August 4, 1987 Extra Edition

Education Week, Vol. 06, Issue 39
Education Educators Are Implored To Stress Broad View Of Constitution
Several prominent jurists and historians, led by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, have given food for thought this spring to teachers drafting lesson plans for next fall's bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution.
Robert Rothman, June 24, 1987
6 min read
Education College Column
Beginning this fall, the American College Testing Program will administer a new assessment for 10th graders, to help them begin planning for college by identifying their academic skills, study habits, and post-high-school goals.

Students participating in the program, known as P-ACT+, will take a three-hour examination, which will include tests in four academic areas--writing, mathematics, reading, and science reasoning--a study-skills test, and a "needs assessment,'' in which students will indicate their academic and counseling needs.

June 24, 1987
4 min read
Education Legislatures, Districts Move to Raise Age For Kindergarten
Responding to concerns that the failure rate among kindergarten students may be rising, a growing number of state legislatures and school districts are requiring that children start school at a later age.
Anne Pavuk, June 24, 1987
12 min read
Education Teacher Wins $335,000 'Genius' Award
A teacher who helped develop an innovative public-school program in New York City was named last week as one of the 32 "outstandingly talented and promising individuals'' to receive fellowships this year from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Deborah Meier, director of Central Park East Secondary School in East Harlem, is the first precollegiate educator to be selected for the honor, which has come to be known popularly as the "genius'' award.

June 24, 1987
2 min read
Education In the Shadow of Disney World, a High School for Tomorrow
It sounds like a recruiting pitch for a well-endowed college: "Fully equipped marine-biology laboratory, modern computer center, solar-energy design center, industrial-robotics shop, and closed-circuit television system with not one, but two video-production studios.''
William Montague, June 24, 1987
6 min read
Education Research and Reports
A decline of almost 30 percent in the earnings of young adult males over the past decade has exacerbated the problems of teen-age pregnancy and child poverty, according to a new study by the Children's Defense Fund.

Although 60 percent of all males between the ages of 20 and 24 were able to earn enough money to lift a family of three out of poverty in 1973, the study found, only 42 percent were able to do so by 1984. During that time, the average annual earnings for that group, adjusted for inflation, dropped from $11,572 to $8,072. And, while earnings dropped for white, black, and Hispanic men alike, black men suffered the greatest loss--almost 50 percent.

June 24, 1987
1 min read
Education Creationism Law in La. Is Rejected By Supreme Court
A Louisiana law mandating balanced treatment for the theories of evolution and creation in public schools violates the First Amendment's prohibition on government establishment of religion, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week.
Tom Mirga, June 24, 1987
3 min read
Education Star Schools Proposal Rekindles Debate on Educational TV
A Senate measure that would pump $100 million over the next five years into educational-telecommunications projects has rekindled the debate among educators over the effectiveness of television as an instructional tool.
Julie A. Miller, June 24, 1987
7 min read
Education Is There a Teacher Shortage? It's Anyone's Guess
Last winter, the National Education Association announced that "public schools in the United States are facing a severe teacher shortage.''
Lynn Olson & Blake Rodman, June 24, 1987
22 min read
Education Hope Seen for Improving Minority Access to Science
WASHINGTON--Officials of the American Association for the Advancement of Science said here last week that existing programs for increasing the access of female, minority, and handicapped students to science and mathematics coursework give encouragement that the underrepresentation of such groups in these fields is a "solvable'' problem.

"We know a lot about what works,'' said Shirley M. Malcom, director of the association's office of opportunities in science. "We have a 'technology transfer' problem.''

June 24, 1987
1 min read
Education Court Upholds 'Mentor Teacher' Program In New York
In a much awaited court decision over the proper lines of authority in schools, a New York State judge ruled last week that a mentor-teacher program in Rochester does not have a "harmful'' effect on administrators in that district.

The Association of Supervisors and Administrators of Rochester filed suit last December seeking to dismantle the program. They contended that the district's 22 mentor teachers were performing only supervisory and administrative tasks without the proper credentials to do so.

