AP (10/16, Hunter) reports, “Smaller school buses will have to be equipped with lap-and-shoulder seat belts for the first time under a government rule drafted following the deaths of four Alabama students on a school bus that nose-dived off an overpass.” The law, which takes effect in 2011, will require that seat belts be installed only “in new buses weighing five tons or less.” Additionally, “larger buses…will have higher seat backs under the new policy. … The design change is supposed to keep older, heavier students from being thrown over the seats in a collision.” According to U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, “she stopped short of requiring seat belts for larger buses because that could limit the number of children that can squeeze into seats, forcing some children to travel in ways that aren’t as safe as school buses.”

        “Public Citizen, a highway safety advocacy group, said the new rules don’t go far enough,” Bloomberg News (10/15, Keane) noted. In a statement, Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook said, “‘Our enthusiasm for those improvements is tempered’ by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration’s ‘inability to resolve the question of whether seat belts should be installed in large school buses.’”

        While government officials did encourage “a combination of lap and shoulder belts on large school buses, [they] did not require it,” in part because they said that “the cost of seat belts should not be imposed on school districts when school buses are already, for the most part, very safe,” noted ABC News (10/15, Barrett, Stark).

Education Week (10/13, Sawchuck) reported that last week, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings “turned her attention to teacher quality in an Oct. 8 roundtable discussion with about a dozen performance-pay experts at the Department of Education’s headquarters.” The purpose of the meeting “was to gain feedback on the federal role in supporting performance pay,” but “much of the conversation focused on issues that are typically decided locally.” One of the issues discussed was how to structure performance-pay “programs to bridge traditional salary schedules, which base teachers’ pay on a combination of their experience and the credentials they hold, with schedules that differentiate pay based on student outcomes.” Spellings pointed out that “federal officials ‘have not played a role in salary structures, and some…do not want to play a role’ in altering those structures.” Nevertheless, “she expressed a desire to keep the ball moving on performance pay after she leaves office.”

Education Week (10/6, Ash) reports that in November, “dozens of legislative referendums, citizen initiatives, and proposed state constitutional amendments affecting education” will be “on the ballot in at least 15 states, according to an overview by the National Conference of State Legislatures.” For instance, “six states — Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, and Oregon” — are proposing referendums “that would either create new revenue sources for public schools or alter the flow of gambling-related money earmarked for education.” Meanwhile, Oregon voters will decide on “performance-based raises for teachers and limits on the amount of time non-English-speakers could be taught in their native languages.” Both measures are seen as being widely opposed by educators. Education Week noted that, because “citizen initiatives typically require months of signature-gathering, and legislature-driven measures often are passed early in the year, items reflecting the current economic crisis” will be “notably absent from next month’s ballot.”

Janet Allen’s Tools for Teaching Content Literacy is a plan book-sized flipchart—a ready reference for content reading & writing instruction. The tabbed pages give teachers the what, why, and how of 33 strategies, with classroom illustrations & reproducibles.

Study links early-grade attendance to student performance.
Education Week (9/30, Jacobson) reported that “improving early-grades attendance can help schools meet their achievement goals under the federal No Child Left Behind Act,” according to a report from the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP). The report “found that more than 11 percent of kindergartners and close to 9 percent of 1st graders are chronically absent,” with even higher rates “in schools serving poor children.” The study also found, among other things, that “children who are chronically absent in kindergarten have the lowest performance in reading, mathematics, and general knowledge in 1st grade.” Education Week noted that although the study “does not focus on students beyond elementary school, evidence gleaned from other research suggests that high school dropouts are more likely than graduates to be chronically absent as early as 1st grade.” The NCCP report recommends “expanding high-quality preschool programs, saying they ‘play an invaluable role in reducing chronic absence by orienting families to school norms and helping families make regular school attendance part of their daily routine.’”

In the Classroom
Science program focuses on outdoor learning.
Massachusetts’s Gloucester Daily Times (10/1, L’Ecuyer) reports on the Science Day program at Rockport Elementary School, which was “designed to infuse more science into the building by getting students and teachers outside.” With help from Boston University’s Sargent Center for Outdoor Education, and funding from the Rockport Education Foundation, the school designed “areas where students could learn to use a compass, make observations in both New England forest and aquatic environments, collect data on air temperature and rainfall amounts, and input that data into a computer.” Principal Shawn Maguire, “who added science centers at various locations inside the school almost immediately upon arriving in the district last year, said Science Day was the first event of a pilot ‘scientist-in-residence’ program.” Maguire noted that most of the activities involved were designed to utilize “math, writing and reading skills.”

In a commentary for Education Week (9/30), Karen S.

More Iowa schools seek four-day week.
The AP (9/29) reports, “An increasing number of Iowa school officials want to shorten the school week to four days to reduce costs.” The policy “has caught on in other states,” and “seems to have its biggest supporters in small districts, where enrollment has shrunk and budgets have been beaten by increasing fuel costs.” The fifth day is accounted for by increasing the length of the school day by two hours, to eight. Although “not everyone is sold on the idea,” according to school “officials in Arizona and Colorado…the shorter week has resulted in fewer absences by students and teachers.” Additionally, it has proven to be “a good tool to recruit teachers.” Arizona educators noted “that change hasn’t affected student achievement, and that some districts have used the day off to offer tutoring students or teacher training.”

Iowa’s Des Moines Register (9/28, Hupp) noted that education officials in some districts “want a waiver from the mandatory state schools calendar so they can switch to a four-day week as soon as next year,” while “other educators who aren’t completely sold on the idea want state lawmakers to free them from the calendar’s confines, just in case.” Heather Chikoore of the National Conference of State Legislatures pointed out that, “in many cases, state laws give school districts the freedom to decide.” In terms of Iowa, Jeff Berger, the education department’s legislative liaison, said that “one approach is to set a minimum number of hours in the school year instead of days.”

In the Classroom
Some Wisconsin schools end class ranking.