October 11, 2006
Education Week, Vol. 26, Issue 07
States
Voters to Decide How States Fund Education
Voters in some states will be asked to approve more funding for education when they go to the polls next month, and others will decide ballot measures that could have a significant impact on how states pay for education.
School & District Management
Opinion
Grand Visions and Possible Lives
In the national discussion of teaching, learning, and the very notion of public education, one professor of education writes that "the broader purpose and grand vision of the common public school" has become an abstract thought, lost in the "culture wars that swirl around schools."
Law & Courts
Justices Decline Case About Public School’s Islamic-Themed Unit
The U.S. Supreme Court declined last week to consider whether a California public school’s curriculum that directed 7th graders to pretend to be Muslims violated the constitutional rights of the children or their parents.
Federal
Bush Says He’s Ready to Fight for Renewal of NCLB
President Bush said last week that it would be a priority of his administration to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act next year, and that he was prepared to take on the law’s critics.
Equity & Diversity
Limited Number of Schools Absorb Latinos
Hispanic children account for nearly two-thirds of the recent growth in school enrollment, but most of that increase has been absorbed by a small proportion of the nation’s schools, says a report released last week by the Pew Hispanic Center.
Federal
Democrats Hope to Seize Higher Ed. Issue
Democratic lawmakers and candidates seeking to regain a majority in Congress are working to convince voters that they would do more to help students pay for college than the Republicans, highlighting proposals to increase Pell Grants and make college loans cheaper for student borrowers.
School & District Management
Arkansas Media Campaign: Students Need Tougher Classes
The Arkansas Department of Education has a message for parents across the state: Students need to take tougher classes.
Federal
NEA: Earn a Diploma or Stay in School Until Age 21
The nation’s largest teachers’ union is pushing compulsory high school graduation as an important step toward reducing the number of dropouts.
Federal
Shakeup of Technical High Schools in Conn. Pays Off
Administrators who have been shaking up Connecticut’s system of technical schools for the past several years scored a victory last month when two of the schools were taken off the state’s watch list for low performance under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
Teacher Preparation
Teacher-Prep Field of Two Minds Over Replacing NCATE
Ditch NCATE. That’s one of the suggestions Arthur E. Levine, the former president of Teachers College, Columbia University, made in his recent report that has the field of teacher education in an uproar.
But others have come to the defense of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education.
Education
Events
9-11—Instruction: Various Workshops, sponsored by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, for educators and administrators, in Philadelphia. Register online at www.ascd.org/register. Contact: ASCD, 1703 N. Beauregard St., Alexandria, VA 22311-1714; (800) 933-2723 ext. 2; fax: (703) 575-5400; Web site: www.ascd.org.
Education Funding
Gates Learns to Think Big
After a massive investment in small high schools, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is broadening its reach to include all levels of K-12 policy.
International
Opinion
Educating the Globe
Jonathan Zimmerman, a former Peace Corps volunteer and professor of education and history at New York University, looks at the dilemmas faced by America's overseas teachers in an excerpt from his book Innocents Abroad: American Teachers in the American Century.
Standards
Science Interest Could Foster ‘Learning Progressions’
Learning progressions are frameworks that spell out how student comprehension of concepts should grow over time. Those progressions, scholars say, should be guided by an understanding of how children learn and the knowledge that they already possess or have been taught.
Special Education
Alternate Assessments Proving to Be a Challenge for States
States are grappling with the task of creating alternate assessments for students with significant cognitive disabilities that will pass muster with federal officials for use under the No Child Left Behind Act.
Federal
No School Improvement Models Get Top Rating From AIR
Only 10 of the 18 most widely used school improvement programs for middle and high schools have “moderate” or “limited” evidence to show they work, and none deserves a top rating, a review by a Washington think tank concludes.
School & District Management
Synthesis Finds District Leadership-Learning Link
In a paper released last week, two experts at Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning, the federally funded regional laboratory in Denver known as McREL, distill 27 studies on district leadership and student results. Using meta-analysis techniques, they combined the effects found in those studies and arrived at a positive and statistically significant correlation.
School Climate & Safety
Social-Networking Sites for Schools Promote Safety, Education Benefits
Companies hoping to capitalize on the popularity of social-networking Web sites such as MySpace.com and Facebook.com are building similar sites for K-12 schools that they claim will be safer and more educational.
Recruitment & Retention
Schools Say No to Bonuses
Some Texas schools that could receive money for bonuses for teachers this school year have told the state: No thanks.
School Choice & Charters
Scholars Compare 2 Kinds of Schools
Are charter schools all that different from regular public schools? That’s one question scholars examined at a Sept. 28-29 conference in Nashville, Tenn., hosted by Vanderbilt University’s new National Center on School Choice.
Education
People in the News
Michael J. Caslin III
Michael J. Caslin III has been hired as the executive vice president for public policy at the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship, a New York City-based nonprofit organization that teaches entrepreneurship to middle and high school students from low-income communities.
Education
Report Roundup
Choice and Competition
There is a difference between offering school choice and encouraging competition among schools, according to a paper by the New York City-based National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education.
Education
Report Roundup
After-School Programs
Shortfalls in federal funding for after-school programs have put those programs at risk, concludes a survey by the Washington-based Afterschool Alliance.
Education
Report Roundup
Civic Involvement
College graduates in the United States vote, volunteer, and trust the government in larger percentages than people who did not graduate from high school, concludes a report by the National Conference on Citizenship.
Education
Report Roundup
Girls-Only Education
Single-sex schools have many positive benefits, suggests a survey of girls who graduated from girls-only schools.
Education
Report Roundup
NCLB Evaluation
The No Child Left Behind Act’s main method for measuring whether schools and districts are reaching annual achievement goals is “fundamentally flawed” and should be suspended until further evaluations of the method are conducted, argues a report.
Education
Report Roundup
Montessori Effects Outlined in Study
Students who attend Montessori schools may see improved academic and social skills over students who attend other types of schools, a study concludes.
Education
People in the News
Catherine Polanski
Catherine Polanski is the new government-affairs director for the Washington-based National Head Start Association, the private, nonprofit organization that advocates policies that strengthen Head Start and provides professional development to Head Start workers, among other services.
Education
People in the News
Joseph J. Cirasuolo
Joseph J. Cirasuolo has been named the chief operating officer for the American Association of School Administrators, a 13,000-member professional organization based in Arlington, Va.