post cites as an example G. James Gholson Middle School in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Van Roekel and Education Secretary Arne Duncan visited the school earlier this month. Gholson replaced two principals and half its staff after winning “a $2.7 million turnaround grant” from the federal government. Van Roekel said “that his appearance at Gholson was not meant to endorse a fire-the-faculty strategy. But he said, ‘I talked to the local [union] there and was impressed with the level of collaboration and parental engagement.’”

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In the Classroom
Indiana High Schools Adding Dual-Credit, Job Shadow Opportunities.
The AP (12/10) reports school officials in Indiana “hope to give even more students a chance to earn college credits by making more dual-credit courses available.” The plan gives students “a head start” if they pursue college, as well as “the confidence that they can succeed in college level courses, Whiteland Community High School interim Principal John Schilawski said.” Franklin Community High School, meanwhile, is not only hoping “to expand dual-credit opportunities,” it also “seeks to give students more chances to job shadow and earn college credits at the same time. The school already has an early-college program that lets students earn up to two years’ worth of college credit by the time they graduate.” The AP notes, “As dual-credit programs grow, schools plan to keep track of students after they graduate to see if giving them a head start on college pays off.”

Literacy Program Groups Students According To Reading Level.
The AP (12/9) reported on “a carefully constructed, leveled literacy program that monitors student literacy by pairing students with books by reading level.” Some teachers claim the reading instruction method has dramatically changed the way they teach. “The system places books into an A through Z letter scale. Level A books contain wide spacing, large pictures and large text, while Level Z books contain more text per page with few, if any, pictures.” It differs from “the traditional Basal system in which each student in the class reads the same book each week.” Teachers meet with small groups of students at different times throughout the day to monitor their reading progress and observe “how they respond to sentence structure and phonics.”

On the Job
Leaders Say Professional Development Should Be Part Of Educators’ Daily Work.
J. Alvin Wilbanks, CEO and superintendent of Gwinnett County Public Schools, and Stephanie Hirsh, executive director of Learning Forward, write in an opinion piece for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (12/10), “The debate on how to best improve student achievement” often excludes the “critical” issue of “teacher quality and how we should go about improving the quality of teaching in every single classroom.” The authors write that research shows teachers are “a key factor in a student’s academic success.” They assert that “the most powerful improvements occur when professional development is embedded into the daily work of every educator. That must be our goal.”

Voice Stress Can Lead To Health Problems In Teachers.
The Baltimore Sun (12/9, Vozzella) reported, “Teachers, like professional singers, are vulnerable to severe voice problems, according to…Johns Hopkins throat specialist. Dr. Lee M. Akst,” who advises teachers “to take voice stress seriously.” The American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery says that “one in 10 teachers has been forced out of the profession because” due to problems with their voice. And while some voice problems can “go away on their own…it’s hard for teachers to get the rest necessary to make that happen.” Akst pointed out that these problems are note extremely “not dangerous to personal health,” but they can lead to “an inflamed throat,” which “may also make it harder to tolerate the colds and flu that are already a professional hazard for anyone working around kids.”

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Law & Policy
California Settles With Rights Advocates Over Public School Fees.
The AP (12/9, Jablon) reported, “California school districts will no longer charge parents extra fees for textbooks, art supplies and other basic educational items under a lawsuit settlement announced Thursday.” Under the agreement letters will be sent “to every public school district and charter school operator in the state…encouraging them to review their fees.” In addition, California will “seek new laws that would broaden annual state audits to include determining whether schools charged illegal fees. The laws also would permit parents to complain about illegal fees and to be reimbursed.”

Howard Blume wrote in the Los Angeles Times (12/9) “LA Now” blog that ACLU attorneys filed a case against the state of California “in September after collecting numerous anecdotal examples of school districts charging fees for books and other basic educational materials, as well as for involvement in activities.” Attorneys involved in the matter said that “the tentative resolution…requires both court approval and follow-up legislation.” The San Diego Union Tribune (12/10, Magee) reports that the follow-up legislation “would require a standard complaint process for students, annual audits of such fees, fines for districts for charging them illegally, and resolution for families within 30 days of any illegal charges.”

KGTV-TV San Diego (12/10) and KCRA-TV Sacramento (12/10) also cover the story.

Plan To Return New Orleans Schools To Local Control Approved.
The AP (12/10) reports, “A complex plan that will allow some state-run schools in New Orleans to return to local control by 2012 won approval Thursday from the state education board, temporarily settling a dispute expected to end up in court. The Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education agreed to Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek’s recommendation for returning schools taken over by the state’s Recovery School District.” According to the AP, “Approval came despite criticism from New Orleans residents and local school board leaders that the plan creates too many hurdles.”

Washington Court Rules In Favor Of State On Special Education Funding.
The AP (12/10, Blankinship) reports, “The Washington Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the state is not shortchanging school districts in the way it pays for special education. In an 8-1 ruling, the high court affirmed a Court of Appeals ruling sparked by a lawsuit brought by a dozen school districts across the state in Thurston County Superior Court.” The Alliance for Adequate Funding of Special Education “has argued Washington districts have been forced to use money raised by school levies to support special education because they were not getting enough money from the state.” The Issaquah (WA) Press (12/10, Geggel) also covers this story.

School Finance
Funding Diverted From Boston-Area Classrooms To Cover Healthcare Costs, Report Says.
The Boston Globe (12/9, Levenson) reported that a report released by the Boston Foundation on Thursday said that “hundreds of millions of dollars the state has provided to [Boston-area] school districts to improve classroom education has instead been gobbled up by soaring health care costs for school employees.” According to the report titled “A Bargain Not Kept,” between 200 and 2007, “annual health care costs in school budgets grew by $1 billion, while state aid for schools grew by only $700 million.” Consequently, many “school districts have been forced to make painful spending cuts, in books, teachers, and teacher training.” The Globe notes that “the report dovetails with the Boston Foundation’s push to loosen union control over health care benefits.”

Nevada School District Officials Told To Expect Funding Cuts Of More Than 10 Percent.
The Las Vegas Sun (12/10, Ramirez) reports, “Clark County school officials who met with Gov.-elect Brian Sandoval this week to discuss the budget described the tone as gloomy and were told to brace for cuts in excess of 10 percent.” Dale Erquiaga, Sandoval’s senior adviser, said that “the governor’s staff was assuming the state budget deficit would be at least $1.2 billion.” And, some estimates have the deficit reaching “as high as $3 billion.” The Las Vegas Sun notes that “education – including higher education – accounts for more than half of all state spending and may bear the brunt of budget cuts. The Clark County School District’s annual budget exceeds $2 billion.”

Also in the News
Nebraska Launches School Information Website.
KCAU-TV Sioux City, Iowa (12/9) reported that Nebraska has launched a new website aimed at helping “parents research the state’s public schools.” In addition, the site will also “will also help schools identify areas that need improvement. But the public part of the website won’t identify individual students.” KHAS-TV Hastings, Nebraska (12/10, Rainey) notes that “the website was paid for by a 1 million dollar federal grant.”

Sources Say Bloomberg Sought Out Canada For New York Schools Chief Post Before Black.
The New York Times (12/10, A25, Hernandez) reports that publishing executive Cathleen P. Black “was not the first person” to whom Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) offered the position of public schools chief. According to two anonymous sources close to the matter, the mayor “tried to persuade Geoffrey Canada, the prominent Harlem education leader…to be chancellor, but Mr. Canada turned it down.” Canada’s schools are known for their “cradle-to-college approach” to education. For him, “becoming chancellor would have meant leaving behind the empire he had built in Harlem, which is depicted as helping children succeed against steep odds in a popular documentary, ‘Waiting for Superman.’” The Times notes that “the revelation suggests that Mr. Bloomberg conducted a wider search than previously thought, and that he may have been seeking a more traditional candidate in hopes of avoiding the withering criticism that has accompanied Ms. Black’s appointment.”

