April 7, 1982
Education Week, Vol. 01, Issue 28
Education
House Panel Supports Busing for Desegregation
Busing for school desegregation, the subject of several rancorous Congressional hearings and debates last fall, has received a strong vote of approval from the Democratic majority members of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights.
Education
Impact-Aid Lobby Called Solid, Despite Rumors of Break Up
Some 175 members of the National Association of Federally Impacted Schools (nafis) gathered here last week amid rumors that half the group's members would act to transfer responsibility for impact aid from the Education Department to the Department of Defense.
Education
Group in House Investigating Holdup of Funds for Libraries
A task force of members of the House Budget Committee has begun to investigate charges that the Reagan Administration may be illegally impounding federal funds appropriated by the Congress for fiscal year 1982--including funds to support public libraries.
Education
Military Recruiters Seek Technicians
The U.S. armed services need recruits with strong backgrounds in engineering, members of the Association of Military Colleges and Schools were told last month at their annual meeting in Charleston, S.C.
Representatives of the Navy said they hoped to fill 80 percent of their openings for new officers with candidates who have engineering backgrounds. And the Air Force is seeking engineers for 85 percent of its officer openings.
Education
N.E. Study Blames Schools for Decline in College Quality
The overall quality of New England's colleges and universities is slipping because of "a fundamental weakening" of public schools that has resulted in students who cannot "think critically," according to a regional study conducted by the New England Board of Higher Education.
Education
Oklahoma Schools To Share in Energy, Industrial Wealth
While some states are struggling to keep their schools afloat, Oklahoma is in the enviable position of being economically healthy enough--thanks to increased manufacturing and oil and natural gas production--to upgrade teachers' salaries and create a new computer center within the state department of education.
Education
Temple U. To Cut Education Faculty by 50%
Nearly half the faculty members of the Temple University College of Education--one of the largest research and teacher-training institutions in the country--are scheduled to be given layoff notices this month as a result of the university administration's decision to cut the college's budget by 40 percent over the next three years.
Education
U.S. Judge Upholds Use Of 'Exit Tests' For Handicapped
Peoria, Ill.--Special-education students are not exempt from "minimal-competency" testing programs, and school districts can deny high-school diplomas to such students who fail the exam, a federal judge here has ruled.
Education
N.Y. Board's Plan For Handicapped Draws Criticism
The New York State Board of Regents has enacted changes in the state's special-education regulations that would allow school districts to place children with different disabilities in the same classroom.
Education
Federal News Roundup
A federal judge last week refused to dismiss a lawsuit filed against the state of Mississippi by the U.S. Department of Justice, which is attempting to recover nearly $1 million in federal Title I funds that the federal government alleges were misspent by the state.
The funds, which are intended to provide assistance to disadvantaged and low-income children, were distributed to 10 Mississippi school districts by the then-U.S. Office of Education in 1971 and 1972.
Education
Scholars Seek To Define Academy's Role in Atomic Debate
As students and faculty on hundreds of university campuses prepare for a day of convocations later this month on the threat of nuclear war, more than 125 administrators and scholars from many of these institutions gathered here to discuss "The Role of the Academy in Addressing the Issues of Nuclear War."
Education
Network's Goal: More Women in Math, Science
On March 20, more than 10,000 young women took a step that, for some, was the first move toward careers in fields that otherwise they would not have considered: science, mathematics, and engineering.
Education
Q&A: Boston University President John Silber: An Outspoken Critic of Public Education
Since he became president of Boston University 11 years ago, John R. Silber has instituted a series of educational and financial reforms that have begun to improve the university's academic reputation--and have brought a firestorm of criticism to the outspoken president.
Education
Bills in Calif. Legislature Would Require Longer School Day
When they discovered that California's 4.1 million public-school students receive substantially less instructional time than students elsewhere in the nation, three state senators here decided to do something about it.
Education
State Aid Is Delayed, Causing Cash Crisis In Detroit Schools
Representatives of various school unions here are counseling teachers and other employees to be patient with district officials in the wake of the announcement that April's two paychecks may be delayed because of a serious cash crisis.
Education
Cities News Roundup
A bill that would give the mayor and city council of Philadelphia control of the city's financially beleaguered school system has won the support of the Pennsylvania State House and has been sent to the Senate.
