February 27, 1985

Education Week, Vol. 04, Issue 23
Education Baltimore Study Seeks To Identify, Curb Early Behavioral Problems
Public-school officials here have launched a five-year effort to identify and curb learning and behavioral problems in young children that could lead to depression, drug and alcohol abuse, and delinquency.
Lynn Olson & Becky Todd York, February 27, 1985
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4 min read
English Learners Delay in Bilingual Rules Provokes Ire, Will Affect Grants for 1985
A delay within the Education Department on the writing of regulations for the new bilingual-education law means that about $95 million in competitive grants will be awarded this year on the basis of administrative rules.
James Hertling, February 27, 1985
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4 min read
Education Governors in 3 States Advocate Slight Increases in School Aid
Following are summaries of governors' state-of-the-state and budget messages delivered this month.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

February 27, 1985
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5 min read
Education Success in Early Grades Said Key to Well-Being
Schools have been isolated for too long in the overwhelming task of socializing children "in terms of the basic skills needed in the marketplace and in later social and psychological life," argues the chief researcher in the Baltimore project on symptoms of maladjustment in the early grades.

Dr. Sheppard G. Kellam, the Johns Hopkins University psychiatrist who is heading the project, maintains that a child's initial transition from home to school, and his or her success in the early grades, is crucial to later well-being. But society, he argues, has been "failing to prepare children in 1st grade to succeed at the core learning tasks needed in 2nd grade in horrendous numbers."

February 27, 1985
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3 min read
Education North Carolina Legislature Will Debate Bill To Abolish Tenure for Principals
A proposal to abolish tenure protection for North Carolina's public-school principals will go to the state's General Assembly without the endorsement of the state board of education, which voted this month not to support the plan.
Blake Rodman, February 27, 1985
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4 min read
Ed-Tech Policy Tips for Keeping Computers, Peripherals Working
A preventive-maintenance program can decrease the number of times a computer breaks down--and thus the amount of time teachers, students, or administrators must work without their machines, experts say.

But, they add, because computers are relatively recent fixtures in schools, many educators do not know how to keep their computers and peripherals--such as printers, modems, and disk drives--in good working order.

February 27, 1985
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4 min read
Education Tips for Considering Various Service Options
Before buying computers, or at least before the customary 90-day warranty runs out, school officials should consider the cost-effectiveness of available service options.

These include a pay-per-call arrangement, which many school officials say is extremely costly; a yearly contract with vendors that can include such options as on-site repair and one-day service; and the use of third-party servicers.

February 27, 1985
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3 min read
Education Federal News Roundup
More than 10,000 teachers have told the government they dream of becoming the next John Glenn or Sally Ride, but only one will be the first private passenger in space next November.

Officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration say they received 10,345 applications by the Feb. 1 deadline for the "Teacher in Space" program announced by President Reagan last August.

February 27, 1985
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2 min read
Education National News Roundup
In a statement intended to shift the attention of federal policymakers away from the national deficit and toward the issue of poverty, 36 prominent religious leaders have endorsed a statement calling for child-care policies and employment programs for the young as one means to eliminate poverty in America.

"We believe that poverty causes a human-resources deficit in our country with consequences no less severe than the budget deficit," wrote Cheryl Morden, chairman of Interfaith Action for Economic Justice, the coalition that released the statement, in a letter to members of the Congress.

February 27, 1985
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1 min read
Education 'New' Minds for New Business
The Mitsubishi Corporation is Japan's largest diversified trading company, so its manager for recruitment and development, Kazuaki Hikida, has little trouble finding qualified applicants for the 150 managerial-trainee positions he fills each year. More than 1,000 recent college graduates apply.
Sheppard Ranbom, February 27, 1985
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14 min read
Education Wanderer of the Alleys
Jiro is 11 years old and wanders the neighborhood like a stray cat, lapping his milk from the bowls left for him in the neighbors' houses.

They take him into their homes, feed him leftovers and fruit, serve up the love he cannot find at home.

Sheppard Ranbom, February 27, 1985
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2 min read
Ed-Tech Policy The 'Hidden' Cost of Computers
Three years ago, the St. Paul's School in Brooklandville, Md., had five computers. According to Mark S. Curtis, the school's director of computer studies, extended warranties were purchased for three of the systems at a cost of about $600.
Linda Chion-Kenney, February 27, 1985
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8 min read
Education In Senate, Hatch Asks for 'Common Sense' on Parents' Rights
In the face of widely divergent interpretations of federal regulations that give parents more control over controversial topics taught in public schools, the sponsor of the law last week took to the floor of the Senate to clarify its intent and to plead for a "common-sense" approach to applying the rules.
Anne Bridgman, February 27, 1985
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5 min read
Education Teacher Panel To Call for Tests, Longer Training
The National Commission on Excellence in Teacher Education will recommend in a policy statement scheduled for release this week that colleges of education adopt five-year teacher-training programs and is expected to recommend competency testing of prospective teachers prior to graduation, members of the commission said last week.
Cindy Currence, February 27, 1985
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5 min read
Education High Court To Rule on Students' Right To Hold Religious Meetings at School
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed last week to hear a case involving the politically sensitive issue of whether high-school students should be allowed to hold religious meetings on school grounds.
Tom Mirga, February 27, 1985
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6 min read
Education States News Roundup
A month after Kentucky's governor and superintendent of public instruction began visiting each of the state's 120 counties to promote greater community involvement in education reform, members of the state legislature's joint education committee announced that they,3too, would leave the marble halls of Frankfort to discuss school improvements.

