March 22, 1989

In late February, Virginia legislators passed a bill making the state the first in the South and the 13th over all to adopt a full or partial ban on spanking. Similar measures are pending in Connecticut, Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, Oregon, Texas, and Washington.

Although the district could still mandate a plan that links pay to evaluations, the cooperation of teachers has long been considered essential to the program's success.

The House endorsed the $31-million "Project Excel" program of Gov. Evan Bayh, which would add funding for an existing state program for ''at-risk" students, authorize a 13-member "professional-standards board" with seven members as teachers, and establish various grant and scholarship programs. (See Education Week, Feb. 1, 1989)

Last month, however, the House broke from the established practice and approved a fiscal 1990 budget that would have provided public schools with 66.9 percent of the available funds.

"An increasing number of young people engaged in the sale and distribution of drugs are using beepers to make deals by communicating with drug traffickers," the Democratic Representative said. "This bill is not intended to interfere with legitimate uses of beepers, only their abuse by drug-dealing minors."

The study was the first step in the organization's effort to develop a $1-million alcohol- and drug-prevention program with the gte Corporation. It was based on interviews with eight groups of parents of 4th- through 8th-grade students in four cities.

Students at James Logan High School in Union City and Southland Corporation, the parent company of the 7-Eleven chain, have joined together to open an on-campus convenience store.

The selection brings to six the number of sites involved in the second phase of the aaas's Project 2061. During the next three years, teams of teachers in participating sites will work with scholars to design model curricula based on the group's recent report, "Science for All Americans."

The bill's sponsors said they introduced the measure in response to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling last year that school officals have broad authority to regulate student speech that arises as part of the school's curriculum. The decision in Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier involved the censorship of a high-school newspaper in Missouri. (See Education Week, Jan. 20, 1988.)

Testifying at state Senate hearings this month, Superintendent of Public Instruction Bill Honig said he backed a bill that would provide an additional $50 million in federal funds to allow adult-education classes for immigrants to continue until the end of the current fiscal year, June 30.

But Mr. Sanders, the superintendent of public instruction in Illinois, said he also looked forward to helping President Bush enact his education initiatives if he is confirmed by the Senate.

Passed as part of a package that also included increases in teacher salaries, the statute requires teachers to earn continuing-education credits in order to maintain their certification.

Lawmakers adjourned March 15 after agreeing on how to spend the $687 million in revenues expected from a 1-cent hike in the state sales tax, which had been approved a week earlier.

Sources in the department's research branch, which provides much of the chart's state-by-state information on education, said the data had been ready for some time.