High Chinese PISA Scores Mask Education Weaknesses, Educator Says.
Jiang Xueqin, deputy principal of Peking University High School, writes in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal (12/10) that Chinese students’ high scores on the Program for International Student Assessment reflect excellent test-prep by Chinese educators, and masks the reality that Chinese schools fail to prepare students for higher education. Jiang urges a greater focus on writing skills, which he says are lacking among Chinese students.

Esther Cepeda writes in an op-ed for the Press-Telegram (CA) (12/10) that lackluster PISA scores for the US are not an indication “that we’re doomed – meaningful educational reforms to boost student achievement are already being tested across the country. But lacking a cultural shift of our own, America’s relatively affluent standard of living is keeping us from yielding the same academic achievements as our hungry No. 2 competitor,” China.

WACH-TV Columbia, SC (12/1, Stone) notes that despite the positive reviews, the number of schools offering single-gender classes in South Carolina has declined over the past two years as a result of budget cuts. “Two years ago 214 schools offered the classes, but that is down to 125 this year.”

The AP (11/30, Adcox) adds, however, that South Carolina “still leads the nation in public single-sex programs.” On Tuesday, outgoing state Superintendent Jim Rex “cautioned lawmakers not to disrupt what’s working.” He pointed out that “single-gender is a relatively inexpensive choice to offer, compared to others, but it does require an adequate number of teachers, and some training costs.”

The Anderson (SC) Independent Mail (12/1, Carey) quotes Rex as saying, “We’ve said all along that when it comes to learning, one size does not fit all. … These results show that the single-gender option works for a lot of students and their families.” Reuters (12/1) and WCBD-TV Charleston, SC (12/1, Mitchell) also cover the story.

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In the Classroom
Traveling Drama Troupe Teaches Students In Connecticut District About AIDS.
The Greenwich (CT) Time (12/1, Gordon) reports, “Stamford Public School students are learning about AIDS prevention this week as the community commemorates the 22nd annual World AIDS Day Wednesday.” A traveling drama troupe called the Stop AIDS Mobile theater is visiting “each of Stamford’s three high schools and three middle schools” to teach students about the virus. Debra Katz, director of HIV programs for Stamford’s health department, said that the group “has been visiting the city’s public schools for several years; more schools sign up to participate each year.”

On the Job
Minneapolis Star Tribune: Teacher Quality Disparities Not Just A Big City Problem.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune (12/1) editorializes, “In America’s classrooms, unfortunately, family income can be an indicator of the quality of a student’s teachers.” According to a recently released report by the Education Trust, even with federal laws requiring “highly qualified teachers in every class, poor students are still more likely to be taught by inexperienced or unqualified teachers or those teaching outside of their areas of expertise.” The Star-Tribune points out that “the problem is not limited to big cities,” but also exists in schools in “in suburbs, small towns, and rural areas.” The Star Tribune notes several efforts that “are underway in Minnesota to” bring more highly qualified teachers into low-performing schools. It concludes that such “initiatives can move school systems closer to providing quality instruction for all kids — regardless of family income.”

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Law & Policy
Group Of State School Chiefs To Press For Education Reforms.
Catherine Gewertz wrote in a blog for Education Week (11/30), “The education leaders of five states announced today that they have created a new education-chiefs group to press a policy agenda topped by school choice and performance-driven evaluations for teachers and principals. Unveiling the new group, ‘Chiefs for Change,’ were its founding members: Tony Bennett, of Indiana; Deborah Gist, of Rhode Island; Paul Pastorek, of Louisiana; Gerard Robinson, of Virginia; and Eric Smith, of Florida.” According to Gewertz, the group “came together in conversation with” former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, “who has agreed to provide it with financial and staffing support

Early Childhood Education Advocates Seeking To Preserve Funding For Federal Programs.
Education Week (11/30, Kelleher) reported, “For early-childhood advocates, the midterm elections-with Republicans taking control of the U.S. House of Representatives and adding to their minority in the Senate-steepened the uphill climb they already faced to maintain federal funding in Head Start, Early Head Start, and subsidized child care. But while a tide of fiscal conservatives and continued state-level budget crises may add to pressure for rollbacks in some state early-learning programs, the advocates hope the base of bipartisan and voter support that has largely preserved gains in state prekindergarten programs may still provide some shelter.” According to Education Week, “Advocates are girding for the prospect of budget cuts at the federal level” as the “First Five Years Fund estimates up to 300,000 children stand to lose their spots in Head Start, Early Head Start, and publicly funded child care when Congress tackles the overdue fiscal 2011 budget.”

Group Of Michigan School Leaders Denounces Data Collection Requirements.
The AP (11/30) reported that a group of Michigan superintendents on Tuesday urged lawmakers to scrap state data collection requirements for schools “because they don’t have any academic value.” Moreover, “they say the data collection requirements violate state law and court rulings because the state doesn’t pay for them.” Meanwhile, a bill “pending in the Senate” would require that “nearly $26 million already allocated for schools…go toward the data collection.”

More Than Half Of Florida Districts Not In Compliance With Class Size Law.
The AP (11/30, Kaczor) reported, “Slightly more than half of Florida’s 67 school districts could face fines for violating state class size limits,” said state Education Commissioner Eric Smith on Tuesday. Across the state, “44,556 of 812,483 traditional public classrooms, or 5.5 percent, had too many students” and ” 44 of 454 charter schools were in violation. Potential fine amounts have not yet been calculated but they could run into the millions for larger districts.”

Safety & Security
Wisconsin District On Alert For Copycat Student Hostage Attempts.
WBAY-TV Green Bay (12/1, Thomsen) reports that one day after a high school student held several classmates hostage at a Wisconsin school on Monday, administrators in the Green Bay school district “put their teachers and staff on high alert to watch for a possible copycat incident.” In addition, Green Bay schools had “extra police presence in the hallways, lunch rooms, and even outside” on Tuesday. WBAY notes, “The heightened security is meant to prevent possible copycat situations but more importantly let students know they are safe.”

School Finance
Indiana Schools Chief Says No Cuts To Education Are Planned For Next Year.
The AP (12/1) reports that Indiana schools Superintendent Tony Bennett distributed a memo last week which said that “there are ‘no current plans for reductions’ in total state funding for K-12 tuition support for 2011 compared to this year.” Indiana’s Journal & Courier (11/30, Livingston) reported that also “in the memo, Bennett said that state revenues for the first four months of fiscal year 2011 are tracking close to forecasts but will still fall short of state projections by approximately $800 million.”

Indiana’s Tribune Star (11/30, Loughlin) reports that even without planned cuts, Bennett is advising “districts to be cautious with spending commitments as they await the outcome of the next General Assembly, which will determine school funding levels for 2012 and 2013.” He also “has urged districts to reserve” funding from the federal Education Jobs Fund “until education budgeting…becomes clearer.” The Tribune Star also reports that Indiana ASBO executive Dennis Costerison, has warmed “members that ‘Even though the administration has determined that further cuts to K-12 are not necessary [in 2011], the General Assembly could still cut the appropriation for the next biennium.’”

