June 7, 2006
Education Week, Vol. 25, Issue 39
Federal
A Washington Roundup
Bush Taps Journal Editor as Domestic-Policy Adviser
President Bush has chosen the editor-in-chief of The American Enterprise as his new White House domestic-policy adviser, a job earlier held by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings.
Federal
A Washington Roundup
Bill Would Extend Hurricane-Aid Period
A measure approved by the House of Representatives would allow Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings to give schools extra time to spend money given to them under the Hurricane Education Recovery Act to cover the cost of educating students displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Federal
U.S. Plans Controlled Evaluation of Student Drug Testing
The Department of Education has proposed the first large-scale national evaluation of the effectiveness of student drug testing.
Federal
Federal File
If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Moscow
Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has spent much of her time lately promoting Bush administration proposals that stress the importance of mathematics, science, and foreign-language courses in preparing American students to compete in the global economy.
Science
Opinion
Chat Wrap-Up: Science Education
On May 25, readers participated in a discussion focused on the state of science education in the United States and specifically the results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress in science, released the day before.
School & District Management
Opinion
Communicating for Change
Scott Widmeyer, former communications director under the late American Federation of Teachers President Albert Shanker, and founder of Widmeyer Communications, offers a dozen lessons learned during decades of reform.
Federal
Conservative House GOP Group Flexes Policy Muscle
As debates raged last year over how much federal aid to provide in response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, including to help schools, a coalition of staunchly conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives insisted that lawmakers try to save money in other places to pay for hurricane relief.
Equity & Diversity
Opinion
What About the Boys?
Rather than blame women teachers and female students, the real culprits for the slow down in boys’ achievement levels are poverty, racism, and heavy doses of toxic masculinity, argue Lyn Mikel Brown, Meda Chesney-Lind, and Nan Stein.
Law & Courts
Public Employees’ Speech Rights Curtailed
Speech by government employees in the course of their job duties is not protected by the First Amendment from disciplinary action, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week, in a 5-4 decision that critics fear could muzzle “whistleblowers” who ferret out government waste and wrongdoing.
Education
Growing Coffers Lift K-12 Spending
The supplemental budget, signed by Gov. Christine Gregoire on March 31, provides nearly $96 million for programs for K-12 schools, including funding to help students who are struggling to meet the state’s academic standards. Total K-12 spending for the biennium will rise by $188.5 million to about $11.8 billion, or an increase of nearly 2 percent.
Education
Omaha Breakup Plan Marks Session’s End
A healthy economy allowed the legislature to adjust the K-12 budget upward by $16 million, to $700.6 million, for fiscal 2006, a 10.4 percent increase over the previous fiscal year.
Education
Education Budget to See Increase
State spending for schools will rise to $2.3 billion, or an increase of nearly 6 percent over the current fiscal year. The total fiscal 2007 state budget is $4.8 billion.
Education
A State Capitals Roundup
Former Bush Official Wins in Idaho
Tom Luna, a former education adviser in the Bush administration, has won the Republican primary in his bid to be elected as Idaho’s next state schools superintendent. Mr. Luna, who lost in the 2002 election for state chief, beat out two other candidates for the nomination on May 23. He will face Democrat Jana Jones in the fall general election. Ms. Jones is a top assistant to outgoing state schools Superintendent Marilyn Howard.
Education
A State Capitals Roundup
N.C. Gets Gates Grant
North Carolina will open more small high schools, this time focused around an economic-development curriculum, with a new $10 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Education
A State Capitals Roundup
Michigan Businesses Surveyed
The results of a survey released May 31 found that just 52 percent of Michigan businesses are satisfied with the quality of employees coming out of Michigan high schools and colleges. Of the 850 businesses surveyed, 57 percent believe high schools are at least somewhat challenging, and 36 percent believe these schools do a good job of providing relevant classes. The survey was conducted for the Your Child coalition and The Detroit News.
Curriculum
Publishing News
The National Geographic Society has announced that it will begin offering a new nonfiction classroom magazine this fall, National Geographic Young Explorer, written for kindergartners and 1st graders.
Education
A State Capitals Roundup
Report Ranks States on Bus Emissions
No state received an A in a recent nationwide report on school bus pollution and cleanup programs.
Education
Opinion
New in Print
Reviews of the latest books dealing with education, including black education in the American South, citizenship under fire, and things you should have learned but probably didn’t.
Education
A State Capitals Roundup
Black Students Affected Most by Ark. Closures, Report Says
Arkansas’ policy of consolidating its smallest school districts has caused 47 school closings, mainly in poor and minority communities, according to a new report released by the Rural School and Community Trust, an Arlington, Va., based nonprofit organization that promotes the improvement of rural schools.
Law & Courts
Latest Decision Keeps Calif. Exit-Exam Law as Graduations Near
The legal roller-coaster ride is over, at least for now, for California high school seniors who have not passed the state’s exit exam.
Education Funding
Education Windfall?
Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois has proposed raising billions of dollars for schools by selling or leasing the state lottery.
Law & Courts
States to Let Special Boards Award Charters
Three states—Florida, New Mexico, and South Carolina—have recently passed legislation allowing statewide bodies to approve new charter schools and oversee them, rather than leaving those responsibilities solely in the hands of local school districts.
Professional Development
Principal-Interns’ Training Faulted
Experts agree that a critical part of any principal’s preservice training is field-based learning under the mentorship of a skilled school leader. And yet, early results from a recent survey of administrators who mentor would-be principals suggest that many of those experiences may be, to put it bluntly, pretty lame.
Education
People in the News
Jim Nelson
Jim Nelson has been selected as the executive director of Advancement Via Individual Determination, or avid, the San Diego-based secondary school program that prepares underachieving, mostly minority students for college.
Education
People in the News
Sharon L. Greenberger
Sharon L. Greenberger is the new president of the New York City School Construction Authority, the agency that manages more than $2 billion in construction and renovation projects annually in the city’s school system.
Education
People in the News
Kathleen McCartney
Kathleen McCartney has been named the dean of Harvard University’s graduate school of education.
Education
Correction
Corrections
An article in Education Week’s Technology Counts 2006 on the data-collection system used by Philadelphia schools should have made a distinction between SchoolNet, an online instructional-management system that gives administrators, teachers, and parents access to student-level data, and SchoolStat, a performance-management system designed by the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Institute of Government that involves monthly data-review meetings among administrators districtwide. ("Tip of Their Fingers," May 4, 2006.)
Education
A National Roundup
Former D.C. Union Official Sentenced
Gwendolyn M. Hemphill, a former official of the Washington Teachers’ Union, was sentenced on May 22 to 11 years in prison for stealing money from union members.
Education
Obituary
G. Michael Pressley
G. Michael Pressley, one of the nation’s foremost reading researchers and a prolific writer and speaker on the subject, died on May 26 from complications of cancer. He was 55.