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In the News on the week of October 8-12, 2007
Opinion -- A -'No Child' Law for all Children: There's a Better Way to Handle Special Needs * The Supreme Court is evenly divided on special education case * Report shows the gap in teacher qualifications in NYC * RI boosts graduation requirements
Federal/NCLB
Opinion – A ‘No Child’ Law for all Children: There's a Better Way to Handle Special Needs
State Roundup
The Supreme Court is evenly divided on special education case; meaning that NY must pay private tuition for students for which it cannot provide an appropriate education, even if the student has never attended public school
AZ educators and business leaders endorse a proposal to raise high-school math and science graduation requirements
Report says that DC’s controversial voucher program designed to send low-income children to better-performing private schools has allowed some students to take classes in unsuitable learning environments and from teachers without bachelor's degrees
State officials call for a study to learn more about a recent report showing IA with the most disproportionate number of black students being suspended from school
NH parents and educators lobby for special education rules: parents advocate for rules to help their children, and educators advocate for rules to make their jobs more manageable
Report examines the potential of undocumented students in NM and vouches for their opportunity for legalization
OK parents say the best teachers should get more pay, and that parent input should be taken into account when deciding how much more
RI boosts graduation requirements under a new diploma system, and districts struggle to comply as state monitoring increases
School Funding Litigation/Policy
MO’s school funding case, the billion-dollar lawsuit, is criticized by senators as lavish spending, but, even though they have lost their first round in court, school administrators say their legal expenses were well spent
State budgets are tenuous as they head into ‘08
Editorial – Time for a new school aid formula in NJ
Attorney says that NE’s Supreme Court ruling last week declaring the state’s constitution does not include a right to equal and adequate school funding will not affect the Omaha school lawsuit pending in a district court and expected to go to trial next year
State Roundup
The closing of schools for homeless children is challenged in an AZ court
KS report card shows narrowing achievement gaps
Report shows that the gap in the qualifications of teachers when comparing NYC’s highest- and lowest-poverty schools closed “substantially” between 2000 and 2005
Poll shows that most Utahans are opposed to vouchers
WV seeks solutions to looming “teacher shortage”
Federal/NCLB
President Bush says he is open to reformulating NCLB but stresses that he is unwilling to surrender on its core elements of testing and accountability
Other News
Study finds that low-income students who attend urban public high schools generally do just as well as private-school students with similar backgrounds
School tackles an obstacle to achievement that seems particularly pronounced among the Native American students: high mobility
on Time & Learning will provide research, advocacy, and technical assistance to efforts to increase academic and enrichment opportunities for students
National program, Strategic Education Research Partnership, works to improve educational research through studies aimed at solving practical problems
Commentary – the most important ingredient in effective science education is being undervalued and overlooked: creative, engaging, and demanding elementary science
Report suggests that the growing popularity of charter schools is more a result of improved student behavior and better student attendance than higher student achievement
According to a national survey of educators, schools should not have the primary responsibility for teaching students about the dangers of drugs and alcohol
October 9, 2007
School Funding Litigation/Policy
NE passes a new school funding law that ties funding to smaller class size, but education superintendent fears it will sap money from high poverty districts that do not have the resources to trim down their classes
Lower-funded school districts in MI will get extra state aid to help bridge the funding gap among K-12 public schools, but the funding formula has yet to be determined
TX school boards seek voter approval to push tax rates up
“Measure will let majority rule taxes” – WA voters will decide this fall how big a majority will be needed to pass school funding measures
State Roundup
AR program ties financial incentives to advanced placement scores
According to a state audit, KY needs a better system to track school attendance; districts could be losing or gaining funds
DC plans to establish a database to track public school students from pre-kindergarten to college graduation to better plan interventions
HI Board of Education budgets $300,000 to institute a drug-sniffing dog program in schools even as it deferred a decision on the program over legal concerns
MT school officials still believe the state should be providing more money for public education, but for now they aren't planning to go back to court over it
Mastery transforms a violence-plagued and low-performing PA middle school into a model charter school, in one year
NY will not provide extra money to build “green” schools
OR report card offers schools lessons for improvement as teachers work together to make adjustments
New law requires TX school districts to cut their electricity use by 5 percent a year for six years. Educators scramble to comply with the law as they dim the lights and keep an eagle eye on the thermostat; but some claim the state should fund conservation measures
School Integration
Study finds that teachers and administrators in DE public schools don't reflect the diversity of their student body and notes concerns about segregation
Federal/NCLB
Congress considers performance pay for teachers, but state experience shows mixed results
Commentary – Reauthorize NCLB with National Standards: “We don’t need better tests. We need to use a single set of national tests”
Other News
Commentary – Educating children in the new millennium: “We must design schools that will prepare young people to thrive in the 21st century…We simply need to pause long enough to listen and observe – child’s play”
October 8, 2007
School Integration
The College Gap: “Why integrating high school with higher education makes sense – and how to do it”
National/NCLB
The Proficiency Illusion report reinforces growing concerns that no common yardstick exists for comparing school improvement gains across states
As congress considers the tutoring provision of NCLB, lawmakers differ over the scope of the program and how to measure its quality
Report argues that the overemphasis on improving rigor and standards behind the high school diploma is unsound because these “gains come at the expense of other goals for high school reform, including equity, curricular relevance, and student interest”
Opinion – “'s high schools are at risk of becoming a disaster, yet few of our political leaders are talking about it”
If testing has squeezed science out, can testing also bring science back?
Opinion – An Archaic System of Education: “A standards-based system of instruction, assessment, and reporting acknowledges that children grow and develop at different rates”
School Funding Litigation/Policy
As the 2008 fiscal year gets into full swing, some states are still ironing the kinks out of their cash-strapped budgets, and school funding is amongst the programs that could face the chopping block
NJ League of Municipalities joins the debate surrounding school-funding reform
State Roundup
NJ school district starts its first program for autistic children after years of paying for them to be educated at specialized private schools
Published Monday, Oct. 15, 2007