Proceeds From Chevrolet Volt Auction Will Go To Detroit Public Schools.
The Los Angeles Times (12/1, Hirsch) reports that General Motors Co. is auctioning off its “first production Chevrolet Volt” with all proceeds going to the Detroit Public Schools Foundation.

The Grand Rapids (MI) Press (12/1, Oosting) reports that “the opening bid is $50,000 and all proceeds from the sale will go” toward “math and science programs in the Detroit Public Schools (DPS).” The auction “is the latest attempt by GM to rehabilitate its image and re-engage in the local community,” following GM CEO Dan Akerson’s announcement last month that “he would personally donate $10,000 to DPS athletics.” DPS Emergency financial Manager Robert Bobb said of the auction on Twitter, “We’re ready to prepare the next generation of engineers to keep Detroit’s, and Michigan’s, momentum going.”

The Detroit News (11/30) quotes Mark Reuss, president of GM North America, as saying, “Every aspect of the Volt – from its aerodynamic shape to its battery chemistry – is a testament to the importance of math and sciences. … By encouraging Detroit-area students to pursue these topics, we hope to cultivate the next generation of engineers who will build upon the Volt’s innovative technologies.”

Brent Snavely writes in the Detroit Free Press (11/30) “Motor City Today” blog that less than a day after the auction began, the highest bid on Tuesday was $180,000.

The New York Times (12/1, B1, Vlasic) notes on the front of its “Business” section that the very “first Volt off the assembly line” at GM’s Hamtramck, Michigan, plant will be put on display at the GM Heritage Center museum. The car being auctioned for Detroit Public schools is the second Volt made in Hamtramck. The CNET (11/30, Ashe) “Car Tech” blog, the Conceivably Tech (11/30, Bakke) blog, and Canada’s CTV (12/1) also cover the story.

Education Department Touts “Unprecedented” Aid To Struggling High Schools.
The Washington Post (12/1, Anderson) reports that an announcement from the Education Department “Tuesday that it has provided an unprecedented amount of aid to turn around struggling high schools” coincided with the release of a report from the nonprofit America’s Promise Alliance showing “that the nation’s high school graduation rate is on the rise.” According to the Education Department, “48 percent of the 730 schools that have set turnaround plans in motion through” federal grants “are high schools.” That is an increase from years prior to the passage of “the 2009 economic stimulus law,” when “federal education aid” was “tilted toward elementary and middle schools that qualify for” Title I funding.

“Grad Nation” Report A “Wake-Up Call,” Blogger Says. “Eduwonk” blogger Andrew Rotherham wrote in a commentary for Time (11/30) that while the “Grad Nation” report issued Tuesday highlights improved overall graduation rates in the US, the report also notes that “eight states had graduation rates below 70% in 2008, and 2.2 million students still attend dropout factories.” Moreover, an achievement gap between white and minority students “also persists.” Rotherham concludes that “Grad Nation is good news but also a wake-up call. Three in four students graduating from high school is nothing to celebrate in a country like ours.”

Also in the News
New Jersey District Named Most Technologically Advanced Mid-Sized School System.
New Jersey’s News Transcript (12/1) reports that “for the sixth year, the Howell K-8 School District has been named one of the top technologically advanced school districts in the nation” on the 2010 Digital School Districts Survey. For “medium-sized districts nationwide” — those with 2,500 to 14,999 students — Howell leads in technology, according to the survey, which “analyzes the use of technology by school boards and school districts to enhance curriculum, engage students, govern the district, communicate with students, parents, staff and the community, and how it is implemented to improve district operations.”

New Jersey’s Asbury Park Press (11/30, Sapia) reported on some of the technology used in Howell schools. Some “examples include the district’s website, creating podcasts, learning robotics, talking digitally from a classroom in one school to one in another school and exchanging e-mails.”

Report Highlights Rise In High School Graduation Rates.
The New York Times (11/30, A20, Dillon) reports that “the nation’s high school graduation rate, which declined in the latter part of the 20th century, may have hit bottom and begun to rise, according to a report to be issued Tuesday by” the nonprofit America’s Promise Alliance, “founded by former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.” The report’s conclusion is based on data showing that “the national graduation rate increased to 75 percent in 2008, from 72 percent in 2001″ and that the number of “dropout factories” in the US has “declined to about 1,750 in 2008, from about 2,000 such schools in 2002.”

The AP (11/30, Turner) reports that the study “also said that progress needs to increase fivefold for the country to graduate nine out of 10 students by 2020, a goal of the Obama administration.” School systems in Georgia, West Virginia, Texas, and Tennessee were cited as having “already figured out tactics that work.” For instance, “Tennessee and West Virginia passed laws that take driver’s licenses away from students who drop out.” And, “more than 30 states have raised the compulsory attendance age to 17 or 18 as a way to ensure students graduate.”

Education Week (11/30, Sparks) notes that the Alliance’s “study suggests that a combination of state economic concerns and federal accountability pressure has helped drive up the national graduation rate.” Moreover, it points to gains made by “Black, Hispanic, and Native American students” as some of the highest, but adds that “more than 40 percent of those students still did not graduate on time as of 2008.” The Washington Times (11/30, Simmons) also covers the story.

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In the Classroom
Facing New Requirement, Minneapolis Focuses On Linear Algebra.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune (11/30, Mitchell) reports the Minneapolis school district “wants to double the percentage of students who pass linear algebra,” a subject that “long has been considered the gateway course to higher math,” and “has implications for everything from dropout rates to future job prospects.” Across the US, “ever-increasing numbers of jobs will require more math, science and technology.” Both officials and experts say that improving students’ performance in these areas will be critical to businesses and the economy. “In 2006, state legislators decided that this year’s Minnesota eighth-graders would be required to take algebra. Educators across the state are grappling with what eighth-grade algebra is.” Minneapolis Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson chose to focus on linear algebra, “roughly the first half of a typical algebra textbook.” The article details the successes and struggles the district has encountered.

Co-Curricular “Box City” Lessons Incorporate Design.
The Salt Lake Tribune (11/30, Winters) reports that 350 fourth-through fifth-grade students at Escalante Elementary in Salt Lake City created a “99-block ‘box city,’” which was “unveiled Monday in the Salt Lake City Main Library.” As part of cross-curricular lessons that centered on design, the students “the students constructed schools, houses, town halls, churches and businesses from cereal boxes, cardboard, tin foil, construction paper and other materials.” Volunteers with from the Utah chapter of the American Institute of Architects led the eight-week project.

Hospital Donates Online Health Curriculum Access To Florida District.
Florida’s Sun-Sentinel (11/30, Solomon) reports that the “Miami Children’s Hospital has donated access to HealthTeacher, an online curriculum used by teachers in more than 8,000 schools across the country,” to teachers in Palm Beach County. “The hospital…will train teachers to” incorporate the health curriculum into the lesson plans for any subject. The HealthTeacher curriculum “offers 10 subject areas, with lessons for each age group, including anatomy, environmental health, nutrition, tobacco and sexuality.” WPTV-TV West Palm Beach (11/30, Norman) reports that “the program will be available to students, teachers and parents in Palm Beach County through the 2013-2014 school year.”

On the Job
Professional Development Strategies Offered To Improve Teacher Retention.
Angelo Collins of the Knowles Science Teaching Foundation writes in a commentary for Education Week (12/1) that while professional development and training are widely accepted as having a positive impact on student learning, “the opportunities for teachers to engage in sustained professional learning and collaboration have actually declined in the last decade.” A recent study found, among other things, “that teachers receive less than eight hours of training a year on any given topic. However, for professional development to have an impact on student learning…between 49 and 100 hours of intensive training in key areas is needed.” Collins offers his foundation’s advice for districts looking to support development. Among his suggestions are to encourage collaboration, mentorship and leadership, and to “avoid diluting talent” by assigning STEM teachers to their areas of expertise. Collins says the strategies are particularly important for improving retention of new teachers.

