January 21, 2009
Education Week, Vol. 28, Issue 18
Education
Letter to the Editor
Arts Education Is a Core Subject in the 21st-Century Classroom
To the Editor:
In their recent Commentary "The Productivity Imperative" (Jan. 7, 2009), Marguerite Roza, Dan Goldhaber, and Paul T. Hill suggest that schools could get better bang for their budget buck if they cut back on "arts electives." The insinuation is that the arts are not core content for today's schools and students. Nothing could be further from the truth.
In their recent Commentary "The Productivity Imperative" (Jan. 7, 2009), Marguerite Roza, Dan Goldhaber, and Paul T. Hill suggest that schools could get better bang for their budget buck if they cut back on "arts electives." The insinuation is that the arts are not core content for today's schools and students. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Education
Letter to the Editor
Suggestion for Margaret Spellings: Replicate NCLB for Corporations
To the Editor:
I noted with interest, in your article "Spellings' Worldview: There's No Going Back on K-12 Accountability" (Dec. 10, 2008), that outgoing U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings was not sure, after all of her "success" with the No Child Left Behind Act, about her future plans. I have a suggestion: Ms. Spellings should work to transfer the federal law's "brilliance" to the business and corporate world, which is in desperate need of improvement.
I noted with interest, in your article "Spellings' Worldview: There's No Going Back on K-12 Accountability" (Dec. 10, 2008), that outgoing U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings was not sure, after all of her "success" with the No Child Left Behind Act, about her future plans. I have a suggestion: Ms. Spellings should work to transfer the federal law's "brilliance" to the business and corporate world, which is in desperate need of improvement.
Science
Teachers Partner With Students in Science Lab
Students in the program are expected to serve as leaders when they return to class, helping their classmates make sense of the lab activity.
Science
Standards Help Minn. Vie With Top Nations
State officials credit the setting and refinement of academic standards, as well as efforts to translate them for teachers, as prime factors behind the progress.
School Climate & Safety
Cost Concerns, Economic Anxieties Put Construction on Shaky Ground
District facilities directors are hoping to reap the benefits of President Barack Obama’s economic-recovery plan, which is likely to include money for school building projects.
School & District Management
Rolling Up Their Sleeves
Two foundations support efforts to improve the public schools in the Windy City.
Federal
Past Inaugurals Have Cited Education
John Adams, 1797: ...[I]f a love of science and letters and a wish to patronize every rational effort to encourage schools, colleges, universities, academies, and every institution for propagating knowledge, virtue, and religion among all classes of the people, not only for their benign influence on the happiness of life in all its stages and classes, and of society in all its forms, but as the only means of preserving our Constitution from its natural enemies, the spirit of sophistry, the spirit of party, the spirit of intrigue, the profligacy of corruption, and the pestilence of foreign influence, which is the angel of destruction to elective governments; ... can enable me in any degree to comply with your wishes, it shall be my strenuous endeavor that this sagacious injunction of the two Houses shall not be without effect.”
Federal
Obama’s Inauguration Seen as Teachable Moment
Educators are leveraging the event for learning, both on site in the nation’s capital and in their own classrooms and communities.
Federal
Stimulus Plan Aids Education
Cash-strapped school districts could see an unprecedented $100 billion infusion of federal aid under a massive economic-stimulus package unveiled by House Democrats this week.
Federal
Districts Scrounge for Low-Pain Budget Cuts
School systems are raising private money, upping fees, and squeezing savings from existing budgets to minimize layoffs and spare programs.
Budget & Finance
Opinion
Rethinking the Notion of Public vs. Private
"If red and blue are to carry little political salience in the Obama White House, then public and private should prove similarly uninteresting in the new president’s Department of Education," says Doug Tuthill.
School & District Management
Opinion
Economic Recovery, Educational Renewal
“The new president should avoid symbolic gestures, such as buying even more computers for schools. Instead, he should stay focused on the key elements of infrastructure: bolstering school facilities staffed by able, committed teachers," writes Bruce Fuller.
School & District Management
Opinion
Toward a National Consensus
“Debating and working through differences about public education could clarify what kind of newly unified society we want to become," writes Ellen Condliffe Lagemann.
Student Well-Being & Movement
Students Found to Pick Up Science Outside School
Trips to museums and zoos, watching TV shows, and discussions between parents and children have the power to improve student learning in the subject, a study concludes.
School & District Management
Nothing But Praise for Duncan in Senate Hearing
Democrats and Republicans on the education committee are impressed by President-elect Obama’s choice for secretary of education.
Federal
States Urged to Redouble Attention to High School Improvement Push
More attention is needed on college and career readiness, according to groups representing governors, state superintendents, legislatures, and school boards.
Social Studies
Scholarly Group Takes Pulse of Humanities in U.S.
Citing the widespread availability of data on science and engineering, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences developed the indicators to allow greater analysis of issues in the humanities.
School & District Management
Opinion
Wrong Choice for Secretary of Education
During Arne Duncan’s tenure, districtwide high school test scores have not risen, and most of the lowest-performing high schools saw scores drop.
Law & Courts
Supreme Court to Hear Case on ELL Funding in Arizona
A federal judge has ordered the state legislature to increase funding for ELL programs or else face fines of as much as $2 million per day.
Early Childhood
Experts Eschew Narrow Reading of Early-Literacy Study
Teaching youngsters about letters and sounds before they begin formal schooling helps them develop skills deemed essential to learning to read, says a long-awaited report.