January 10, 2007
Education Week, Vol. 26, Issue 18
Education
Report Roundup
Magnet Schools and Diversity
Magnet schools alone may not help school districts meet diversity goals in areas where districts were released from court-ordered school desegregation plans, suggests a study published in the Education Policy Analysis Archives.
Education
Report Roundup
Home Schooling Choices Examined
A family is more likely to choose home schooling rather than private schools to avoid low-quality public schools if the mother has more free time and the family is not wealthy, according to a paper by the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, based in New York City.
School & District Management
A Washington Roundup
Audit: Research Agency Was Lax on Monitoring of Some Contracts
The Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences did not properly monitor some of its research contracts during the 2005 fiscal year, according to a recent federal audit.
School Climate & Safety
A Washington Roundup
U.S. Agencies Issue CD-ROM to Help Fight School Violence
The Department of Education and the U.S. Secret Service this month will begin distributing an interactive CD-ROM designed to help law-enforcement officers and school officials combat potential school-based violence. The CD-ROM is based on the Safe School Initiative, a study of school violence conducted by both agencies, released in May 2002.
Education
A Washington Roundup
House Education Panel Restores Former Name
Now that the Democrats are in control of the House of Representatives for the first time in 12 years, the chamber’s panel overseeing education, pensions, and labor legislation will return to its former name: the Education and Labor Committee.
Federal
Stafford, Student-Loan Advocate, Dies at 93
Former Sen. Robert T. Stafford, R-Vt., who was such a champion of the federal student-loan program that his colleagues eventually named it in his honor, died Dec. 23 at the age of 93.
Federal
St. Paul Will Lose Top Hmong Official
The highest-ranking administrator in the St. Paul, Minn., school system who is Hmong, a member of one of the city’s largest ethnic groups, is leaving the school system to help create a charter school that focuses on Hmong language and culture.
Curriculum
Georgia District Settles Lawsuit
The theory of evolution will appear in biology textbooks in a suburban Atlanta school district—without any stickers, stamps, labels, or warnings attached to it.
Law & Courts
Federal File
High Court’s Hot Tickets
The U.S. Supreme Court is showering attention on education in its current term, even while its docket in some other areas seems to have entered a dry spell.
Equity & Diversity
Opinion
Chat Wrap-Up: Schools and Economic Mobility
On Dec. 15, guests Cecilia Elena Rouse and Isabel V. Sawhill answered readers' questions on recent research showing that economic mobility through education is more difficult to attain in the United States than previously.
Education
Letter to the Editor
‘The New, Improved Educational Machine’ Strikes a Chord
"The New, Improved Educational Machine" (Commentary, Dec. 13, 2006) is a breath of fresh air. Peter W. Cookson Jr.’s observations are the sensible and respectful comments of someone who offers the reader (and Washington, if it is listening) a glimmer of hope in what has become a featureless landscape of testing and controlling.
Education
Letter to the Editor
Closing Achievement Gaps by Creating a New One?
What if efforts aimed at closing the familiar achievement gaps, as addressed in the No Child Left Behind Act, end up creating an additional achievement gap?
Education
Letter to the Editor
Why Wait to Be Told to Do What We Can Do Now?
Regarding your Dec. 20, 2006, article "U.S. Urged to Reinvent Its Schools": I greatly respect the effort that went into and the conclusions of “Tough Choices or Tough Times,” the report released in December by the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, and I support to a certain degree most of its proposals.
Education
Letter to the Editor
Math Policies Made Him Better Science Teacher
Regarding "Critics Accuse NSTA of Having Conflict Over Film" (Dec. 6, 2006), which reports on the National Science Teachers Association’s decision not to distribute free copies of former Vice President Al Gore’s global-warming documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth”:
I do not find the NSTA’s problem with global warming to be surprising.
Education
Letter to the Editor
‘Reading First’ Program Is Not About ‘Cashing In’
Education Week has stoked the scrutiny of Reading First into a major “scandal.” Both the news article "Reading Law Fails to Bring Innovations" (Dec. 13, 2006) and the Commentary by Marc Dean Millot, "‘Reading First-gate’" (Dec. 20, 2006) focus on the economics of Reading First. This so-called scandal continues to grow on misinformation.