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Law & Policy
Attorney General Advises Oklahoma BOE To Pay $35 Million Toward Teachers’ Retirement.
The AP (11/30) reports that according to Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson, “the state Board of Education is violating the law by not making a required contribution this year to the Oklahoma Teachers’ Retirement System (OTRS).” In an opinion requested by the head of OTRS, Edmondson said that “the board has a statutory obligation to transfer money to the system.” The BOE plans to “address the matter at its next regular meeting on Dec. 16,” the AP notes.

The Oklahoman (11/29, McNutt) reported that Edmondson is advising the BOE to “allocate $35 million from its legislatively appropriated budget to the teachers retirement system.” The Oklahoman explains that each year “since 1998, the Legislature has appropriated $35 million to the Board of Education with instructions to allocate the money for teachers’ contributions, which the state is required to pay.” In the last session, lawmakers “did not include specific instructions on how the money was to be spent,” so board members decided to use “the money to help pay for increases in health insurance premiums for teachers and education support staff, which also is required by law.”

New York City Mayor’s Pick For Schools Chief Granted Waiver.
The New York Times (11/30, Otterman) reports that the New York state education commissioner on Monday granted publishing executive Cathleen P. Black a waiver allowing her to take “the helm of New York City’s public school system.” Commissioner David M. Steiner said that in a compromised reached in the last few days, Black’s “inexperience in education would be offset in part by the appointment of a chief academic officer to serve by her side. … Ms. Black agreed last week to compensate for her lack of education credentials by installing, as her first act, an experienced educator as her chief deputy, to administer and supervise instruction in the city’s 1,600 schools.”

The AP (11/30) notes that deputy schools Chancellor Shael Polakow-Suransky will be appointed “as senior deputy chancellor and chief academic officer under Black.” Throughout her career, Polakow-Suransky also “has served as a teacher and principal.” The Wall Street Journal (11/30, Banchero, Martinez) and Bloomberg News (11/30, Lutz) also cover the story.

North Carolina District Revises Policy On Lip Balm, Hand Sanitizer.
Colin Campbell wrote in North Carolina’s News & Observer (11/29) “Between the Lines” blog that Johnston County public schools has revised its policy on lip balm, sunscreen and hand sanitizer use in school. Superintendent Ed Croom sent a letter to parents on Monday “informing them that they’ll need to write a note only if they don’t want their kids to use” those products. “The permission requirement stemmed from parent concerns that kids were sharing lip balm – and germs – and that some students were allergic to hand sanitizer.” But, after district officials spoke with the Johnston County Health Department recently, they decided to make the change.

LATimes Backs Overhaul Of Parent-Focused Programs In Los Angeles District.
The Los Angeles Times (11/30) editorializes, “From the beginning, the education reform equation has been missing an important factor: parents. … So we’re glad to see that this topic is on the agenda for Tuesday’s board meeting of the Los Angeles Unified School District” as board member Yolie Flores “will be pushing for a more concerted, organized effort to inform and engage parents.” The Times adds, “Better parent centers won’t solve it all, but they’re a potentially important start” and the board should “review impartially whether the parent advisory committees are fulfilling a needed mission.”

Special Needs
Few Houston-Area Schools Offer Students Mental Health Services.
The Houston Chronicle (11/30, Lee) reports that according to mental health experts, “early intervention and easy access to care are critical in keeping mentally ill youths in school and out of jail.” Still, few “Houston-area schools offer mental health services” because, school officials say, they are working with limited financial resources. “Budget cuts have forced many schools to eliminate nurses and counselors, who are trained to spot symptoms of mental illness.” And, according to experts “the state’s projected budget shortfall will only worsen the problem.” Despite the challenges, some schools in the Houston Independent School District are coming up with the means to offer mental health services through “grant-funded partnerships with public health and social services agencies that provide clinicians and services.”

School Finance
Kaiser Permanente Donates $7.5 Million To California District.
The Oakland (CA) Tribune (11/30, Murphy) reported, “On Monday, weeks after losing a close parcel tax election, the Oakland school district got a major boost: a $7.5 million donation from Kaiser Permanente.” Most of the grant money “will support the school district’s school-based health centers, which provide health and counseling services to children and their families, and other wellness initiatives.”

The San Francisco Business Times (11/30, Rauber) adds that “Kaiser said the gifts, which it labeled as ‘investments,’ are intended to help Oakland school children stay healthier as they learn, help them increase their attendance rates and academic performance, ‘and teach them about humanitarian leaders who succeeded in making positive differences in their communities.’” KGO-TV San Francisco (11/29, Brinkley) also covered this story.

Also in the News

Rural Arkansas District To Play Educational Videos On School Bus.
The AP (11/30, Bleed) reports that Arkansas’ rural Hector School District “is participating in a new program believed to be the first of its kind: The school is playing science and math content over ceiling-mounted computer screens during the lengthy bus rides.” The bus is equipped with “five ceiling-mounted screens that show educational content geared at different age groups” and headphones in each seat. “The programming rotates daily and features videos from PBS, NASA, the Discovery Channel and Smithsonian Institute.” The AP adds that the initiative is a collaboration between the Hector School District and Vanderbilt University’s Aspirnaut Program, which “works with rural schools in Arkansas and Maine to help educate students in science, technology, engineering and math.”

NEA in the News
Former ACLU Leader Joins Nevada State Education Association.
The Las Vegas Review Journal (11/29, Planas) reports that former ACLU leader Gary Peck will join the Nevada State Education Association (NSEA) as an executive director. During his tenure with the ACLU, the organization pressed free speech issues for the homeless, immigrants, women, and religious minorities, among others. Peck’s first major challenge with the NSEA will be to take on the next legislative session, the Review Journal added. NSEA President Lynn Warne said that the association welcomes Peck’s “integrity” and “enthusiasm.”

Seminole Education Association Negotiating Raises For Teachers.
The Orlando Sentinel (11/30, Weber) reports that the Seminole (FL) Education Association is negotiating for an average 1,000 pay increase for teachers. Overall, the pay increases would add $4.4 million to the Seminole County school district’s expenses. Still, according to SEA representative Tony Gentile, teachers “are due for a raise” after two years of the same pay scale. School district negotiators say they can sympathize with the teachers, “but that the district remains pinched for cash. The district has cut $91 million over the past two years and expects to be strapped next year when federal stimulus subsidies are reduced substantially.”

New Jersey District Declares No D-Grades Policy A Success.
The AP (11/29) reports that a “New Jersey school district that eliminated the ‘D’ grade for students says the change has been a success. The new policy in Mount Olive took effect in September” and it “raised the failure score to anything under a 70 instead of 65.” According to the AP, “some school officials and teachers say it’s too early to declare the policy a success” noting that “the new policy allows students to retake exams and redo assignments after initial failing grades, often bringing up their scores.” The Toronto Star (11/26, Taylor) reported that this year the overall “number of failing students fell to 718 from 1,360 in the first semester of 2009.”