Traveling in two separate vans, the 30-member legislative panel will visit 15 cities over a three-month period, conducting public hearings in each city, according to Roger L. Noe, chairman of the House education committee.

February 27, 1985
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3 min read
Education Shopping Spree For Teachers
The 2,100 teachers in a Kansas City, Mo., school district have received a special assignment: to spend one day shopping for $100 worth of teaching equipment--with somebody else's money.

The business community in the largely minority school district decided last summer to try to make teachers feel more appreciated, according to Norman Hudson, the president of the Kansas City Federation of Teachers. So the business leaders joined together to hold a "teachers' fair" featuring educational supplies, and they urged local businesses and residents to "sponsor a teacher" for $100.

February 27, 1985
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1 min read
Education News Update
A Maine school board did not infringe on a lesbian's free-speech rights when it canceled a school program in which she was scheduled to participate, a superior-court judge has ruled, and the school does not have to reschedule the event.

Dale McCormick, president of the Maine Lesbian-Gay Political Alliance, was scheduled to participate, along with several other minority- group representatives, in a faculty-approved "Tolerance Day" program at Madison High School on Jan. 25. (See Education Week, Feb. 6, 1985.)

February 27, 1985
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2 min read
Education Classroom Rebels
An American visiting a Japanese high school is struck by a curious piece of Americana that appears again and again on notebooks and textbook covers. It is the image of James Dean, the young actor of the 1950's whose life and death symbolized for a generation of Americans the loneliness of cultural alienation.
Sheppard Ranbom, February 27, 1985
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12 min read
Education Precautions
Kazoyuki Shindo, a vice president at Toyo Kohan, a major producer of tin plate, said that his alma mater, Waseda University, has had problems in the past several years because parents were bribing faculty members to obtain copies of the university's entrance examination before it was administered. Now, he said, Waseda and the public universities take extra precautions: The tests are printed in jails by prisoners who cannot give copies out, and they are kept locked up in a safe until the day of exams.

Sheppard Ranbom, February 27, 1985
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1 min read
Education Readers: Just for Fun
Just for fun, I took a metro ride during the morning rush hour from Korakuen to the shopping and business district of downtown Tokyo. As I boarded the train, a phalanx of businessmen, students, and office workers charged forward in one bone-crunching surge, squeezing through the narrow gate of the subway door in the brief seconds that it remained open.

At each stop, more people jammed through the door, and although we were squashed together, passengers read their books and newspapers. There was hardly enough room for their eyes to move, let alone their hands.

Sheppard Ranbom, February 27, 1985
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1 min read
Education 'Examination Hell'
Four years ago, 18-year-old Takehisa Kishimoto seemed virtually assured of success in life. He had just graduated from La Salle High School, a famous private school in the city of Kagoshima that annually places almost half of its class of 270 seniors in Japan's elite universities.
Sheppard Ranbom, February 27, 1985
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19 min read
Education Schooling in Japan, Part Two High School: Cultural Values in Conflict
In Japan, as in the United States, high schools have become the prime target for much of the rhetoric surrounding educational reform. It is here, at the stage when personalities solidify and career paths take shape, that the discrepancies between what the society intends for its young and what it actually delivers become most apparent.
February 27, 1985
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2 min read
Education Alabama Officials Disagreeing on Career Ladder
Educators and politicians in Alabama are preparing for a heated debate over a career-ladder proposal introduced in the legislature last week.
Lynn Olson, February 27, 1985
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5 min read
Education Principals' Pay Rises
The salaries of principals and assistant principals in public schools rose last year by between 7.1 and 9.3 percent--the largest average percentage increase in four years.

According to the 1984-85 survey of the Educational Research Service, the highest salary for a building administrator this year is $67,102; that sum is paid to a senior-high-school leader in a district of 25,000 or more students. The lowest principal's salary reported, $15,200, is paid to the head of an elementary school in a district of between 2,500 and 10,000 students, according to the survey.

February 27, 1985
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1 min read
Education Michigan Schools Required To Offer 'Shared Time'
A sharply divided Michigan Supreme Court has ruled that the state's public schools must open "nonessential" courses such as band and art to local private-school students whose schools do not offer such electives.
Tom Mirga, February 27, 1985
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6 min read
Education Legislation on School-Bus Seat Belts Pending in Congress, Several States

Employing a variety of incentives and threats, several pieces of legislation concerning seat belts on school buses are due for consideration in statehouses and in the Congress.
February 27, 1985
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1 min read
Education New Generation of Parents Spurs Drive For School-Bus Seat Belts
According to estimates from the National Safety Council, 390,000 school buses transported 21.5 million students each day in 1983. Ten school-bus passengers were killed and about 3,300 students were injured in accidents involving school buses.
Blake Rodman, February 27, 1985
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7 min read
English Learners Houston Schools Turn to Mexico for Bilingual Teachers
Demonstrating just how difficult it has become to find enough bilingual teachers for Spanish-speaking students, the Houston Independent School District has carried its recruiting efforts south of the border.
J.R. Sirkin, February 27, 1985
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6 min read
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