December 21, 1981

Education Week, Vol. 01, Issue 15
Education State Boards Voice Dismay Over Reagan Pollicies
An alarmed California State Board of Education, frustrated by the Reagan Administration's first budget cuts in education and by predictions of severe cuts in fiscal year 1983, fought back with a resolution blasting federal education policies.
George Neill, December 21, 1981
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2 min read
Education Nine Tiny Towns Named Christmas Have No School
An Education Week survey has disclosed that there are no schools in Christmas--not in Christmas, Ariz., or Christmas, Miss., or Christmas, Fla., or Christmas, Mich., or Christmas, Tenn.
Ann Rickerich, December 21, 1981
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1 min read
Education Virginia Board To Study Creating School District at Military Base
The Virginia Board of Education has delayed the Fairfax County, Va., school board's plan to exclude a military base from its district as a tactic in the district's fight with the federal government over impact-aid cuts.
Alex Heard, December 21, 1981
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3 min read
Education The Surprises of London's Inner-City Schools
During the 1960's and early 1970's, Peter Mortimore taught music in several inner-city London schools, where Cockney was more widely spoken than BBC English and the children's parents were more likely to be laborers than lawyers.
Nancy Paulu, December 21, 1981
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7 min read
Education President Reagan Values Education Meese Proclaims
In his first public speech on education since joining the White House inner circle, Edwin Meese III, counselor to the President, assured some 4,000 California school administrators and board members that the Reagan Administration values education as "a national investment in the future of our country."
George Neill, December 21, 1981
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6 min read
Education Public Aid Hurts Canadian Private Schools, Report Suggests
A program of public aid to private schools in British Columbia appears to have had a "profoundly" negative effect on the schools, and could ultimately make them indistinguishable from public schools, according to an American researcher who has been studying the subject since 1978.
Alex Heard, December 21, 1981
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9 min read
Ed-Tech Policy Soviets Ahead of US in Science, Technology Education, Study Says
Through a "carefully articulated" national strategy initiated more than a decade ago, the Soviet Union has achieved gains in scientific and technological education that place it far ahead of the United States in numbers of courses offered and people trained, according to the authors of The Science Race, a new analysis of the two nations' educational systems.
Susan Walton, December 21, 1981
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5 min read
Education Weicker Will Continue Fight Against Anti-Busing Bills
In spite of two recent Senate votes against busing for school desegregation, Senator Lowell P. Weicker Jr., Republican of Connecticut, has vowed to continue his six-month-long filibuster of the 1982 authorization bill for the Justice Department and the anti-busing amendment attached to it.
Eileen White, December 21, 1981
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3 min read
Education Ruling May Limit Use of Federal Courts for Dismissal Suits
In what some observers have called an "unprecedented decision," a federal appellate court has ruled that a New Jersey teacher may not seek a federal-court injunction against her dismissal until she has exhausted state administrative and legal appeals.
Thomas Toch, December 21, 1981
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5 min read
Education House Panel Is Urged To Continue To Promote Sex Equity in Vocational-Education Programs
The federal government should continue its involvement in promoting sexual equality in vocational-education programs, and it should also make some revisions in the the current system of collecting statistics on vocational education, according to a number of witnesses testifying this month at Congressional subcommittee hearings on the reauthorization of the Vocational Education Act.
Susan G. Foster, December 21, 1981
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3 min read
English Learners Advisory Commission On Bilingual Program Attacks US Studies
A collection of studies commissioned by the Education Department (ed) and made public as the result of a Freedom of Information Act request was denounced by members of the National Advisory Council on Bilingual Education (nacbe) during their meeting in Washington last week.
Susan G. Foster, December 21, 1981
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5 min read
Education Reagan Signs Temporary Budget Bill
Washington--After months of crises and uncertainty over the federal government's budget for fiscal 1982, President Reagan last week signed into law a bill that sets spending levels for most federal agencies--including the Education Department--through next March.
Eileen White, December 21, 1981
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2 min read
Education Federal News Roundup
The Department of Justice announced last week that it will pursue an unprecedented lawsuit that charges the city of Yonkers, N.Y., with illegal segregation in both schools and housing.

Although residential segregation has been a factor in several school-desegregation suits in the past, the Yonkers case is the first to make it a formal part of the charges.

December 21, 1981
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3 min read
Education Illinois Board Members Assail Integration Policy
The Justice Department's new policies on school desegregation are under attack by members of the Illinois State Board of Education.
Don Sevener, December 21, 1981
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3 min read
Education National News Roundup
The Supreme Court last week refused to review a lower-court ruling that established a rigorous standard of proof in sex-discrimination cases in education.

In doing so, the Justices let stand a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit that said that intent to discriminate must be proven under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the law barring sex discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funds.

