Werner Rogers, Georgia’s superintendent of education, has asked the legislature to fund a program to prepare liberal-arts graduates in mathematics, science, and foreign languages for teaching jobs. The alternative route would allow teaching candidates without a formal education degree to complete an eight-week training program during the summer, and then teach for one school year under the supervision of a veteran teacher.
Mr. Rogers argued that if such candidates perform well and pass the state’s teacher-certification tests, they should be granted certificates.
The education department has requested $319,000 for the program in the budget year that begins July 1, but Gov. Joe Frank Harris has not included the request in his proposed $2.26-billion education budget.
The superintendent said the first year’s funding would enable approximately 30 people to participate in the summer-training program, and would pay for the time of supervising teachers. He proposed the program, he said, to ease the state’s shortage of teachers in certain subjects.
A federal grand jury in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has charged six school-bus companies and their executives with fixing prices and rigging bids for sales of bus bodies to school districts in central and eastern Iowa.
The indictment, the result of a two-year investigation, charges that from 1982 to 1986 the companies conspired to devise price schedules, allocate customers among themselves, and rig bids for contracts awarded by the districts.
In handing down the indictment Jan. 20, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Northern, District of Iowa refused to name the districts affected by the alleged illegalities.
The companies indicted were Hawkeye Bus Sales Inc. of Des Moines, Hawkeye Superior Bus Sales Inc. of Manson, Midwest Transportation Inc. of Ames, Minnesota Body Equipment Company of Shakopee, 23 Minn., Saf-T-Liner Bus Sales Inc. of DesMoines, and United School Equipment Company of Iowa Inc., of Omaha, Neb.
Concerned that boys have displaced girls on a number of traditionally female athletic teams, the Maine Secondary: School Principals Association has voted to revise a policy that allowed boys in the state’s schools to join such teams.
The group in 1980 passed a rule allowing co-ed teams in interscholastic sports in or to expand opportunities for women athletes. But when boys unexpectedly began joining girls’ softball, field hockey, swimming, and gymnastic teams, the principals concluded that “equal opportunity for girls being lessened,” said Richard W. Tyler, the group’s executive director.
“We found that when boys went out, they never sat on the bench; they always played, Mr. Tyler said. He said boys had opted for girls’ teams in sports where “there was not wide enough interest’’ for schools to sponsor boys’ teams. Under the new rule, girls will still be allowed to join traditionally male
More than 83 percent of Idaho’s superintendents of schools graduated from college with grade-point averages that were below a B, a study by an interim legislative committee has found. The committee has recommended that certification programs for superintendents require more coursework in business management. Its survey found that nearly two-thirds of the 108 superintendents were education majors only two were women.
Gilbert Chilton, former chairman of California’s teacher-pension fund, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to four felony charges, including conspiracy and extortion. As part of a negotiated deal with prosecutors on an original 77-count indictment, Mr. Chilton admitted to accepting a $1-million bribe in 1982 while working for the State Teacher Retirement System, in return for lending $50 million in pension funds to a Colorado oil company. Last May, Mr. Chilton ended four years of living on the run by surrendering to authorities in Sacramento. He had fled in 1983 after state and federal officials began, investigating his financial dealings at the pension organization and at the Guarantee. Savings and Loan Association in Fresno, where he had been a vice president.
