Reelected: Albert Shanker, running unopposed, was reelected this summer to serve his ninth two-year term as president of the American Federation of Teachers. The union is celebrating its 75th anniversary.
Another Job For Schools: A federal advisory panel, stating that there were more than 2 million reports of child abuse last year, has called for an overhaul of the nation’s child-protection system. Among the 31 recommendations offered: expand the role of schools in preventing, identifying, and treating abuse and neglect.
A First For The Peace Corps: This month, after receiving intensive language instruction in Hungary and Poland over the summer, the first Peace Corps volunteers to serve in Eastern Europe will begin teaching English and training English teachers. Sixty volunteers have been sent to Poland, 61 to Hungary.
Risk And Ignorance: One in five high school students has had at least four sexual partners, and about 3 percent have injected drugs, putting them at high risk for the AIDS virus, according to a report by the national Centers for Disease Control. Roughly half of the 100,000 students surveyed thought insects carry the virus.
Donald Trump High School: The Los Angeles Board of Education has voted to purchase the site of the Ambassador Hotel for a new high school, despite a threatened lawsuit by Donald Trump, who owns the property and plans to develop it into a hotel and business complex. The school board decided this summer to exercise its right of eminent domain, which permits a public agency with a legitimate need to confiscate private property.
Picture This: An Eastman Kodak Company task force has proposed involving up to 2,400 of its employees to help strengthen mathematics and science instruction in the public schools of Rochester, N.Y., Kodak’s hometown. The employees, the company suggests, could help teachers strengthen their teaching skills and teach classes themselves.
Sort Of Licensed: Of the 15,300 Georgia teachers and administrators granted a license during the 1988-89 school year, more than 3,000—about one-fifth—received provisional, probationary, or emergency certificates because they failed to meet the requirements for full certification, according to a state study. Special-education and science teachers were most likely to be put to work without meeting the full requirements.
