May 19, 1982

Education Week, Vol. 01, Issue 34
Education Better Teaching Key to School Improvement,
The National Commission on Excellence in Education, holding the third of six planned forums on educational issues here last week, heard a new group of professional educators express vehement, if not unexpected, views on the quality of America's schoolteachers and how to improve it.
Sharon Salyer, May 19, 1982
5 min read
Education E.D. Assailed for Weakening Its Enforcement of Title IX
Members of the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues charged last week that the Reagan Administration's decision not to consider Guaranteed Student Loans (GSL's) as a form of federal financial assistance to educational institutions could exempt as many as 300 colleges and universities from compliance with Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and other federal civil-rights statutes.
Tom Mirga, May 19, 1982
3 min read
Education States To Keep Sex-Equity Coordinators Full Time
State education agencies would be required to employ at least one fulltime sex-equity coordinator under proposed regulations for vocational-education programs scheduled for publication next month, according to Robert M. Worthington, assistant secretary for vocational and adult education in the U.S. Education Department (ed).
Susan G. Foster, May 19, 1982
3 min read
Education N.M. Proposal for Learning-Disabled Would Serve Fewer Students
New Mexico--the only state that does not participate in federal special-education programs--is considering new statewide regulations that could significantly reduce the number of children classified as "learning-disabled."
Alex Heard, May 19, 1982
4 min read
Education N.Y. Finance Suit At Last Headed For Resolution
New York's 57-year-old system of financing public education made what may turn out to be its last stand in a hearing last week before the New York Court of Appeals, this state's highest court.
Rick Brand, May 19, 1982
5 min read
Education Levittown: Taxes Up, Residents Down, Relief Unsure
Sixteen long semesters have passed since New York's Levittown school district first went to court to get aid for its financially beleaguered system--the symbol to many of suburban education gone awry.
John Hildebrand , May 19, 1982
5 min read
Education Conservatives Nominated for N.I.E. Grant Panel
Several conservative scholars and political activists who have criticized the activities of the Education Department may soon be assigned by that department to review proposals for federal grants, according to information obtained from the National Institute of Education (nie).
Eileen White, May 19, 1982
2 min read
Education State News Roundup
In order to penalize students who intentionally fail to return borrowed textbooks and other school property, the California Assembly recently passed a bill allowing school districts to withhold students' grades, diplomas, or transcripts until they pay for the property.

Currently, school districts in the state can use such penalties when students damage property, but not when it is reported lost or when the students simply fail to return it.

May 19, 1982
3 min read
Education People News
Jay Luo, a 12-year-old from Boise, Idaho, had his name entered in the record books last Sunday by becoming the youngest person in United States history to receive a degree from a college or university.

Jay, who received his degree in mathematics with honors from Boise State University, plans to begin graduate studies at Stanford University later this year, according to William Mech, the young man's mentor at the university.

May 19, 1982
1 min read
Education City News Roundup
With school aid harder and harder to come by these days, it hurts to see it slip through your hands.

An error by the New York City Board of Education in counting the number of handicapped pupils it serves will cost the city about $30 million in state education aid, state and city officials revealed late last month.

May 19, 1982
3 min read
Education News Updates
The New Hampshire Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments sometime between July and September in the case of four nuns fired by the diocese of Manchester.

The four are appealing a lower court's ruling that the court had the power to interpret their teaching contract, but that Bishop Odore J. Grendon was not out of line when he fired the nuns without stating cause. (See Education Week, March 31 and May 5, 1982.)

May 19, 1982
1 min read
Education Research And Reports
Musical prodigies whose public careers begin as early as age 5 face a "mid-life crisis" by the time they are teen-agers, according to a new study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (mit).

What often results, says Jeanne Bamberger, an associate professor at mit's Division for Study and Research in Education, is that a child of promise, emotionally unequipped to face the pressure of success, drops out of public view. "While many musically prodigious children do go on to become acclaimed artists," she says, "one doesn't ordinarily know of the others because they tend to keep their pasts hidden.

May 19, 1982
1 min read
Education Alaska Legislature Considers Measure
The Alaska state legislature is considering a bill--strongly opposed by local school boards and apparently by some state legislators--that would include teachers in the Alaska Public Employees Relations Act (pera) and establish a binding-arbitration panel to intervene in collective-bargaining disputes under certain conditions.
Susan G. Foster, May 19, 1982
2 min read
Education Books Column
Of General Interest

Child-Stress: Understanding and Answering Stress Signals of Infants, Children, and Teenagers, by Mary Susan Miller (Doubleday & Company, Inc., 245 Park Ave., New York, N.Y. 10167; 264 pages, $14.95).

May 19, 1982
3 min read
Education Federal News Roundup
Eight states filed papers in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia last week, asking that the Education Department be allowed to distribute next year's Title I payments to states on the basis of 1970 census figures.

The eight states--Alabama, Maine, Colorado, Montana, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Kentucky--intervened in Ambach v. Bell, a suit filed late last month by 10 states seeking to force the use of 1980 census data in allocating $2.4 billion in Title I funds for the education of disadvantaged children.

