September 13, 2006
Education Week, Vol. 26, Issue 03
School & District Management
Building Capacity
What’s gone around has come around. After a decade or so spent largely on setting academic standards against which to hold schools accountable, states are themselves being held accountable for helping schools figure out how to meet them. Part of Education Week's special annual report, Leading for Learning.
Student Well-Being
Opinion
Chat Wrap-Up: Student Motivation—What Works, What Doesn’t
On Aug. 30, readers directed their questions on student motivation to a panel that included Edward L. Deci, a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester; Carol S. Dweck, a professor of psychology at Stanford University; and Susan N. Graham, a teacher at Gayle Middle School, in Stafford County, Va.
Science
Opinion
Preparing for the Real Enemy
Political and economic context is essential to the kind of science curriculum American schools need to produce a more informed and knowledgeable electorate, writes Charles W. Anderson.
Teaching Profession
Detroit Students Go to School for One Day
The educational prospects of some 120,000 students who attend Detroit public schools continued to hang in the balance last week, as a teachers’ strike rolled past the opening day of school and district officials canceled classes indefinitely.
Professional Development
Opinion
Professional Development: How Do We Know If It Works?
Research, teaching, and funding communities need to maintain a much higher standard of evidence about the effectiveness for enhancing student learning of professional-development interventions that they support, writes Pendred Noyce.
School & District Management
Walkout Seen as Further Blow to Dwindling District
While striking Detroit teachers remained on the picket lines last week and district administrators conceded they couldn’t keep schools open without them, parents, community leaders, and experts pondered a more long-term problem: Would this latest crisis accelerate the student exodus from the city’s already withering school system?
States
Stakes High for States in Fall Votes
No matter what state you live in, the future of education policy—at least for the next few years—will be heavily influenced by the votes cast in the November elections.
Special Education
Regulations on ‘2 Percent’ Testing Awaited
The challenging task of writing final federal regulations for the so-called 2 percent assessments for students with disabilities could be finished by the beginning of next year, according to a Department of Education official.
Early Childhood
Gov. Schwarzenegger Signs Legislation Expanding Pre-K
Disappointed by voters’ rejection in June of a broad plan to deliver free preschool to all California 4-year-olds, advocates for early-childhood education have been reinvigorated by the legislative success of a more modest proposal to expand the state’s existing preschool system.
School & District Management
Pennsylvania
Distinguished educators are assigned by the state to help low-scoring districts in Pennsylvania. Part of Education Week's special annual report, Leading for Learning.
Teaching Profession
Teachers’ Unions Coming to Terms With Their Districts
Teachers in Gary, Ind., returned to work Sept. 1, the morning after resolving an 11-day strike.
School & District Management
Panel Urges ECS to Expand Presence, Focus
The Education Commission of the States needs to actively engage policymakers on emerging educational issues if it’s going to thrive, according to an ad hoc group formed to map the future of the struggling 41-year-old group.
School & District Management
New Mexico
New Mexico requires "priority schools" to use a continuous-improvement program. Part of Education Week's special annual report, Leading for Learning.
School & District Management
Kentucky
With state funding, teams of educators are assisting struggling districts in Kentucky.
Part of Education Week's special annual report, Leading for Learning.
States
Education at Issue in Fla. Race to Replace Gov. Bush
The stage for the Florida governor’s race is finally set.
In a matchup determined by last week’s primary, a Republican former education commissioner under outgoing Gov. Jeb Bush will square off against a Democratic congressman and former state lawmaker in the campaign leading up to the Nov. 7 election that is likely to focus heavily on education.
School & District Management
Mentoring for New Principals Gains Policy Attention
A growing number of states are providing new forms of coaching and training for novice principals in the hope of turning what’s often a sink-or-swim experience into one more likely to lead to improved school performance.
College & Workforce Readiness
In More States, It’s Now ACT or SAT for All
Whether high school students take college-admissions tests used to be an individual decision. But a growing number of states are requiring that step and even making the exams a core part of their own testing systems.
Federal
Long-Delayed U.S. Panel on Reading Yet to Be Named
The slow pace of Washington bureaucracy is the stuff of legend, and, occasionally, satire. But even by Washington standards, the progress of the Commission on Reading Research has been particularly plodding.
Curriculum
Judge Backs Portrayal of Hinduism, but Voids Texts’ Process
A superior-court judge in California last week denied a religious organization’s claims that history texts adopted for use in the state’s middle schools portray Hinduism inaccurately or negatively.
Teaching
Student Pressure Subject of Debate
As another school year begins, a new crop of highly publicized books depicts American students as overburdened with academic demands, many of questionable value. But some experts contend that such a portrait distorts the truth: Most students, they say, are not particularly challenged in school.
Equity & Diversity
Opinion
Race and Class: Separate and Not Equal
While it seems that race has taken a back seat to class in the nation’s education agenda, racial discrimination is a continuing problem that must not be pushed aside, writes Tierney T. Fairchild.
School & District Management
Principals Get New Presence in Blogosphere
The National Association of Secondary School Principals has launched a blog to inform school leaders of federal education policy and enlist them in shaping that world.
Education Funding
Grants
Grants
The U.S. Department of Education has awarded its annual grants to support professional-development programs for K-12 music, dance, drama, and visual arts teachers.
Education
Letter to the Editor
Ad for TV Movie Upset This Reader
An advertisement that ran in your Aug. 9, 2006, issue for the TNT network’s made-for-television movie “The Ron Clark Story” caused me much concern.
Education
Letter to the Editor
Defending Reading Book Over Implied ‘Collusion’
I was dismayed by the inaccuracies in your Teaching & Learning column about my book with G. Reid Lyon, Why Kids Can't Read: Challenging the Status Quo in Education ("Former Reading Czar Teams Up With PR Executive on Book," Aug. 9, 2006).
Education
Letter to the Editor
Aren’t Charter Advocates Using a Double Standard?
So charter school advocates now say that data from the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress showing that charter schools trail behind public schools in student achievement “represent a snapshot at one point in time, with no consideration of students’ prior academic achievement” ("Reanalysis of NAEP Scores Finds Charter Schools Lagging," Aug. 30, 2006.)
Education
A Washington Roundup
U.S. Civil Rights Commission Examines Omaha Breakup
Three members of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission were to meet in Omaha on Sept. 8 for a hearing on the implications of a new Nebraska law that divides the state’s largest school district into three racially identifiable segments.
Education
A Washington Roundup
Former GOP Aide Tapped for Communications Post
President Bush has selected a former Capitol Hill aide to be the new communications chief for the Department of Education.