February 10, 1988

Education Week, Vol. 07, Issue 20
Education Calif. Plan Reshapes Early Grades
A state task force will recommend that California "reconfigure" its programs for 4- to 6-year-olds into a single "lower primary unit," the panel's co-chairman said here last week.
Deborah L. Gold, February 10, 1988
4 min read
Education Probe Finds Many Newark Educators Lack Proper Certification
The Newark public-school system is checking the certification records of more than 200 of its professional employees after a recent state review raised questions about their credentials.

The certification check was ordered by Elena J. Scambio, the Essex County school superintendent who monitors the Newark school system for the state.

February 10, 1988
1 min read
Education People News
Ishmael Jaffree, the Mobile, Ala., lawyer who persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court in 1985 to overturn the state's moment-of-silence law, has failed in his attempt to have a court declare that secular humanism is not a religion.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled Jan. 26 that Mr. Jaffree lacked legal standing to demand that the federal courts rule on the issue.

February 10, 1988
2 min read
Education States News Roundup
Florida's education system is failing to serve black students at all levels, according to a hard-hitting report by an advisory committee to the state board of education.

The study, conducted by a panel of educators, found that black students are disproportionately placed in special-education programs, forced to repeat grades, and suspended or expelled from school.

February 10, 1988
2 min read
Education News Update
A proposal by the Andover and Lawrence school districts in Massachusetts to meld some students from their racially and economically unlike jurisdictions into a jointly run school moved a step closer to becoming a reality last month when the state legislature voted to pay most of the land-acquisition and construction costs.

Although officials from the two neighboring districts had hoped the state would pick up the entire cost of both, the director of the collaborative effort said last week that the legislature's decision to pay 90 percent of each moved the plan forward nonetheless.

February 10, 1988
1 min read
Education Bennett: Schools Fail To Prepare Blacks for College
Secretary of Education William J. Bennett last week reiterated his claim that poor precollegiate academic preparation, rather than a lack of access to higher education, is responsible for the underrepresentation of black students on college campuses.
Robert Rothman, February 10, 1988
1 min read
Education Books: New Publications: Methods, Research
Curriculum and Methods

"The Having of Wonderful Ideas" and Other Essays on Teaching and Learning, by Eleanor Duckworth (Teachers College Press, 1234 Amsterdam Ave., New York, N.Y. 10027; 151 pp., $13.95 paper). Essays on the applications of Jean Piaget's thought for teaching, evaluation, and curriculum development.

February 10, 1988
7 min read
Education News in Brief
Agency and Union Oppose Math-Science School

February 10, 1988
3 min read
Education Districts News Roundup
A law firm representing the District of Columbia's public schools in lawsuits against former asbestos manufacturers has withdrawn from a multi-million-dollar contract with the school system in the wake of charges that the contract was too costly and possibly improperly awarded.

At a meeting last week, the D.C. board of education voted to request an independent audit of its no-bid contract with the firm Leftwich, Moore and Davis, which was harshly criticized by the city's auditor for having charged the district $4.5 million for legal services since December 1984. Board members had previously estimated that the contract would cost between $20,000 and $65,000 per year.

February 10, 1988
3 min read
Education Contracts for 16 ERIC Centers Set
The Education Department last week announced the recipients of contracts to operate the 16 clearinghouses of the Educational Resources Information Center system.
February 10, 1988
1 min read
Education Fla. Governor Outlines Major Initiative for Disadvantaged
Gov. Bob Martinez of Florida plans to ask lawmakers to fund a $35-million initiative to address the educational and social needs of the state's disadvantaged children.

Known as the care program--for Children At Risk Embraced--the initiative would dramatically expand preschool services and increase the availability of before- and after-school care in elementary schools.

February 10, 1988
1 min read
Education E.D. Management Invites Waste, Fraud, G.A.O. Report Contends
Washington--Flawed financial-management methods at the Education Department are exposing billions of dollars in federal funds to the potential for waste and fraud, the General Accounting Office contends in a new report.

"Overall, the Department of Education's accounting system does not provide managers with the reliable information they need to protect financial resources from fraud, waste, and mismanagement, and to satisfy internal and external financial reporting requirements," the report says.

February 10, 1988
1 min read
Education On the Influence of the Army Alpha 'Intelligence Test'
The shaping of curriculum and pedagogy according to preconceptions about children's abilities limits the achievement of at-risk students, Patricia Albjerg Graham suggests in a forthcoming study for the Council of Chief State School Officers.

Ms. Graham, dean of the graduate school of education at Harvard University, traces back to research from the 1920's the origins of the notion that education should be adjusted to students' perceived ability levels.

February 10, 1988
3 min read
Education Legislative Update
The following are summaries of governors' budget requests for precollegiate education and related highlights of their legislative agendas. Final action by lawmakers will be reported in the months ahead.

