April 5, 2000
Education Week, Vol. 19, Issue 30
Accountability
North Carolina Plan Aims To Close Achievement Gap
Five North Carolina districts are gearing up to test what may become a new element in the state's widely recognized school accountability program: dividing students into various racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic subgroups and then rewarding schools if test scores for students from all those categories improve.
School & District Management
Urban Education
City Views: Three new reports from the Council of the Great City Schools offer a mixed picture of administrative attitudes, funding, and other trends in America's urban schools.
Education
Education Inc.
For all the talk last year about the rise of the for-profit education industry, including in the pages of Education Week, stocks of publicly traded education companies were generally out of favor on Wall Street.
School & District Management
Lagemann Is Named at Spencer
The Spencer Foundation, a Chicago-based philanthropy that supports research in education, last week named Ellen Condliffe Lagemann, a nationally known education historian, as its next president.
Education
News in Brief: A National Roundup
- Gates Millennium Program Announces Nominations
- School Bus Did Not Stop, NTSB Says
- Columbine Report Set for May
- Fall Kills Student Climber
- School Paper Targeted Teachers
- Parents Want More Phys. Ed.
- Nebraska Pole Vaulter Dies
- Accreditation Revision Likely
Assessment
Appeals Court To Review Calif. Teacher Test for Bias
A federal appeals court has agreed to take another look at a long-running lawsuit claiming California's teacher-testing program is biased against minority candidates.
Equity & Diversity
Lifting Minority Achievement: Complex Answers
The Minority Achievement Committee is Shaker Heights' best-known antidote to the nagging academic achievement gap that separates black and Hispanic students from their white and Asian-American counterparts here and in schools nationwide. Includes "In a Texas District, Test Scores for Minority Students Have Soared."
The Minority Achievement Committee is Shaker Heights' best-known antidote to the nagging academic achievement gap that separates black and Hispanic students from their white and Asian-American counterparts here and in schools nationwide. Includes "In a Texas District, Test Scores for Minority Students Have Soared."
Standards
Worries of a Standards 'Backlash' Grow
It sounded fine in theory: Set high standards for what students should know and be able to do. Give teachers and students the resources and help they need to reach the standards. Use tests to measure whether the goals are being met, and encourage results by rewarding success and penalizing failure.
Federal
Bush Leading Republicans In New Direction
Not the typical Republican presidential candidate, George W. Bush wants to create a brand-new federal reading program.
Equity & Diversity
In a Texas District, Test Scores For Minority Students Have Soared
Five years ago, the passing rates on state tests for students in this sprawling working-class suburb of Houston were separated by chasms of 30 points or more. Whites were at the top. Black and Hispanic students were at the bottom.
Education
Federal File
The Department of Education is warning more than 306,000 incoming college freshmen that they need to come clean about any criminal history with drugs or risk missing out on federal financial aid.
'Fessing up
The Department of Education is warning more than 306,000 incoming college freshmen that they need to come clean about any criminal history with drugs or risk missing out on federal financial aid.
Federal
Bush Offers Proposals On Reading, Teacher Quality
Raising the ante for his education agenda, Gov. George W. Bush of Texas unveiled two new campaign proposals last week designed to help students read by the 3rd grade and improve the quality of the nation's teachers.
Education
Momentum Building For Construction Funding
The scenes from the school are shocking, but are familiar to many educators across the country: broken windows, mildewed ceiling tiles with gaping holes, and rotting wooden bookshelves.
Education
GOP Plan Would Give States More Spending Flexibility
The chairman of the House education committee released a proposal late last week that would allow states and school districts to transfer money between several big-ticket programs contained in the main federal K-12 law.
The chairman of the House education committee released a proposal late last week that would allow states and school districts to transfer money between several big-ticket programs contained in the main federal K-12 law.
Early Childhood
Kentucky Legislature Passes Early-Childhood Initiative
In the final days of its regular session, the Kentucky legislature last week passed a wide-ranging early-childhood initiative that proponents hailed as a landmark effort in a state that has gotten low marks in national ratings of children's well-being.
Teaching Profession
Teacher-Quality Plan Facing Slim Odds As Kentucky Session Ends
The condition of a Kentucky initiative to improve teacher quality slipped from critical to virtually dead last week as the state's regular legislative session ended without agreement on the measure.
Recruitment & Retention
Colorado Lawmakers OK School Rating Plan
Colorado schools will be assigned letter grades based on their state test results, under a bill that Gov. Bill Owens is poised to sign into law this week.
School Climate & Safety
Arizona Leaders Urge Tax Hike for Education
With Arizona trailing the nation in per-pupil spending, Gov. Jane Dee Hull and other leading Republicans are hoping to overcome their party's traditional aversion to higher taxes by calling for a sales-tax increase earmarked for education.
Ed-Tech Policy
Home Computers Used Primarily For Learning, Families Say in Survey
Parents might not be at sea, after all, when their children go into cyberspace.
Teaching Profession
Teachers' Unions To Merge In Two More States
Members of the two teachers' unions in Montana were poised to celebrate late last week as their organizations cemented a long-planned merger.
Assessment
Rebels With a Cause
Alex Sommerfeld is pretty much your typical teenager. Thin with close-cropped dark hair, he likes soccer, surfs the Internet for hours at a time, and is on intimate terms with profanity. He lives in a small, white-frame house in the Boston suburb of Danvers with his father. When his dad tells him to stop biting his nails, he tells his dad to shut up.
 | Sommerfeld became a martyr for the MCAS resistance. |
Education
Events
April
10-11—College admission: The Path to College, sponsored by the College Board, Equity 2000, for educators, in Washington. Contact: Marlene Guy, 1233 20th St. N.W., Washington, DC 20036-2304; (202) 822-5930; fax: (202) 822- 5939, ext. 120; e-mail: mguy@collegeboard.org.
School Climate & Safety
California Sued Over Construction Funding
Calling the way California doles out money to build new schools illegal, a coalition that includes Los Angeles students and community groups filed a suit last week seeking to bar the state from handing out construction aid until the most crowded districts can be guaranteed more help.
School & District Management
State Journal