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In the Classroom
Co-Teaching Experiment Combines Three Fifth-Grade Classes.
The Hattiesburg (MS) American (11/28, Ciurczak) reported that three fifth-grade teachers at Woodley Elementary School decided at the beginning of the school year to combine their classes and co-teach. “Woodley Elementary is in its first year of school improvement, brought on by low student test scores.” Based on “scores from the first round of testing in the Hattiesburg Public School District,” the combined class has helped boost achievement. Students in that class “scored highest in the district in language arts on the District Wide Assessment” and “the class also had the only student in the district to score advanced – the highest level possible – on the test.” Teacher TaShara Shoemaker credited team teaching for the improvements. “Sometimes you’re trying to teach a concept and the kids aren’t getting it and we can step in and build on each other’s strengths. … We’re better able to teach the whole child,” she said.

Teachers Use Listening Circles To Build Trust Among Classmates.
The Los Angeles Times (11/27, Watanabe) reported that at many schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), teachers are using a storytelling “practice known as ‘council’” to get students to share their experiences with one another to build trust and strong bonds. The program is based on “speaking and listening circles” long used by “cultures worldwide…most notably, Native Americans.” The program that began in Los Angeles public schools in 2006 was “developed by the nonprofit Ojai Foundation.” LAUSD chief academic officer Judy Elliott said the program is “a ‘very powerful tool’ to help students transcend race, gender, disabilities and other dividing lines,” and it “gives teachers a strategy to make the curriculum come alive.”

Digital Music Production Classes Offered In Salt Lake City School System.
The Salt Lake Tribune (11/28, Schencker) reported on two schools in the Salt Lake City system that are offering classes in digital “music creation and production,” which use “software donated by Sony to produce everything from techno to rock to classical music.” The class is held monthly at Northwest Middle School “during the school day and at Northwest and Highland High after school and during the evenings as part of the district’s community education program.” The Salt Lake Tribune describes a recent class during which instructor Steve Auerbach “taught a handful of middle school students how to use the program to create songs by mixing and matching sounds, instruments and vocals.”

Pilot Program Helped Increase Knowledge, Fruit Consumption Among Head Start Students.
The Shreveport (LA) Times (11/28, Brumble) reported, “Head Start students who participated in a pilot health and nutrition program in the spring still turn their noses up at vegetables.” But, students in the program “significantly increased consumption of fruit and showed significantly more health and nutrition knowledge after the lessons.” To measure the pilot program’s results, dietitian Jennifer Guin photographed and analyzed “the children’s lunch choices for three days. She compared the photos to shots snapped before the program started.”

Boston Teens Seek Overhaul Of Sex Education Programs.
The Boston Globe (11/28, Vaznis) reported, “A group of Boston teenagers is pushing for free condoms and comprehensive sex education programs at all city high schools in an effort to prevent unexpected pregnancies and reverse an alarming rise in sexually transmitted infections among city teenagers. The students propose that “each city high school…designate a male and female staff member to give out condoms – instead of just health center employees – and” that the high schools “provide a rigorous sexual education program to all students.”

On the Job
Teacher Creates Math Computer Game.
The Salt Lake Tribune (11/27, Schencker) reported on a computer math game “being used in a handful of classrooms in and outside of Utah and by a number of Utah home-schoolers. Scott Laidlaw left his job teaching math at a private school in Salt Lake City to create it along with other programs through his new company Imagine Education. He acknowledges it was a risk but said it seemed like one worth taking based on the success of one of his previous math games.” In one game called “Ko’s Journey,” the main character “faces challenges and tasks that require middle-school math, such as ratios, graphing and geometry.”

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Law & Policy
District Revamps Grading System Following Standardized Testing Score Discrepancy.
The New York Times (11/28, Tyre) reported, “A few years ago, teachers at Ellis Middle School in Austin, Minnesota, might have” identified their top students based on factors such as on-time homework completion, tardiness, extra-credit assignments, and overall classroom behavior. Data comparison between “semester grades with end-of-the-year test scores” showed that at Ellis Middle School, about “10 percent of the students who earned A’s and B’s in school stumbled during end-of-the-year exams.” According to Principal Kate Berglund, “many teachers had been grading kids for compliance – not for mastering the course material.” Last year, “the eighth-grade math teachers at Ellis tried a new, standards-based grading system, and this fall the new system is being used by the entire middle school and in high school for ninth graders.”

New York City Mayor Reaches Deal With State Over Schools Chief.
The New York Times (11/27, Hernandez) reported that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg “reached a deal Friday to save the tottering candidacy of Cathleen P. Black to be the next chancellor of New York City schools, agreeing to appoint” Shael Polakow-Suransky, “a career educator who started as a classroom teacher to serve as her second in command. As a result, the state education commissioner, David M. Steiner, has agreed to grant Ms. Black, a media executive, the exemption from the normal credentials required by state law for the position, according to a person with direct knowledge of the negotiations.” According to the Times, “Underscoring the high-stakes nature of Ms. Black’s fate, even the federal secretary of education, Arne Duncan, spoke to both Dr. Steiner and Mr. Bloomberg during the negotiations” and “On Friday, Mr. Duncan praised the outcome.” The AP (11/27) also covered this story.

Opposition To Black’s Candidacy A Reflection Of Bloomberg’s Political Standing. The New York Times (11/26, Gootman) reported, “In many ways, whether people support or oppose” Black’s “appointment has become a proxy for what they think of the mayor and his imperial style of running the city. … When Mr. Bloomberg appointed Mr. Klein, he had just swept into his first term in public office, rescuing the city from its post-9/11 haze and from decades of educational neglect. This time, by contrast, he is at least for some the mayor who will not go away, the one who wrangled a third term and is beginning to wear out his welcome.”

Special Needs
Federal Regulations Prompt States To Make Special Education Reforms.
New Jersey’s Courier News (11/27, Mullen) reported that federal regulations are prompting special education innovations in school districts nationwide. According to the Courier News, “special-education voucher programs that a small but growing number of states have adopted in recent years” presents a major “challenge to the status quo.” Florida, Utah, Georgia, and Oklahoma each have programs that offer financial assistance to parents of special needs students who opt not to send their children to public schools. Autism education is another reform front. In California, for instance, “under a new state requirement, some 25,000 special-education teachers must complete an autism training course by July 2011 in order to work with children who have the disorder.” The Courier News notes that while New Jersey does not have a similar requirement, “some districts voluntarily provide autism training, and many teachers seek it out on their own.”

Facilities
Los Angeles Project Combines Early Education Center, Teacher Housing.
The Los Angeles Times (11/27, Newman) reported that the Los Angeles Unified School District is building an “early education center and [a] 50-unit apartment complex…on land owned by L.A. Unified in a dense urban neighborhood.” The apartments are intended for teachers, “police officers, nurses and others who earn a median income but find themselves unable to afford housing in many neighborhoods.” The complex will also feature “10,000-square-foot ‘outdoor learning classroom,’ which will provide space for young children to play and take classes.” The Times adds that “the Glassell project is an example of joint use in which two different organizations…combine to build projects that would be difficult and costly to build separately.”

School Finance
Texas Districts Struggling To Cope With Major State Funding Shortfall.
The Dallas Morning News (11/28, Haag) reported, “Dallas school officials are struggling to make some decisions as they await what could be one of the state’s largest shortfalls in its history. Educators across Texas have said that a deep deficit – some projecting as high as $25 billion – could bring huge cuts to school districts, which receive much of their funding from the state.” According to the Morning News, “The issue recently came to the fore over a decision to set staffing levels at some Dallas schools and to expand pre-K programs” as a pre-k expansion “is expected to save the district millions of dollars because some teacher’s aides would be cut, and because increased enrollment would lead to more state funding.”