The bill, which passed in a 169-to-24 vote on March 24, would abolish the city's school board and replace it with a Commission on Public Education whose members would be appointed by the mayor. The commission would be empowered, under the proposal, to select a new school superintendent with the approval of the mayor.
Education
Bell Neglecting Public Schools, State Superintendents Charge
The nation's chief state school officials, in a markedly emotional meeting last week, voiced extreme displeasure with the Reagan Administration's posture towards public education, particularly its intention to seek legislation that would introduce a system of tuition tax credits for families with children attending private schools.
Education
Brain Research Offers Teaching Insights, Principals Told
Recent developments in the study of brain growth will allow educators within the next five years to look at the reasons youngsters do and do not learn and to be much more responsive to their needs than ever before, according to an educator who worked with biophysics researchers in the area of brain growth and education--a relatively new and still controversial field.
Education
Details of Tax Credit Not Yet Decided
The undersecretary of the Education Department confirmed last week that President Reagan had approved a proposal to grant federal tax credits to parents of private-school students.
William C. Clohan Jr. said the President had approved the plan "in outline," but he said the details of the proposal had not yet been decided.
Education
Principals Discuss How To Improve School Climate
Secondary-school principals, challenged by dramatic changes in the character of their student populations, appear to be increasingly concerned about improving their schools and dealing more effectively with student "learning styles."
Education
System Still Stereotypes Women, Panel Concludes
Despite women's much-publicized success in entering professions once closed to them, a majority of young women are not receiving the education and training that will allow them to compete sucessfully in the labor force.
Education
Course Developers Aim for Balanced Approach
The organized effort to introduce the nuclear issue into high-school curricula began in earnest with the World Congress on Disarmament Education held in Paris in June 1980 under the auspices of unesco. The congress focused international attention on the topic and produced the "Ten Principles of Disarmament Education" as a guide for educators trying to gather and prepare teaching materials for courses on the subject.
It was about that time that a curriculum called "Decision Making in a Nuclear Age" was developed in the Brookline (Mass.) school system as part of a larger curriculum-development project called "Facing History and Ourselves." The nuclear-issues curriculum was formulated by Roberta M. Snow, a former teacher and coordinator of the curriculum project and Elizabeth Lewis, a curriculum specialist with the school system.
Education
Delaware Jobs Program Spreads to Other States
In 1978, when the youth unemployment rate was a staggering 45 percent in his state, Governor Pierre S. du Pont IV initiated Jobs for Delaware's Graduates (jdg), a comprehensive career-counseling and job-placement program aimed at general-education students, who seemed most likely to end up on the state's unemployment rolls.
Education
Confused State Officials Ask for Help In Adjusting to Federal
State education officials, faced with new responsibilities for federally supported programs, appear to be losing their zeal for the flexibility they have gained under Chapter II of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act of 1981, the law that merged 29 categorical programs into block grants.
Education
Extracurricular Activities Count Little In Admission Decisions,
Contrary to the beliefs of many high-school seniors and the published policies of many colleges, students' outstanding extracurricular accomplishments have little effect on a college's decision to accept them.
Education
Mounting Concern Over Nuclear War Begins To Involve Nation's Schools
In a Chicago high-school classroom, students are considering what would happen if a nuclear bomb were to hit their city. How would it affect them? "Where would we put the morgue?" one asks. "Would there be enough room for all the bodies?"
Education
Legislatures
The governor of Kansas last week vetoed a school-finance measure worked out after several weeks of dispute between House and Senate members.
Originally, the House--and Gov. John Carlin--favored a bill that would have set state-aid levels for three years and would have maintained state-imposed limits on growth in school districts' budgets.
Education
States News Roundup
A two-year study of Massachusetts' special-education law found that the majority of the state's educators, administrators, and parents support the concept of education for all children and would not favor paring the law down.
Support for Chapter 766, which was enacted in 1972 and predates by three years the federal law for educating handicapped children, averaged about 67 percent among the groups surveyed, according to James McGarry, the project director for the $500,000 study.
Education
Hatch Sponsors Bill To Consolidate Vocational Ed.
The Reagan Administration's controversial block-grant proposal for vocational and adult education was introduced in the Senate last week under the sponsorship of Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah.