August 21, 1985
Education Week, Vol. 04, Issue 40 & 41
Education
Florida To Pay $20 Million to 'Merit' Schools in 1985-86
With the allocation of $20 million for distribution in September 1985, Florida is expected to become one of the first states to establish a comprehensive "merit-school" program.
Education
Problems in Math, Science Education Spur Varied Policy Initiatives
New evidence of systemic problems in mathematics and science education was reported this summer as the Congress completed action on a long-delayed measure to upgrade instruction in the disciplines and several national groups announced related initiatives.
Education
District's Private-School Aid Ruled Church-State Violation
New York City's federally supported compensatory-education program, in which some public-school teachers conduct remedial classes in private religious schools, violates the constitutional separation of church and state, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has unanimously ruled.
Education
Court Orders Catheterization Service for Student
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this summer that school systems must provide handicapped students with catheterization and other health services in order to help them benefit from education.
Education
Education Department Honors Exemplary Schools
Following is a list of 60 private schools honored by the U.S. Education Department in the 1983-84 Exemplary Private School Recognition Program, and 202 public secondary, junior high, and middle schools honored in the 1983-84 Secondary School Recognition Program.
The recognition program for private schools grew out of the National Commission on Excellence in Education's effort to identify schools that put good educational practices into effect.
Education
N.E.A. Offers a Plan for Better Schools
Charging that the many recent reports on schooling have failed to adequately express the views of those working on the educational front lines, the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers' union, this summer released its own recommendations for reform.
Education
Officials Revise Teacher-Pay Scheme
Responding to a flood of criticism about the merit-pay plan they designed last year, Florida's state legislators have made several major changes in it this summer that may require the 28,000 teachers who have applied for the program to reapply.
Education
Excerpts From The Court's Ruling In Memphis Firefighter's Case
In the excerpts that follow, single asterisks in brackets, [ 
- ], denote footnotes that have been omitted; double asterisks, [
- ], denote legal citations omitted.
Education
Court Counters Lawmakers on Legality of Religious Student Clubs
The day before the Congress approved a bill guaranteeing the right of student religious groups to meet in schools, a federal appeals court upheld the Williamsport, Pa., school district's policy of prohibiting such meetings during school hours.
Education
State Boards Advance School-Reform Proposals
State boards of education across the country reacted this summer to the recent reports on education reform by passing initiatives to strengthen graduation requirements, add more units to the curriculum, develop basic-skills tests, and raise the compulsory-attendance age.
Education
Teachers of Chinese Explore Ways To Nurture Their Difficult Subject
In what they described as the first such gathering ever held in this country, a small band of distinguished scholars, language specialists, and high-school teachers of Chinese met earlier this summer at The Ohio State University to discuss their efforts to expand the number of high-school programs of language instruction in Chinese.
Education
Chicago's School Board Denies Love New Contract
A divided Chicago Board of Education this summer voted not to renew the contract of Ruth B. Love, the first black superintendent of the city's schools.
Education
Federal Court Allows Norfolk Schools To Abandon Busing Plan
A federal district judge gave his approval early last month to a plan presented by Norfolk, Va., school officials that would make the city the first in the nation to successfully desegregate its elementary schools and then drop its mandatory busing policy.
Education
News Update
A closed administrative hearing was held July 30 and 31 in the case of Alice Zook, an Illinois high-school teacher who was fired for showing a video tape of male aerobic dancers to her female gym classes. (See Education Week, May 23, 1984.)
Ms. Zook said she asked for the hearing because she feels she was illegally fired.
Education
Work Habits, Not Skills, Cited
Businesses that hire high-school graduates are more troubled by their attitudes toward work than by their lack of academic abilities, two reports released this summer conclude.
Education
House Backs Silent Prayer, Use of Schools for Religious Meetings
The Democratic-controlled House approved legislation this summer allowing public-school students to pray silently in school at any time and to hold religiously oriented meetings during noninstructional hours.
Education
For The Record
The following is the education plank of the Democratic Party's 1984 platform.
Education
Making the Grade: A Kindergarten Summer School in Minneapolis
The nation's first minimum-competency-testing program for kindergartners scored a victory recently, Minneapolis school officials say, when more than half of the students who attended a remedial summer-school program passed the test after failing it last spring.
Education
Most Teachers Support School Reforms, Survey Finds
An independent national survey of teacher attitudes commissioned by a major life-insurance company has found substantial support among public-school teachers for many of the recent proposals to upgrade their profession.
Education
Foreign Imports Ease Georgia Teacher Shortage
To cope with a shortage of mathematics and science teachers, the State of Georgia has begun to recruit them from West Germany, where there is a large surplus of instructors.
A team of Georgia educators interviewed 30 candidates in Germany this summer and hired 8 to fill vacancies in 6 county school systems in the state for one year, beginning this fall.
Education
People News
"Perhaps the greatest single challenge facing us at the Endowment is to make a difference in developing, over time, a citizenry that has a degree of understanding, appreciation, and literacy in the arts," Frank Hodsoll, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, recently told experts in arts education.
Mr. Hodsoll spoke at the first in a series of five regional meetings sponsored by the endowment and the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies to identify and disseminate techniques and strategies for improving arts education nationwide.
Education
Indiana Student With AIDS Files Suit Over Move To Bar Him From School
In what is thought to be the first legal test of the educational rights of students with acquired immune deficiency syndrome, lawyers for a 13-year-old Indiana boy suffering from aids have filed suit against his school district in federal district court over the boy's right to attend classes.
Education
For The Record
Following are excerpts from Secretary of Education William J. Bennett's Aug. 7 speech in Washington, D.C., to the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic lay organization.
Education
Federalist Capers
Secretary of Education William J. Bennett, who has mounted the bully pulpit with gusto and confronted fellow educators, policymakers, politicians, and journalists over numerous issues, is about to encounter perhaps his toughest audience to date.
Beginning next Tuesday, Aug. 27, in Shreveport, La., Mr. Bennett plans to teach classes in seven schools, in an effort "to dramatize and praise success stories in education," according to his spokesman, Loye W. Miller.
Education
College Group To Publish Directory of Diploma Mills
The American Council on Education, calling the organizations that sell fraudulent college degrees "numerous, tough, and aggressive," says it plans to release a directory of the so-called diploma mills later this year.
Education
California Agency To Crack Down on Educators Failing To Report Abuse
A growing number of well-publicized child-abuse cases involving California educators has led the state's credentialing agency to assert it will "take a hard line" on disciplining teachers and administrators who fail to report suspected child abusers in schools.
Education
District News Roundup
Voluntary, private religious courses can be held in public schools in the evening or on weekends but not just before or after the school day, a federal district judge in Toledo, Ohio, ruled this month.
Acting in a lawsuit involving the Findlay public schools, U.S. District Judge John Potter held that children can be misled into thinking the state supports a particular religion when religious instruction is offered in their school at a time when school personnel are still working. But he added that such programs were permissible at times when teachers and students would not otherwise be present at school.
Education
Bennett Considering Major Study Of Nation's Elementary Schools
The Education Department is actively considering whether to conduct a major study of elementary education similar to an influential 1983 study that helped ignite the national debate on the quality of America's high schools, high-ranking department officials have indicated.