Education
Letter to the Editor
'Reading First' History
I appreciate Richard Allington’s Dec. 13, 2006, letter to the editor asking for a clarification of the change in intent of the Reading First legislation from funding only programs that demonstrated program-specific effectiveness to the funding of programs that were “based on scientifically based evidence.”
Education
Letter to the Editor
Urban Legend?
Antonio Cortese and F. Howard Nelson claim to have refuted my conclusion that the teacher-transfer provisions of collective bargaining agreements doom the lowest-income schools to hiring less-experienced and lower-paid teachers ("An Urban Legend—Literally," Commentary, Dec. 13, 2006).
Education
Letter to the Editor
Economic Impact of Math and Science Achievement Is Real
I read with great interest your report on the study by Francisco O. Ramirez of Stanford University that challenges the common belief that academic success in mathematics and science contributes to economic productivity ("Study Questions Role Math, Science Scores Play in Nations’ GDPs," Dec. 13, 2006).
Student Achievement
Letter to the Editor
Addressing the Effects of Poverty Is as Important as ‘Standards’
It was gratifying to read William A. Proefriedt’s Commentary "Outsider in the Locker Room" (Dec. 6, 2006) after so many years of suppression of the opinions, views, and, indeed, even the research findings of all those educators who attempt to discuss socioeconomic-status factors in student achievement, only to be ruthlessly shouted down.
Education
Letter to the Editor
Educators’ Group Voices Opposition to NCLB Law
H.G. Wells was right. Human history really is “a race between education and catastrophe.” Right now, catastrophe appears to have a significant lead, and there’s little evidence that the gap is closing.
States
State of the States
Technology High Schools, Property-Tax Cuts Envisioned
Gov. James H. Douglas launched his third two-year term with an inaugural address last week picturing the Vermont of the near future as a center for environmental engineering. High schools specializing in math, science, and technology would dot the landscape, the Republican governor said.
Education Funding
State of the States
State Would Increase Its Share of Local School Funding
Gov. John Hoeven outlined a plan last week to take advantage of North Dakota’s economic good fortune by spending more state money on education while allowing local governments to reduce their school funding.
Education Funding
State of the States
Amendment Sought to Help Neediest Districts on Funding
Gov. John Lynch, in his Jan. 5 inaugural address, called for a constitutional amendment allowing New Hampshire to target school funding to the communities that need it most. The proposal by the Democratic governor, who was elected to a second term in November, is aimed at putting an end to a school finance dispute that has raged in the state for 15 years.
States
State of the States
Strong Schools, Economy Linked, With Program Details Still to Come
Gov. Deval L. Patrick of Massachusetts said after being sworn into office Jan. 4 that “better schools” and “high expectations” for children are critical for ensuring that the state’s economy will flourish. He called for more flexibility in classrooms, as well as more early-childhood education and after-school programs.
Education Funding
A State Capitals Roundup
Missouri Trial Opens
What’s expected to be a several-weeks-long school finance trial began last week in Missouri. Nearly half the state’s school districts, represented by the umbrella group Committee for Education Equality, filed a lawsuit in Cole County Circuit Court in January 2004.
Law & Courts
A State Capitals Roundup
New Jersey Contractors Sued Over Construction Problems
The New Jersey Schools Construction Corp. has filed a lawsuit against contractors to recover more than $3.5 million over allegedly shoddy work in an elementary school construction project in Essex County.
Education
A State Capitals Roundup
New Idaho Schools Chief Fires 19 as Part of Transition
Idaho state Superintendent Tom Luna, who took office New Year’s Day, has fired 19 staff members of the Idaho Department of Education, and another five, including outgoing schools chief Marilyn Howard, have resigned. The 24 departing employees represented about 18 percent of the department’s 133-person roster.
Curriculum
A State Capitals Roundup
Ohio Students Face Tougher Standards
Starting with the class of 2014, Ohio students will have to complete a more rigorous high school curriculum, with more mathematics and lab-based sciences, if they want to graduate and attend a four-year state university.
School & District Management
Kan. School Board Goes Out Fightin’
Pugnacious to the end, members of the Kansas state board of education threw terms around like 'slander' and 'paranoia' last month at their final meeting before the board’s six-person moderate majority, composed of both Democrats and Republicans, takes control this week.