May 19, 1982
4 min read
Education Civil-Rights Group Alleges Racial Bias in Hartford Schools
The Connecticut Civil Liberties Union (CCLU) has complained to two federal agencies that the Hartford school system is violating the rights of minority students by spending less money educating minorities than it spends on white students.
Eileen White, May 19, 1982
3 min read
Education G.A.O. Recommends Improved Efforts in Nutrition Education
At a time when the federal government is eliminating much of its support for nutrition education, a new report from the General Accounting Office (gao) has recommended that the government collect and share information on successful school-based nutrition-education programs.
Susan Walton, May 19, 1982
5 min read
Education High Absentee Rate Cited Among Philadelphia's Teachers
The rate of absences among Philadelphia schoolteachers is nearly twice that in other urban school systems, according to a study released recently by a Philadelphia-area citizens' watchdog group.
Thomas Toch, May 19, 1982
3 min read
Education Dallas Teachers Sue Over Transfer Plan

The Classroom Teachers of Dallas--an affiliate of the Texas State Teachers Association--has filed suit in a state district court accusing Dallas Independent School District Superintendent Linus Wright of attempting to carry out what the group says is an illegal transfer policy to provide jobs for 250 administrators whose jobs as "teaching consultants" will be abolished next year.
May 19, 1982
2 min read
Education News Updates
Competency tests for teachers have gained wide--although not universal--acceptance among educators, and now a survey in Florida suggests that at least in that state, the public also supports the idea of testing teachers.

A statewide survey that covered many issues, conducted by a consulting firm for the state education department, asked the question: "Teachers in Florida are now required to take a competency test before being certified to teach. Do you think the required competency test will improve the quality of education in Florida?"

May 19, 1982
1 min read
Education 141 U.S. High-School Seniors Named Presidential Scholars
One hundred forty-one high-school seniors have been named Presidential Scholars for 1982-83 on the basis of their accomplishments in academics, the arts, leadership, and involvement in their schools and communities.
May 19, 1982
7 min read
Education Research and Reports
Teachers who use techniques of teaching mathematics modeled on those of successful colleagues can bring about marked increases in achievement for their students, according to a recently completed study by two researchers from the College of Education at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

The researchers, Thomas Good and Douglas Grouws, examined the effects of an experimental mathematics program, which they developed from their previous research findings on effective teachers. Using more than 1,000 4th-grade students and 40 teachers from 27 schools, the researchers divided the schools into "treatment" and "control" groups.

May 19, 1982
3 min read
Education People News
The Utah state board of education recently selected Charles M. Bernardo, former superintendent of schools in Montgomery County, Md., to serve as the new state superintendent.

Mr. Bernardo, 44 years old, has been an educational consultant and a real-estate investor and salesman since he was forced to resign from the Montgomery County superintendency position in 1979 because of conflicts with the school board and teachers. He has also served as the superintendent of schools in Providence, R.I.

May 19, 1982
1 min read
Education Court Orders Boston To Pay $30 Million In Back Salaries
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court last week ordered the city of Boston to pay about $30 million in back salary increases that had been guaranteed to members of the Boston Teachers Union, school administrators, and custodians.
E. Patrick McQuaid, May 19, 1982
1 min read
Education Federal News Roundup
A bill that would make it possible for computer companies to donate thousands of computers to schools, by increasing the tax deduction for such a contribution, was criticized as bad tax policy recently by John E. Chapoton, assistant secretary of the treasury.

Mr. Chapoton, testifying before the Senate subcommittee on taxation and debt management, said that the "Technology Education Act of 1982" bill would "permit a favored corporation to obtain three times the benefit from its contribution of computers ... than could be obtained by a corporation donating cash or other types of property for such worthy causes as cancer research."

May 19, 1982
1 min read
Education House Budget Committee Proposes $550-Million
Congressional debate over the fiscal 1983 federal education budget shifted to the House of Representatives last week, as Democrats on the House Budget Committee approved a resolution that sets broad spending targets for federal programs next year.
Eileen White, May 19, 1982
2 min read
Education Federal Support Sought for School Counseling
Despite evidence that counseling reduces vandalism and disciplinary problems, many students and families have no access to guidance services in their elementary and secondary schools, witnesses testified at a hearing before the Senate Subcommittee on Education, the Arts, and the Humanities last week.
Eileen White, May 19, 1982
3 min read
Education Sen. Hatch Moderates Stance on Sex-Equity Requirements
Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, who is noted for his advocacy of conservative causes on Capitol Hill, has surprised his critics and supporters alike by announcing that he will moderate his stance on two key pieces of legislation that deal with sex equity in education.
Tom Mirga, May 19, 1982
3 min read
Education Jones Opposed for Higher Post in E.D.
The post of undersecretary of the Education Department, which the Reagan Administration is expected to fill soon, has become the focus of a political power struggle between some of the department's conservative appointees and Gary L. Jones, the man Administration sources say is scheduled to be appointed to the post.
Eileen White, May 19, 1982
4 min read