March 27, 1985

Education Week, Vol. 04, Issue 27
English Learners Educators Stress Economic, Social Value of a Bilingual America
Americans should be concerned about making all children bilingual, not just those from language-minority homes, argued speakers at this month's annual conference here of the National Association for Bilingual Education.
Lynn Olson, March 27, 1985
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2 min read
Education The Emma Willard School Questions Old Assuptions
Four years ago, the Emma Willard School's principal, Robert C. Parker, invited the Harvard University psychologist Carol Gilligan to visit his school's Troy, N.Y., campus to explore the possibility that an extended study of the 310 high-school girls enrolled there might prove valuable to her research in developmental psychology.
Lynn Olson, March 27, 1985
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6 min read
Education E.P.A. Shifts Stance on Asbestos Rule Again
The Environmental Protection Agency has once again shifted its position on the regulation of asbestos, deciding to hold off transferring responsibility for enforcement to two other federal agencies until the legal ramifications of such a transfer have been studied in detail.
Sheppard Ranbom, March 27, 1985
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2 min read
Education Bennett Opposed to Increased Private-School Regulation
Private schools whose students would receive tuition tax credits or vouchers if Administration proposals became law should not be subject to increased federal regulation, Secretary of Education William J. Bennett indicated last week.
James Hertling, March 27, 1985
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1 min read
Education Education Bills Pass in New Mexico, South Dakota, Fail in Idaho
Following are summaries of how education measures fared in states that have concluded their current legislative sessions.

IDAHO

March 27, 1985
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5 min read
Education The Varina Mission: Testing Reform for Others
"When trouble lurks, we call for a new strategy and probably reorganize. And when we reorganize, we usually stop at rearranging the boxes on the chart. The odds are high that nothing much will change. We will have chaos, even useful chaos for a while, but eventually the old culture will prevail. Old habit patterns persist. ... If we want change, we fiddle with the strategy. Or we change the structure. Perhaps the time has come to change our ways."--In Search of Excellence.
Linda Chion-Kenney, March 27, 1985
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10 min read
Education States News Roundup
A Texas judge has ruled that three school districts lack the authority to keep about 30 students who received failing grades from participating in an extracurricular activity--a livestock show.

The class action, brought by a parent against the Texas Education Agency, is the latest effort by Texans to clarify an extracurricular-eligi3bility rule that went into effect this year.

March 27, 1985
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5 min read
Education Federal News Roundup
The new chairman of the House Budget Committee said last Monday that the House will probably keep fiscal 1986 education spending at current levels--without allowing for inflation.

The next day, however, the House Education and Labor Committee sent the budget committee a recommendation to allow the Education Department's current $17.9-billion budget to rise at the rate of inflation next year. The committee turned back a Republican effort to freeze elementary, secondary, and vocational education aid at the 1985 level with no adjustment for inflation.

March 27, 1985
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3 min read
Education District News Roundup
Nearly 40 percent of high-school freshmen in Chicago public schools failed at least two of their courses last year, according to an unreleased report given to the city's school board this month.

On a citywide basis, 39 percent of last year's freshmen failed at least two courses, according to the Chicago Tribune, which obtained a copy of the report. But in 18 of the city's 64 high schools the rate was even higher, with half of the freshmen failing two or more subjects, the paper reported.

March 27, 1985
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7 min read
Education News Update
The Hillsboro, Mo., school board has decided to end discussion of the federal Hatch Amendment, which gives parents more control over controversial topics taught in the public schools.

Some parents have contended that Hillsboro officials violated the amendment when they failed to ob-tain prior parental consent for a school-counseling program, the showing of the Walt Disney movie "Never Cry Wolf," a requirement that students keep personal diaries, and a number of other school programs. (See Education Week, Feb. 20, 1985.)

March 27, 1985
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3 min read
Education Supreme Court Says States Are Liable For Misspending of Chapter 1 Funds
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that two federal appeals courts improperly absolved Kentucky and New Jersey of liability for having misspent a combined total of $1.3 million in federal compensatory-education aid in the early 1970's.
Tom Mirga, March 27, 1985
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5 min read
Education New Job-Training Report Says 'Creaming' Charges Not Valid
The government's new $3.6-billion job-training program is serving substantially the same groups that its predecessor did, argues a new Department of Labor study.
Alina Tugend, March 27, 1985
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5 min read
Education Report Assesses Elementary Curriculum Trends, Time on Task
The average 4th grader spends 58 percent of his or her time at school on the academic staples of language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies, and 25 percent on such noninstructional activities as lunch and recess, a new report on elementary-school curricula shows.
Lynn Olson, March 27, 1985
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4 min read
Education Education Department Clarifies Stance on Rights of Handicapped
Fears among special-education advocates here that the Education Department was planning to restructure its enforcement of laws governing the rights of handicapped students were apparently countered last week when Secretary of Education William J. Bennett sent a letter to the Congress pledging to continue "vigorous" enforcement efforts.
Alina Tugend, March 27, 1985
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6 min read
Education Publishing Column
The author of the series of books that helped teach 20 million American children how to read died last month at age 82. And although few of the students who studied her books knew her name--Elizabeth Rider Montgomery Julesberg--most children of the 1940's, 50's, and 60's knew all too well her central characters--Dick, Jane, Sally, and Spot.