Also in the News
Borders To Give Customers $15 To Donate To Schools.
The AP (11/29) reports that on Dec. 4 and 5, Borders bookstores will be giving customers making in-store purchases $15 gift cards “to donate to a public school of choice through DonorsChoose.org, an Internet-based charity.” Those who purchase “the book ‘Waiting for ‘Superman’: How We Can Save America’s Failing Public Schools’ will receive a second $15 card

NEA in the News
Veteran Teacher Marks Tenth Anniversary As NEA Executive Director.
North Carolina’s Raleigh News & Observer (11/29, Stancill) reports that this month, John I. Wilson “marked his tenth anniversary as executive director of the National Education Association.” The veteran special education teacher and “North Carolina native is on the front lines of the debate about how to rescue a public education system that lags behind those of many other countries.” Said Wilson, “There’s a lot of demonizing going on.” But, he noted, “Our members care deeply about their students. … They’ll do anything for their students to be successful.” The News & Observer presents highlights of Wilson’s career and notes that he “has championed a minimum salary of $40,000 for every teacher.”

Baltimore Teacher Contract Not Expected To Serve As Model For Others.
The Baltimore Sun (11/28, Bowie) reported that Baltimore teachers’ recently-ratified contract “has gotten a lot of attention,” but “it is too early to say whether [it] will have any effect on how other union contracts are negotiated.” Instead of a traditional pay scale., teachers’ pay will be “based on the growth of students’ knowledge over a year, the extra leadership positions and mentoring teachers take on, and the additional training they receive” under the Baltimore contract. John Woolums, the director of government relations for the Maryland Association of Boards of Education, said “it is unlikely that any other union,” in including the NEA, “will quickly embrace the ideas in the new city contract.”

New Jersey Lawmakers Approve “Nation’s Toughest” Anti-Bullying Bill.
The AP (11/23, Mulvihill) reports, “A law against bullying in schools, which advocates call the nation’s toughest because it requires schools to develop anti-harassment programs, was approved Monday in New Jersey. The state General Assembly and Senate both passed the bill overwhelmingly and sent it to the desk of Republican Gov. Chris Christie” who said “he hadn’t read the bill but that the state’s lawyers have raised concerns over whether its provisions infringe on constitutional rights.” According to the AP, the “bill would require anti-bullying programs in public schools and language in college codes of conduct to address bullying.”

New Jersey Today (11/22) added that the bill “is the product of nearly a year of research and discussions with top bullying experts, advocates and victims in an effort to combat harassment, intimidation and bullying among students. … The legislation will provide school administrators with the tools they need to respond to instances of harassment, intimidation and bullying in a timely and effective manner.” Also, “the bill requires annual reporting on bullying instances from schools and districts to be passed up directly to the Commissioner of Education and it grades each school on how it handles bullying, harassment and intimidation.” The New Jersey Newsroom (11/23) also covers this story.

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In the Classroom
Teachers Credit Robotics Competition For Rising Test Scores.
The Wilmington (NC) Star News (11/22, Greene) reported that fifth-graders at Rachel Freeman Elementary School in North Carolina have “been building and programming” LEGO robots “for the past two weeks” and on Friday, they raced their creations at the LEGO Mindstorms Challenge. “The competition incorporates a lot of the science and math in the fifth grade curriculum such as measuring the course to see how many wheel rotations it would take to finish the course and concepts such as force, friction, gravity and momentum.” Freeman Elementary teachers and administrators credit the competition, “along with emphasizing problem-solving, hands-on science, and four curriculum-based field trips each year,” with helping “boost the fifth grade N.C. end-of-grade science test scores a whopping 37 points last year.”

Students Participate In Robotics Competitions. The Worcester (MA) Telegram & Gazette (11/22, Spencer) reports, “Sixty-three teams of middle-school students ages 9 to 14 came from across Massachusetts to Blackstone Valley Regional Vocational Technical High School on Saturday to compete in the 11th annual FIRST LEGO League Competition.” In addition to building robots “to perform tasks related to this year’s biomedical-engineering theme,” the students “also presented to judges a biomedical problem and proposed solution. And they were rated for how well they demonstrated ‘core values’ such as teamwork and gracious professionalism.” The article noted that Bancroft School of Worcester’s Uber Bulldogs “won first place for topic presentation, drawing from the school’s recent eighth-grade play, ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,’ to portray the relationship between sugar and diabetes.”

The Connellsville (PA) Daily Courier (11/22, Schmadel) reported, “The fourth annual VEX Robotics Contest took place Saturday at California University of Pennsylvania with teams from 27 high schools competing. Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh provided software and helped with the competition.” Teams from Connellsville Area and Frazier high schools participated in the competition, and “one Connellsville team took home a championship trophy.” The competition was organized by Cal U robotics professor Mike Amrhein, who “said the tournament has grown continuously and was quite large this year. He encouraged the high school students to consider Cal U for continuing robotics education through the National Center for Robotics Engineering and Technology Education at the university.”

“Mustache Movement” At Oregon High School Raises Funds For Cancer Research.
KTVL-TV Medford, Oregon (11/22, Villamor) reports, “Many South Medford High School teachers are growing out their facial hair to raise awareness about” prostate cancer. The teachers hope that bringing attention to the issue will help raise money for cancer research. “There are mustache donation jars in some of the classrooms where students have been donating to the cause.” Teachers say “the mustache movement” is “a fun way to get students involved.” The school has raised $600 so far “for Livestrong and the Prostate Cancer Foundation. They hope to reach their goal of $1000 by the end of the month.”

Seattle Times: False Data Hinders Efforts To Improve College Readiness.
The Seattle Times (11/23) editorializes, “Discovery that Seattle Public Schools underestimated the percentage of high-school graduates ready for college is extremely harmful for a district striving to repair its dodgy image.” District officials say that “only 17 percent of students met the entrance requirements for four-year colleges.” But, according to The Truth Needle, a fact-checking tool for the Seattle Times, “the real number is 46 percent.” The Seattle Times asserts that “the low, and incorrect, percentage allowed the district to exaggerate a problem that needed no exaggeration and further compound already shaky public relations.” The “false data” also hampers efforts to improve college readiness.

On the Job
Teachers Form Committee To Raise $400,000 For School Music Programs.
California’s North County Times (11/23, Brandt) reports, “A group of music teachers in the Vista Unified School District is working to raise money so it can save music classes at the district’s 17 elementary schools.” In March, the school board voted to cancel the music program “at the end of the school year if no additional funding could be found.” Now, seven teachers “have formed a committee of parents and educators” to work with the Vista Education Foundation to come up with about $400,000 for teacher “salaries and benefits next year so the program can continue.” The committee plans to “ask parents and businesses to donate to the effort and to host fundraising events to benefit the music program.” Businesses can also donate $32,000 to “sponsor music for an entire school.”

Business Leaders Become Principals For A Day In Miami-Dade County Public Schools.
The Miami Herald (11/22, Feuerman) reported that “more than 330″ business leaders in Miami Dade County “traded the board room for the principal’s office on Wednesday” for the “Miami-Dade school district’s annual Principal for a Day program.” The 14-year-old program “seeks to develop partnerships between business leaders and public schools.” Business leaders who participate “are encouraged to stay connected with their schools for the school year.”

Special Needs
Newspaper Investigation Indicates Lax Oversight Of Special Education In New Jersey.
New Jersey’s Courier News (11/22, Mullen) reported that while special education programs in New Jersey’s public schools “help thousands of children each year deal with, and even overcome, their disabilities,” many “are hampered by fiscal and educational dysfunction.” The Asbury Park Press investigated several district-wide programs over 8 months and found that “the system is a $3 billion a year bureaucracy plagued by unchecked costs, lax oversight, racial bias and unproven programs.” Each year, public schools spend more than $580 million on private tuition for special education students. The Courier News points out, however, that “no one, not even the state Education Department, keeps track of how much money is actually spent on special education every year.”