December 21, 1981
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2 min read
Education Research and Reports
Contrary to popular belief, the beginning reading skills that children acquire in kindergarten do not fade away during the warm summer days away from school. Rather, two Illinois researchers report, children ''continue informally to extend their knowledge" during summer vacation.

The study was conducted by Christine McCormick, a school psychologist for the Eastern Illinois Area of Special Education, and Jana M. Mason of the Center for the Study of Reading at the University of Illinois, Champaign.

December 21, 1981
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5 min read
Education Students To Lose Social Security Benefits
A Congressional decision last August to phase out a federal assistance program for college students that is almost as large as the principal student assistance programs administered by the Education Department has gone largely unnoticed.
Tom Mirga, December 21, 1981
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7 min read
Education States News Roundup
Stressing the need to keep up with California's "technological revolution," Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. promised school board members that he will "set aside specific funds to upgrade science, math, and ... vocational education."

Speaking on Dec. 10 at a luncheon given by the California School Boards Association, Governor Brown said, "Education must train millions in the new careers of the 1980's, as new technologies of microprocessors, robotics, satellite communications, and biotechnology sweep across our economy."

December 21, 1981
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2 min read
Education Creationism Trial Offers Viewers A Lively Show
While the State of Arkansas tried to defend its bill requiring schools to teach "creation science" last week, minor and major diversions distracted attention from the testimony inside the courtroom.

The Associated Press reported one such event: an exhibition, called ''The Missing Link," of two females wrestling in chocolate pudding held in a Little Rock, Ark., nightclub.

December 21, 1981
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2 min read
Education Rand Reports Identify Misuses, Conflicts In Federal Programs
School systems that operate more than one federal education program are likely to experience conflict between federally sponsored programs and regular classes, according to two reports developed for the Education Department by the Rand Corporation, a nonprofit research organization.
Eileen White, December 21, 1981
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7 min read
Education 10 Southern States Create a Network To Share Information
In a unique example of regional cooperation, ten Southern states will begin operating a computerized "education information network" in January.
Susan Walton, December 21, 1981
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4 min read
Education District News Roundup
The superintendent of schools in Essex County, N.J., having admitted to violating the state's conflict-of-interest law, will resign effective Feb. 5.

Howard E. White Jr. was accused last summer by the state Division of Criminal Justice of working for two companies that held nearly $4 million in contracts with the county's Educational Services Commission.

December 21, 1981
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3 min read
Education States News Roundup
The West Virginia Supreme Court has affirmed the state's compulsory-attendance law in a case that hinged on the right of parents to educate their children at home, without state approval, if they believed the public-school curriculum conflicted with their religious beliefs.

Judge Richard Neely, writing the unanimous opinion, said that "sincerely held religious convictions are never a defense to total noncompliance with the compulsory school-attendance law."

December 21, 1981
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4 min read
Education Supreme Court Declines To Review Voluntary-Prayer Case
The U.S. Supreme Court last week decided, without comment, not to hear an appeal by a group of high-school students who wanted to hold voluntary prayer meetings in a public school.
Alex Heard, December 21, 1981
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2 min read
Student Well-Being & Movement Opinion A Modest Proposal To Restore Educational Standards
Seven years ago, Modesto City Schools was a typical California school system: poor but hip. In the name of innovation and relevancy, we suspended all common sense and embraced the fashionable twaddle of John Holt, Herb Kohl, A.S. Neill, Jonathan Kozol, Edgar Friedenberg, and others. We came pretty close to substituting the Seven Deadly Sins for the Eight Cardinal Principles.
James C. Enochs, December 21, 1981
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18 min read
Education Letter to the Editor Letters To The Editor
I enjoy reading Education Week.

However, in your story, "Heritage Influence is Rooted in Broad Network" (Oct. 5) you state: "And two former senior research associates of the committee worked for Heritage: Phillip N. Truluck, who is currently the foundation's executive vice president; and Donald J. Senese, a contributor to Mandate who is now assistant secretary for educational research and improvement in the Education Department." Although I have admiration for the great work of the Heritage Foundation, I have never been one of its employees. I came to the Republican Study Committee in September of 1976 and retained that employment until April 30, 1981 when I became a consultant at the Education Department. I bring this to your attention only to keep the record correct.

December 21, 1981
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1 min read
Education Letter to the Editor Letters To The Editor
I am pleased to have read your reprint of Mr. Van Hoven's comments on the advantages of private-school administration (Commentary, Nov. 23). While I applaud his administrative cosmogony, I do believe that his model for public-school policy is overdressed, covering the naked politics of the private-school world.

After 18 years as a private-school headmaster, I wish that I could say that "most boards of trustees make every effort to afford their heads great latitude in all educational matters." Such an illusion may be of comfort for a while, but the record of numerous of our "best" independent schools does not bear witness to such a relationship.

December 21, 1981
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1 min read