In an interview a few years ago, Ms. Julesberg said she began writing the pre-primers and primers when she was a 1st-grade teacher in Los Angeles in 1940. According to The Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Wash., the author said she was "horrified at the available reading books. I knew nothing about writing, but I knew children needed books they could get interested in, not those dull things they handed out."

March 27, 1985
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5 min read
Education School Employees' Rights Broadened By High Court
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a move that broadened the rights of many public-school employees, ruled last week that before such employees can be fired they must be given a full explanation of the reasons for their dismissal and a chance to rebut them in a hearing.
Tom Mirga, March 27, 1985
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7 min read
Education Research And Reports
Technology and rapid work-force changes will reshape schools over the next 15 years in ways that the recent school-reform reports did not take into account, suggests a futurist who has completed a study of what lies ahead for schools.

The American Association of School Administrators commissioned Marvin Cetron, president of Forecasting International Inc. of Arlington, Va., to conduct the study, which has been published as a book, Schools of the Future, by the McGraw-Hill Book Company. Results of the study were released earlier this month at the aasa convention in Dallas.

March 27, 1985
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1 min read
Education National News Roundup
The Ford Foundation has launched an experimental program to strengthen mathematics teaching in inner-city high schools. Five grants, totaling $379,000, will help establish "urban mathematics collaboratives" in Cleveland, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, and San Francisco.

The grants, to be supplemented by $725,000 in local funds, will support educational programs for teachers, such as lectures on applied mathematics in business, intensive summer mini-courses on new technologies, and exchange programs with local colleges and universities.

March 27, 1985
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1 min read
Education Find One-Third of 45. Add 15. Divide by 6. Multiply by 25.
Those who worry that the increasing use of calculators and microcomputers is undermining the mathematical abilities of today's students might have been reassured had they observed the first Lane County Mental Math Competition in Eugene, Ore., this month.

Eighty 3rd- through 8th-grade students representing 15 school districts demonstrated that the human mind is still a remarkable calculating tool.

March 27, 1985
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1 min read
Education Girls in Independent Schools: 'Equality of Access Is Not Enough'
More than a decade has elapsed since some of the nation's most prestigious independent schools began opening their ivy-covered gates to female students.
Lynn Olson, March 27, 1985
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10 min read
Education Oregon Chief Withholds Funding From Rajneeshee Schools
Oregon's superintendent of public instruction has decided to withhold state funds from a school district dominated by members of an Eastern-style religious sect.
Anne Bridgman, March 27, 1985
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7 min read
Education E.D. Official Questions N.I.E.'s Effectiveness, Structure
A top Education Department official last week questioned the effectiveness of the National Institute of Education and hinted that it will probably be brought more directly under the control of the secretary of education.
James Hertling, March 27, 1985
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4 min read
Ed-Tech Policy Schools Bought Record Number of Computers in 1984
The number of microcomputers in public schools increased by 75 percent last year, in what one market analyst called the largest year ever for sales of computers to the nation's schools.
Linda Chion-Kenney, March 27, 1985
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5 min read
Education Washington Teachers Irked by Pay Freeze, Threaten To Strike
Teachers in Washington State are threatening a one-day strike to protest the failure of the new Democratic governor, Booth Gardner, to include funds for increases in teachers' salaries and education-reform measures in his 1985-87 budget proposal.
Blake Rodman, March 27, 1985
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4 min read
Teaching Profession Mississippi Teachers Gain Pay Raise, End Strike
Mississippi teachers ended a strike after the legislature overrode a gubernatorial veto and approved a three-year, $4,400 pay raise.
Lynn Olson, March 27, 1985
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2 min read
Education Opinion 'Publish or Perish' for Precollegiate Educators
We have always known that some teachers are better than others, but only in very recent years has the problem of determining merit become a national issue. Politicians, officials of teachers' unions, school administrators, parents, and teachers themselves agree that superior teachers ought to get better pay than mediocre or poor ones. But how do we determine merit?
Morris Freedman, March 27, 1985
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6 min read
Education Opinion Commentary: In The Press
Pressuring schools to improve by passing new performance standards for teachers and students will result in poorer education, according to Edward L. Deci, a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester.

Writing in the March issue of Psychology Today, Mr. Deci declares that "the recent rhetoric advocating higher standards, [with its] heavy emphasis on control," could actually hurt students' motivation.

March 27, 1985
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9 min read
Education Letter to the Editor Letter To The Editor
I read with interest the commentary about reading instruction by Dianne Sirna Mancus and Curtis K. Carlson ("Political Philosophy and Reading Make a Dangerous Mix," Education Week, Feb. 27, 1985).

Ms. Mancus and Mr. Carlson criticized the "New Right" for its philosophy and m

March 27, 1985
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3 min read