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School Finance
Texas Lawmakers Urged To Give Districts More Budget Flexibility.
Texas’ American Statesman (11/23) editorializes, “Despite – or, more accurately, because of – the national recession, Central Texas school enrollments continue to grow. … Faced with the inevitability of reductions in state contributions, local school boards now have the unappealing choices of raising local property taxes or lowering expectations – or an unappetizing concoction of both.” The Statesman urges Texas legislators to “start calculating ways to give cash-strapped districts the maximum flexibility to spend their money.”

DC Weighs Cuts To Schools, Emergency Services.
The Washington Times (11/23, Simmon, Cella) reports that DC “is in such dire financial straits…that officials are considering cuts to such sancrosant agencies as public safety and schools to ward off a growing fiscal 2011 deficit and a looming $345 million budget gap in 2012. Social service programs and other discretionary spending face some trimming, but funding cuts in schools and public safety are inescapable, at-large D.C. Council member Michael A. Brown said.” Brown “pointed out that spending has always been a contentious issue, especially since the mayor and council restructured governance in 2007, giving Mayor Adrian M. Fenty broad latitude to run schools while lawmakers gained the budget reins. Special education, which is under court supervision because of long-standing class-action lawsuits, has added to annual cost overruns.”

Also in the News
First Lady Promotes Healthy Eating At Miami School.
The AP (11/23, Kennedy) reports that First Lady Michelle Obama “ate some cherry tomatoes and fresh herbs” with students at Miami’s Riverside Elementary, “the first in the country to receive a free salad bar as part of her new initiative to get more veggie displays into school cafeterias.” United Fresh Produce Association “is donating 6,000 salad bars to schools, mostly in low-income neighborhoods, over the next three years as part of Obama’s Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools initiative.

The Palm Beach (FL) Post (11/23, Valdes) reports that during her visit to Miami’s Riverside Elementary, the First Lady “launched the ‘Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools’ campaign, the next step in her ‘Let’s Move’ initiative established in 2009 to fight childhood obesity.” Obama “emphasized each child’s responsibility in changing eating and exercise habits and told the students that good nutrition provides ‘brainpower’ that will help them do better in school.”

Utah High School Students Rank Below National Average For Drug, Alcohol Use.
The Salt Lake Tribune (11/23, Schencker) reports that fewer high school students in Utah said that they used marijuana or alcohol last year than their peers nationwide, “according to a school crime and safety report released Monday by the National Center for Education Statistics and the Bureau of Justice Statistics.” About 18 percent of Utah high schoolers said they tried alcohol “during the previous 30 days, compared with nearly 42 percent nationally.” Meanwhile, only 10 percent of Utah high schoolers said they had tried marijuana “during the previous 30 days, compared with nearly 21 percent nationwide.” State and education officials in Utah attributed the lower-than-average rates to the state’s “dominant religious group, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” which “shuns alcohol and drug use.”

NEA in the News
US Department Of Education, NEA Sponsor “Challenge To Innovate” Competition.
Michigan’s Bay City Times (11/23, Dodson) reports that the US Department of Education and the National Education Association are challenging educators to come up with and share solutions to “classroom-based problems.” The NEA Foundation will choose a solution it finds “most responsive” to receive a $2,500 reward. The Challenge to Innovate competition is being run through the Department of Education’s website.

Milwaukee Teachers Approve Four-Year Contract.
The Milwaukee Business Journal (11/22) reported that the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association (MTEA) “overwhelmingly ratified a four-year contract with Milwaukee Public Schools Monday that is expected to save up to $50 million over the next two years.” The new contract expires “June 30, 2013, and contains no pay increase for the first year.” However, teachers will get “a 3 percent increase in a lump sum” the second year, “pay increases of 2.5 percent and 3 percent” for the third and fourth years, respectively. In the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (11/22) “School Zone” blog, Becky Vevea quoted MTEA president Mike Langyel as saying, “The new contract is a key first step toward our union and our district working together for changes that will improve what the public schools offer to the children and families of Milwaukee.”

NCLB Transfers Lead To Crowding At High-Performing Schools.
The Washington Post (11/24, Birnbaum) reports, “In some struggling school districts around the country, students transferring from failing schools are overwhelming the few successful schools in their areas, an unintended byproduct of” NCLB. According to the Post, the “issue arose in Prince George’s County [MD] this year, when the parents of nearly 3,000 middle-schoolers learned just days before school started that they could switch their children to the only two non-specialized middle schools in the county that met the law’s performance goals. … The flurry of transfers – more than 700 in Prince George’s this year across all 12 grades – has packed classrooms while underscoring a tough aspect of” NCLB which mandates that all students “pass benchmark tests by 2014 – and, as a result, more schools fail every year.”

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In the Classroom
In Reversal Of Longtime Trend, Class Sizes Expected To Grow.
Education Week (11/24, Sparks) reports, “After dropping for decades, average class sizes in American schools may be growing again as schools cope with budget shortfalls.” According to Education Week, “The national ratio of students to their teachers fell between 1980 and 2008, from 17.6 to 15.8 students per public school teacher, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. … That number is likely to rise, given states’ and districts’ financial constraints, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said last month at a Washington forum.”

Boston Public Schools To Expand Vacation Math, Reading Classes.
Roy Greene wrote in the Boston Globe (11/23) “Metro Desk” blog that in an effort to boost “student proficiency in English and math next year,” Boston Public Schools will add “six schools to a program that teaches extra classes over February and April vacations.” The district issued a statement today saying that the program, currently in place in nine schools, “has already seen positive results, boasting a 20 point gain in Student Growth Percentile in English and a 17 point gain in math among participating students.” Each session covers material equal “to more than a month’s worth of instruction in the given disciplines,” according to program administrator Jeff Riley. It is being funded, in part, with “federal stimulus money.”

More Indiana School Districts Show Academic Gains.
The Indianapolis Star (11/24, Thomas) reports, “More school districts showed improvement on Indiana’s academic progress rankings this year, with the number of districts climbing to ‘exemplary progress’ and ‘commendable progress’ jumping 20 percentage points over last year. For the 2009 results released today, 139 out of 292 school districts showed ‘exemplary progress’ and ‘commendable progress,’ compared to 81 out of 294 districts appearing in those categories last year.” The Star adds that Indiana educators “have lauded the state’s ranking system as better than the federal adequate yearly progress measurement, or AYP, which the state also released today, because the state rankings take into account whether schools are improving rather than simply being required to meet a certain percentage of students passing a state test.” The Louisville (KY) Courier-Journal (11/23, Weidenbener) also covered the story.

Job Shadow Event Aligned With Schools’ Curriculum.
Illinois’ Carol Stream Press (11/24, Sauder) reports on the recent Bloomingdale Chamber of Commerce Student to Business Partnership job shadow event, in which “about 30 students from Glenbard East and Glenbard North high schools participated.” The event “paired students with business people in a field that interests them,” and offered opportunities to learn about a range of occupational fields. “District 87 spokeswoman Peg Mannion said the Bloomingdale Chamber’s Student to Business Partnership program aligns with the district’s strategic priority to strengthen productive home, school and community partnerships for education.” Mannion said, “These opportunities are aligned with our curriculum and increase students’ awareness of business practices. … The employers who participate in these programs are role models for our students.”

