August 10, 2005
Education Week, Vol. 24, Issue 44
Education Funding
A New Approach
Ohio’s mayors may turn to voters to support a ballot initiative that would change the way schools are financed.
Education Funding
Survey Finds Spiraling District Health-Care Costs
A survey of school district budget officials shows that employee health care now costs their districts nearly $900 per pupil on average, an expense that they say seriously affects their ability to pay for instructional services.
Education
Chart: Test-Taking Rates
In most states, the majority of students with disabilities took statewide reading assessments in the 2003-04 school year.
Federal
Technology Adviser Leaves Department
Susan D. Patrick, the chief adviser on educational technology to Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, planned to leave the U.S. Department of Education the end of last week to become the president and chief executive officer of the North American Council for Online Learning.
Education
Chart: Winners and Losers
About two-thirds of the school districts participating in the federal Title I program will receive less money in school year 2005-06 than they did this past year, while 4,400 districts will gain in funding.
Education
Chart: College Bound
Far more high school graduates with disabilities are attending college than in the past.
Education
Table: Cyber Critiques
Evaluators of online teachers must examine several factors, such as technical knowledge, and e-mail responses.
Education
A National Roundup
Richmond, Va., Watchdog
Mayor Douglas L. Wilder of Richmond, Va., has formed a watchdog panel charged with ensuring that the city's school board makes the schools safer and more academically successful. The committee, announced July 19, will focus on academic performance, school safety, truancy and dropouts, and finance and administration.
Curriculum
Living Together
Colleen Wambach, the principal of Irondale High School in New Brighton, Minn., has learned a thing or two about ospreys since one built a nest on a light pole at her high school’s football field last spring.
Education
A National Roundup
Multibillion-Dollar Bond
Los Angeles voters will be asked to support a nearly $4 billion bond measure this fall to ease classroom crowding with new construction and to renovate existing schools. The Los Angeles board of education voted July 28 to put the measure on the Nov. 8 ballot. The board earmarked $1.6 billion of the bond for construction, providing 20,000 new classroom seats in order to decrease enrollment at each of the district's 78 middle schools to 2,000. The money will also allow all elementary schools to return to a nine-month school calendar from a year-round schedule.
Special Education
Disability Less Likely to Hold Back Youths Following High School
More youths with disabilities are successfully making the transition from school to higher education, jobs, and adult responsibilities than they did in the late 1980s, according to a federally financed study that has tracked thousands of secondary school students with disabilities over time.
Education
A National Roundup
N.Y. State Unions Launch Drive to Organize Child-Care Providers
Teachers’ unions in New York state and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now have launched a statewide campaign to unionize thousands of workers who provide child care in their homes.
Education
A National Roundup
Court OKs School District Plan to Demolish Los Angeles Hotel
A superior-court judge in Los Angeles has given the Los Angeles Unified School District the go-ahead to demolish much of the historic Ambassador Hotel to build three new schools.
Education
A National Roundup
Former Mass. Lawmaker to Lead Pittsburgh Schools
A former state lawmaker who was an architect of landmark school improvement legislation in Massachusetts is set to become the superintendent of the Pittsburgh public schools next week.
Education
A National Roundup
Dallas Administrators Investigate Official’s Trips on Vendor’s Boat
Dallas school officials have suspended and are investigating the district’s technology chief for allegedly taking free trips on a computer vendor’s sport-fishing boat.
Education
A National Roundup
Wilmer-Hutchins Students to Attend Dallas Schools
The schools in a troubled Texas district will shut down, and the district’s 2,700 students will attend schools in the neighboring Dallas school district.
Education
A National Roundup
Bible Curriculum Criticized as Having Sectarian Slant
A religious-watchdog group is calling a Bible course promoted by the Greensboro, N.C.-based National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools unfit for public schools.
School & District Management
Crucial Levy Goes Down in Cleveland
Cleveland voters last week soundly rejected a levy intended to bolster the school district’s finances, a move widely interpreted as a referendum on the performance of its leader, Barbara Byrd-Bennett.
Education
A National Roundup
Georgia School District Drops Laptop Program
The Cobb County, Ga., school district will drop its quest to supply teachers and students with laptop computers, even as it plans to appeal a superior-court judge’s order that it suspend the program.
Education
A National Roundup
Federal Judges Nix Kamehameha Policy
The practice by the private Kamehameha Schools in Hawaii of restricting admission to children of Native Hawaiian descent is discriminatory, a federal appeals court ruled last week.
Education
Black Home Schoolers Share Ideas at Group’s 4th Annual Symposium
The National Black Home Educators Resource Association held its fourth annual symposium July 29-30 in Baton Rouge, La., hoping to expand the number of black families supportive of home schooling.
Recruitment & Retention
Some Florida Districts Opting Not to Pay Out Performance Bonuses
In the three years that the Pinellas County, Fla., district has offered its more than 7,800 teachers a performance bonus as mandated by the state, exactly two have qualified and taken home the money.
Curriculum
Stores Open to Provide Supplies for Teachers in Low-Income Schools
With back-to-school sales just around the corner, many parents and teachers are picking up fresh supplies: crisp new notebooks, packs of pencils, unworn erasers, and other necessities. But in schools serving low-income communities, students often show up without the needed materials.
Ed-Tech Policy
Web Is Awash With Resources for Teaching About the Constitution
With a new federal law kicking in this fall that requires public school teachers to teach about the U.S. Constitution, a number of organizations have prepared free materials and Internet resources related to the topic.
Curriculum
Golf Pro Mickelson Takes Swing for Math and Science Academies
Amid the customary deluge of advertisements touting luxury SUVs and titanium golf clubs, last month’s British Open featured a televised commercial on a less conventional theme: the importance of math and science education.
Education
Report Roundup
School Prayer
Teenagers overwhelmingly favor the idea of allowing a moment of silence at school for students who want to pray, while a smaller majority supports spoken prayer, a poll by the Gallup Organization has found.
Curriculum
Foundation Gives More Money to Promote Denver Pay Plan
A $250,000 contribution from the Rose Community Foundation has kicked off a political campaign that aims to revolutionize the way Denver teachers are paid.
Curriculum
Peace-Themed School to Join Military Model in Philadelphia
If a school can be structured around military policies and practices, why can’t one be created around pacifist themes, too?
Ed-Tech Policy
Report Roundup
Internet Use
Eighty-seven percent of American 12- to 17-year-olds uses the Internet, an increase from 73 percent five years ago, according to a survey.