September 16, 1987

Education Week, Vol. 07, Issue 02
Education Combative Bennett Charges Into Final Year: Says He Will Stress 'Accountability' of Educators For Results
Washington- The theme is "accountability."
Julie A. Miller, September 16, 1987
7 min read
Education Boyer Urges Focus on Teaching in '88 Presidential Contest
Chapel Hill, NC--Ernest L. Boyer, president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, last week challenged the country's Presidential candidates to "make teacher excellence a national crusade" in 1988.
Lynn Olson, September 16, 1987
3 min read
Education News in Brief
A Minnesota court has temporarily blocked plans by state officials to sell 1,600 lakeshore "16th section" school lots now leased to private citizens.

The Ramsay County District Court halted the sales on Aug. 29, pending a hearing later this month in a suit that charges Gov. Rudy Perpich and other top officials with mismanaging the state's school lands.

September 16, 1987
3 min read
Education Study Finds Black Self-Pride Still Low
New York City--Researchers who repeated a landmark study on racial pride have concluded that feelings of inferiority among young black children are as strong now as they were 40 years ago.
Debra Viadero, September 16, 1987
3 min read
Education Reporters Notebook: Findings on Teen Mental Health, AIDS Brochures, Child Abuse
New York City--A startling increase in the number of adolescents being admitted to private psychiatric hospitals is indicated by several new studies, researchers reported at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association.

What the researchers termed the "runaway phenomenon" of the increasing institutionalization of young people was the topic of a seminar at the conference here last month. Citing their own work and other recent studies, the researchers said the number of youths admitted to private psychiatric hospitals increased by as much as 400 percent from 1980 to 1984.

September 16, 1987
2 min read
Education Singing Their New School's Praises
The nation's only church-choir boarding school has a unique new home at 202 West 58th Steet in New York City.

Officials of the 68-year-old St. Thomas Choir School, attempting to fight Manhattan's soaring real-estate costs, commissioned the New York City firm of Buttrick, White & Burtis to construct suitable living, study and recreation quarters on a tiny 7,500- square-foot site.

September 16, 1987
1 min read
Education Humanities Reports: Unity of Themes, Clash of Authors
A brief but acrimonious clash over the use of government research data has accompanied the release of the two new federally funded critiques of humanities education.
Robert Rothman, September 16, 1987
5 min read
Education Brain Research Fuels Drive To Alter Teaching of the Gifted
New research on how the brain functions is adding further evidence to support the idea that gifted and talented children should be taught in ways that develop their creative potential as well as their ability to analyze facts.
Robert Rothman, September 16, 1987
5 min read
Education Urban Schools Have Turned Corner But Still Need Help, Report Says
Urban school districts are making "steady progress" in raising student-achievement levels and meeting a vast assortment of special needs, but they "cannot do it all alone," a report to be released this week contends.
William Snider, September 16, 1987
6 min read
Education Tight Deadlines Marked Start Of Aid Program
Because of the short application and selection period, teachers in several states did not get a chance to compete for the first federally funded fellowships honoring Sharon Christa McAuliffe, the New Hampshire schoolteacher who was killed last year in the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger.
Reagan Walker, September 16, 1987
2 min read
Education Reporter's Notebook: Former E.D. Secretary Urges More Federal Aid for Brightest Children
Former U.S. Secretary of Education Terrel H. Bell, who presided over the dismantling of the federal office for gifted and talented education, urged here that a massive effort at the national level be undertaken to identify gifted students and provide services for them.
Robert Rothman, September 16, 1987
3 min read
Education Books: Examining Race, Literacy, School 'Ecology'
In And We Are Not Saved: The Elusive Quest for Racial Justice, Derrick Bell uses semifictional means to suggest that legislation and judicial decisions seeming to advance civil-rights causes, including school desegregation, have primarily benefited white society. Mr. Bell, a professor at Harvard Law School and civil-rights activist, unfolds his argument through a series of debates between the author and his fictional heroine, Geneva Crenshaw. In the following exchange, they discuss education and economic status.

September 16, 1987
4 min read
Education People News
Calvin M. Frazier, in his last speech as Colorado's commissioner of education, lobbed a few barbs on the subject of leadership at the state's educational hierarchy.

District superintendents have too many responsibilities, school principals often "don't inspire and don't lead," and school-board members are not prepared well enough for their jobs, Mr. Frazier told the Colorado Association of School Executives. He retired Aug. 31 after 14 years as commissioner.

September 16, 1987
1 min read
Education Church Schools Offered Pact
The Michigan Department of Education has offered two Baptist schools a way to conclude a seven-year legal battle over state teacher-licensing rules by agreeing to accept information about their instructors from a neutral third party.

The department offered the compromise to the Bridgeport Baptist and Sheridan Road Baptist schools, which filed suit in 1980 challenging a law that requires private schools to employ only certified teachers. The schools claimed that this stipulation and other state standards violated their constitutional rights, including their right to the free exercise of religion.

September 16, 1987
1 min read
Education Research and Reports
The "back to basics" movement and declining interest in "public spirited" activities throughout society have helped push citizenship education out of the school curriculum, a new report asserts.