On the Job
Federal Grant Allows District To Turn Teachers’ Furlough Into Paid Vacation Days.
The Washington Post (11/24, Seiff) reports that the Loudoun County (VA) School Board had originally planned to give teachers unpaid furlough “for the first two days of Thanksgiving week and pocket $4.5 million in savings to help balance a strained budget.” But, with the help “of a federal grant designed to protect the jobs of teachers,” the school board decided, instead, to allow the teachers “two bonus days of vacation and full pay.” According to the Post, “The move quieted months of controversy over the Thanksgiving week furlough, which had prompted teachers to threaten to picket in protest.” The Post also notes that the grant program, “which required that the money go to pay the salaries and benefits of educators, has helped underwrite a wide variety of initiatives nationwide — some of them having little to do with putting teachers in classrooms.”

Law & Policy
Minnesota Districts Propose Boundary Changes To Diversify School Enrollments.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune (11/24, Smith) reports that Eden Prairie and Bloomington school officials are trying to drum up community support for proposed “school boundary changes aimed largely at integrating and balancing schools.” Eden Prairie’s plan would move “fifth- and sixth-grades into grade K-4 elementary schools” and balance “enrollments in elementary schools by socio-economic status and building capacity.” Many parents, however, have protested the plan, calling it “social engineering,” which they say will lead to “forced busing of students to schools away from their neighborhoods.” Meanwhile, “some Bloomington parents don’t want to revert to attending” neighborhood schools. They prefer school choice, which is currently offered in the district. But school officials In Bloomington want to use boundary changes “to correct the disparities between schools that are overcrowded and those that are under capacity — and between the poorest elementary school and most affluent one.”

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Safety & Security
FBI Arrests Woman Charged With Making Threats To Florida School District.
The AP (11/24) reports that Ellisa Martinez, “a woman charged with making threats that caused 300 Florida schools to be locked down,” surrendered to the FBI on Tuesday and was arrested. Martinez “is accused of sending an e-mail” threat earlier this month to a radio talk show host and calling “the Pompano Beach station later that morning” claiming “that her husband…was going to go to a school in Pembroke Pines (Florida) and start shooting.”

CNN (11/24) reports that “schools and government offices across [Broward County] were secured for several hours by police on November 10 after the threat.” Sometime after making the threats, Martinez left Florida for California.

The Miami Herald (11/23, Moskotitz) reported that Martinez appears to have “acted alone,” based on “new details outlined in a criminal complaint. … She is charged with interstate communication of a threat to injure another. If convicted, she could face up to five years’ imprisonment, followed by supervised release.” Florida’s Sun Sentinel (11/24, Santana) also covers the story.

Districts Seek To Balance Safety, Privacy In Regulating Access To Security Cameras.
The Dallas Morning News (11/23, Unmuth) reported that while some North Texas “school districts bulk up the number of cameras in schools, others are questioning access among administrators, security officers and even police departments.” The efforts to balance “privacy rights with safety concerns” vary from district to district. In Irving, for instance, “even school-based resource police officers must submit written requests to view footage alongside school administrators, who can pull up footage from their computer at any time.” The Richardson school district, however, “allows complete access.” The Dallas Morning News adds that “student and parent opinions” on access to security footage “seem to depend on whether they value security or privacy more.”

School Finance
Education Department To Launch Review Of Its Competitive Grant Programs.
Sean Cavanagh wrote in a blog for Education Week (11/23), “After managing a number of high-profile state and local competitions for federal cash-most notably Race to the Top- [the Education Department] is conducting a far-reaching review of all its competitive grant programs, to see how the rules that govern them can be refined and improved.” Cavanagh added that the Education Department’s “choices of winners in the recent Race to the Top and Investing in Innovation (i3) contests were cause for celebration in some quarters. But those choices also came in for a lot of second-guessing and criticism from state officials and advocacy groups, some of whom labeled the final judgments as unfair and the process opaque.”

Also in the News
State Officials Raise Doubts About New York City Schools Chief Pick.
The New York Times (11/24, Hernandez, Otterman) reports, “The candidacy of Cathleen P. Black, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s choice to be chancellor of the New York City schools, was in jeopardy on Tuesday as both a panel weighing her credentials and the state official who will determine her fate expressed deep doubts about her readiness for the job. The official, David M. Steiner, the state education commissioner, said he would consider granting Ms. Black, a publishing executive, the waiver she needed to take office only if Mr. Bloomberg appointed an educator to help her run the system” and yet, Steiner “did not rule out rejecting her request for a waiver, saying he was skeptical about her ability to master the intricacies of the nation’s largest school system.”

The AP (11/24, Matthews) adds, “An advisory panel appointed to weigh the qualifications of Hearst Magazines Chairwoman Cathie Black to head New York City schools recommended on Tuesday denying a waiver that would allow the non-educator to serve as chancellor of the country’s largest school system.” According to the AP, during a “closed meeting, the panel members had three options on whether to recommend a waiver: yes, no, and ‘send the waiver request back to the New York City mayor for possible resubmission,’ said spokesman Tom Dunn. Four members voted ‘no,’ two ‘yes,’ and two members urged resubmission, Dunn said.” The Wall Street Journal (11/24, Martinez, Saul) also covers this story.

School Meal Programs Can Help Boost Academic Performance, Report Says.
Reuters (11/24, Marcus) reports that school performance of teens living in food-scarce households suffers, but a new study published in the medical journal Pediatrics finds that federal school meal programs can reverse this effect. In the study, Christelle Roustit, of the Research Group on the Social Determinants of Health and Healthcare, in Paris, France, analyzed questionnaires given to 2,346 public high school students in Quebec, Canada along with almost 2,000 of the students’ parents.

Minority Students Become Majority In North Carolina District.
North Carolina’s News & Observer (11/23, Hui) reported, “For the first time, minority students now account for a majority of the students in the Wake County school system.” White students now make up 40.5 percent of the student population in Wake County, down from 51.1 percent last year. “After white students, the next largest group in Wake is black students,” making up 24.8 percent of the population. Hispanic students “account for 14.6 percent of the enrollment” and are “the fastest-growing group in the school system.”

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In the Classroom
Oklahoma Early Childhood Program Targets At Risk Students.
The Oklahoman (11/14, Painter) reported, “The Educare programs in Oklahoma City and Tulsa are examples of those receiving some funding through the Oklahoma Pilot Early Childhood Program. … Educare Centers strive to provide high quality learning environments for families and their children 5 and younger who are considered at risk for school failure, according to Educare.” According to the Oklahoman, “The State of Oklahoma Pilot Early Childhood Program is targeting children, up to age 3, in impoverished families.”

Latino Students Now Make Up Majority In California Public Schools.
The San Francisco Chronicle (11/13, Kane) reported, “Latinos now make up a majority of California’s public school students, cracking the 50 percent barrier for the first time in the state’s history, according to data released Friday by the state Department of Education.” State data from the 2009-10 school year showed, meanwhile, that out of 6.2 million students throughout the state, 27 percent were white, nine percent were Asian, and seven percent were black. “Students calling themselves Filipino, Pacific Islander, Native American or other total almost 7 percent.” UC Berkeley Education Professor Bruce Fuller said that Latinos’ large impact on public education in California will continue to grow, “as Latino parents — now in the majority — realize many of the schools their children attend are underfunded.”

High School In Florida Struggles To Balance Academic Priorities With Athletic Tradition.
The Miami Herald (11/13, McGrory) reported on the conflict between “football excellence and the academic mission at