February 10, 1988
2 min read
Education Bennett Decries 'Stultifying' Laws
"Omnipresent, stultifying" legal restrictions hinder talented educators and allow poor ones to make excuses for their performance, Secretary of Education William J. Bennett charges in a speech prepared for delivery late last week before the American Bar Association.
Julie A. Miller, February 10, 1988
2 min read
Education Groups Oppose Expansion of Federal Tests
The American Association of School Administrators and the National pta have become the first major groups to go on record as opposing the proposed expansion of the nation's "report card" on student achievement.
Robert Rothman, February 10, 1988
1 min read
Education Kean Seeks Pay Hike for New and Urban Teachers
Pressing on with his efforts to make teaching a more attractive profession, Gov. Thomas H. Kean of New Jersey has proposed raising the state's minimum annual salary for teachers to $22,000.

If approved, the new pay level would be the nation's highest state-mandated salary for beginning teachers, according to officials at the Education Commission of the States and the American Federation of Teachers.

February 10, 1988
1 min read
Education Private Schools
John F. Gummere, a Quaker educator who helped found the National Association of Independent Schools and served as its first chairman, died of heart failure Jan. 26 in Philadelphia. He was 86 years old.

A proponent of classics instruction at the secondary-school level, Mr. Gummere was the author of a series of Latin textbooks, Using Latin. He was a leader in efforts to develop stronger management skills among school administrators.

February 10, 1988
2 min read
Education Research and Reports
Educators are ignoring studies from a variety of disciplines that all point to the need for different instructional approaches to counter the chronic underachievement of minorities and women in science and technology, argues a new report.

Many experimental programs that adapt instruction to students' individual needs have proven successful in teaching the skills needed for technological literacy, according to the report, which was commissioned by the National Research Council's committee on research in mathematics, science, and technology education. But they go unnoticed, it says.

February 10, 1988
2 min read
Education Tenn. May Drop Part of Career-Ladder System
Tennessee education officials are proposing that part of the incentive package included in the state's pioneering career-ladder system be deleted because it results in an inequitable distribution of state resources.
Blake Rodman, February 10, 1988
4 min read
Education Bennett Announces Panel Appointments

Advisory Council on Education Statistics: Margaret C. Broad, executive director and chief executive officer, Arizona Board of Regents, Phoenix; Ellis B. Page, professor of educational psychology and research, Duke University, Durham, N.C.; and Ray Turner, assistant superintendent for educational accountability, Dade County Public Schools, Miami.
February 10, 1988
17 min read
Education It's a (6 to 8) Grand Old Flag
School officials in Liberal, Kan., think they have found a relatively inexpensive way to pick up an additional $6,000 to $8,000 in state transportation-cost reimbursements.

They are moving the flagpole outside Liberal High School from one side of the building to the other.

February 10, 1988
1 min read
Education Takeover Threat In Omnibus Bill Worries Officials
Washington--Chapter 1 provisions that are likely to be included in the pending omnibus education bill could greatly alter the relationship between school districts and the state officials who administer the federal compensatory-education program.
Julie A. Miller, February 10, 1988
6 min read
Education From 'Relic' to Real World
Coeducation, says the Rev. Edwin M. Ward, headmaster of the St. Stephen's Episcopal School for Boys here, will better prepare students for "life in a coed world."
Kirsten Goldberg, February 10, 1988
10 min read
Education Deerfield's Choice Was 'Educational and Practical'
After years of debate over whether to admit girls, the 191-year-old Deerfield Academy in Deerfield, Mass., has decided to become coeducational.
Kirsten Goldberg, February 10, 1988
3 min read
Education E.D. Adds Science 'Mini-Center'
The Education Department has awarded a three-year, $1.5-million grant to The Network Inc., a nonprofit research firm, to create a "mini-center" to study science instruction.
Robert Rothman, February 10, 1988
1 min read
Education State Mandates, Equity Law: On a Collision Course?
Alfred D. Tutela, superintendent of the Cleveland Public Schools, has an ambitious agenda for improving the quality of the education provided in his district.
William Snider, February 10, 1988
10 min read
Education Early Years
Two-thirds of the elementary- and middle-school principals responding to a new survey said they thought public schools should provide before- and after-school child care; only 22 percent said they now offer such programs.

Most who responded to the National Association of Elementary School Principals' survey agreed that changes in the family had made the need for supervision beyond school hours an imperative.

February 10, 1988
4 min read
Education Schools as Soapbox: Candidates Woo Student Audiences
It's February of 1988 and that means most high-school students in New Hampshire can look forward to coming to school and meeting someone who is running for President--if they haven't met a candidate already.
Lisa Jennings, February 10, 1988
4 min read