June 24, 1987
2 min read
Education Plan To Mandate Seat Belts On School Buses Debated
A Congressman, an emergency-room physician, and a school administrator urged the House Education and Labor Committee last week to approve legislation that would withhold part of a school district's federal education aid if it failed to install seat belts in school buses and regularly inspect the vehicles.
Julie A. Miller, June 24, 1987
4 min read
Education Title IV Centers Face Summer Shutdown
Federally supported desegregation-assistance centers face the prospect of a summer shutdown--postponing training and technical help for many school districts--because the Education Department has failed to issue new regulations on time.
James Crawford, June 24, 1987
6 min read
Education Study Questions Benefits of Tax 'Earmarking'
Efforts to increase state education spending by "earmarking'' state tax revenues often fail to reap the expected financial benefits, according to a newly released study by the National Conference of State Legislatures.
William Montague, June 24, 1987
4 min read
Education Health Column
Teen-agers are saying "no'' to the "just say no'' advertising campaign against drugs, a study in Boston has concluded.

The teen-agers participating in the study rejected anti-drug advertisements that relied on slogans or carried a "preachy'' message, the researchers found.

June 24, 1987
2 min read
Education In the Press
Despite the presence of sex-education courses in schools, American youths continue to be sexually active because schools fail to teach the virtue of abstinence, U.S. Secretary of Education William J. Bennett argues in the July 3 issue of National Review.

"I do not suggest that sex education has caused the increase in sexual activity among young people; but clearly it has not prevented it,'' Mr. Bennett writes in "Why Johnny Can't Abstain.''

June 24, 1987
10 min read
Education Researchers Quit, Charge Agency 'Watered Down' Report on Lead
WASHINGTON--Officials of the U.S. Public Health Service said last week that they were revising a controversial report that outlines the effects of lead on children, following charges that the document "waters down'' the findings of two experts.
Ellen Flax, June 24, 1987
5 min read
Education School Is Closed Due To Concerns About Asbestos
Fears that a renovation project might expose students to hazardous asbestos have forced school officials in Haverford Township, Pa., to close an elementary school seven days before the scheduled end of the academic year.

Despite assurances that preliminary work on the project posed no threat, the absence rate at the 425-student Lynnewood School doubled earlier this month, according to Joseph Anderson, a district spokesman, and "the whole atmosphere was disrupted'' by parental fears.

June 24, 1987
1 min read
Education Panel Endorses Radon Testing
A Senate committee last week approved a bill that would earmark $1.5 million for radon testing and abatement in schools.
Ellen Flax, June 24, 1987
1 min read
Education Letter to the Editor Letters to the Editor
Your article on the U.S. Education Department's school-recognition program ("Low-Profile Reviews Can Lead to High Honors for Schools,'' May 20, 1987), struck a nerve, since the application of our high school was rejected at the national level.

Our concern is based on two points. The first is the decision of someone to place public and private schools in the same competition, although in Ohio, for example, the state's minimum academic standards are different for public and private schools.

June 24, 1987
4 min read
Education Opinion Reforming Teacher Education: A View From Abroad
The current surge of teacher-education reform in the United States (or, more precisely, of talk about it) epitomizes an international problem and opportunity. The problem is simple, but the opportunity at present inaccessible. Agitation about the state of public education, in many countries, has at last moved beyond the stage of proposing facile solutions to complex problems. Few, even of the ill-informed critics of educational performance, are now so naÃive as to suppose that anything much will be changed by a restatement of curricular guidelines, or by a toughening of procedures in assessment or examinations, or by getting nasty with teachers, or (most quaint of all) by a raising of the required standards of admission to the privileges of higher education.
Harry Judge, June 24, 1987
14 min read
Education Home-Schooling Parents Sentenced
A couple in Pleasantville, Iowa, have each been sentenced to 10 hours of community service for violating the state's compulsory-education laws.

Marion County Magistrate Fred J. Kreykes on June 1 found Ron and Deborah Gieseke guilty of a misdemeanor for educating their 8-year-old son, Amos, at home.

June 24, 1987
1 min read
Education Koop Warns of an 'Explosion' of AIDS Among Teen-Agers
The country is facing a future "explosion'' in the number of teen-agers with acquired immune deficiency syndrome, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and other medical experts warned a House panel last week.
Ellen Flax, June 24, 1987
3 min read
Education N.Y.C. Approves School Clinics
The New York City Board of Education last week voted to continue and expand its school health clinics, but delayed making a decision on whether to permit the clinics to dispense contraceptives.
Reagan Walker, June 24, 1987
1 min read