Schools should reverse that trend by providing programs "that will help students better understand both their rights and responsibilities as citizens," according to Citizenship: Goal of Education, released last week by the American Association of School Administrators.

September 16, 1987
1 min read
Education National News Briefs
Officials of the Gannett Foundation have announced the award of a $1-million grant to the Challenger Center for Space-Science Education.

The grant will double the budget for the center, which was established last year by the surviving families of the seven astronauts killed aboard the space shuttle Challenger.

September 16, 1987
1 min read
Education New Jersey Lawmakers Kill 'Bankruptcy' Bill
The New Jersey Senate handed Gov. Thomas H. Kean a major defeat late last week when it narrowly voted down controversial legislation that would have allowed the state to assume unprecedented control over "academically bankrupt" school districts.
Blake Rodman, September 16, 1987
3 min read
Education 'The Top Drawer'
Following are some of the programs cited by the Council of Great City Schools in Results in the Making as models of their kind:

September 16, 1987
3 min read
Education Private Schools Column
Faster than administrators can say "preschool," toddlers are swelling the ranks of private institutions, new figures released by the National Association of Independent Schools reveal.

Nursery-school enrollment at nais schools grew by 10.3 percent last year, the largest increase registered by any grade level. The greater demand for preschool programs convinced 22 schools to open their doors to 3- and 4-year-olds, bringing the total number offering preschool to 302.

September 16, 1987
2 min read
Education Chicago, Detroit Teacher Strikes Continue
A spokesman for the Chicago Teachers Union said last week that the prospects for a quick settlement in the teachers' strike there looked "very grim."
Reagan Walker, September 16, 1987
2 min read
Education Barring of Belgian Teachers Protested
The Kansas City School District is appealing a decision by federal immigration officials in Lincoln, Neb., to deny special visas for 14 Belgian teachers hired to teach French in elementary foreign-language magnet schools.
Reagan Walker, September 16, 1987
4 min read
Education Books: New in Print
Other Books of Note

Beyond Conformity or Rebellion: Youth and Authority in America, by Gary Schwartz (University of Chicago Press, 5801 South Ellis Ave., Chicago, Ill. 60637; 307 pp., $24.95 cloth). In terms more flexible than the conventional polarity, attempts to define the relations of youth and authority in the wake of the counterculture movement of the 60's. Argues that deviance must be understood in the context of the culture of the local community.

September 16, 1987
8 min read
Education Bennett's Lead Role in Ad Panned by School Critics
In scenes that aroused the ire of critics, the television advertisement depicts the Secretary peering into lockers where students have been shown concealing drugs and tequilla.

Secretary of Education William J. Bennett has unveiled a $225,000 advertising campaign in which he urges Americans to "slam the door on drugs in our schools." The Secretary stars in the public-service radio and television spots. In the latter, he is seen walking school corridors and slamming the door of a locker to illustrate his point.

September 16, 1987
2 min read
Education State Journal: Horse of a different color in Kentucky; Passing the buck; A 'kitchen cabinet'
For the first time in its history, the Kentucky Education Association's political-action committee has endorsed a Republican candidate for governor.

State Representative John Harper received the group's vote of approval this month "because we believe he is the best candidate for public education and continued education reform," said David Allen, president of the union and chairman of the kea-pac.

September 16, 1987
1 min read
Education District News Roundup
Under the terms of a court settlement reached with the aid of a nationally known desegregation researcher, the San Francisco Unified School District will open a currently unused facility to house the entire student body of a magnet middle school affected by the district's asbestos-cleanup program.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People had filed a suit against the state department of education and the district in late August to prevent the dispersal to several other schools of students from the James Lick Middle School, which was one of 18 schools targeted for increased funding and special academic programs in a 1985 desegregation agreement. The district needed the Lick facility to house 2,000 students from a nearby high school that is to undergo a year-long asbestos-removal effort.

September 16, 1987
4 min read
Education California Board Set To Act on Human-Rights Curriculum
The California Board of Education is expected next month to adopt a controversial model curriculum on human rights and genocide despite complaints by ethnic and special-interest groups that they are not being counted among the oppressed.
Diane Divoky, September 16, 1987
3 min read
Education Teachers Dispute Studies' Counsel On Humanities
Educators and curriculum specialists last week disputed the prescriptions in two new reports that call for a greater emphasis on content in history and literature instruction.
Robert Rothman, September 16, 1987
6 min read
Education Education Department Cites Exemplary Library Programs
The U.S. Education Department has released a new booklet entitled "Check This Out: Library Program Models." The booklet features 62 library programs, in 28 states, selected for their service to elementary, secondary, and postsecondary students, and the general public.

A panel of 16 experts in the field reviewed materials from 165 libraries, which were nominated in 14 program areas, including services to special populations, instruction in literacy, innovative uses of technology, and models for joint library-teacher involvement in student learning.

September 16, 1987
5 min read
Education N.E.A. Mounts AIDS Campaign
The National Education Association last week unveiled a campaign designed to counter misinformation about acquired immune deficiency syndrome and prevent its spread among young people.
Ellen Flax, September 16, 1987
1 min read