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Issues & Research » Education » Education Program: Weekly News Clippings
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This Week in Education - October 30 - November 4, 2009
Highlighted Bills of the week
(Bill summaries provided by
State Net)
Florida - S 1540 Enacted:
Relates to zero-tolerance policies in schools, revises the requirements for zero-tolerance policies, deletes provisions relating to agreements with the county sheriff's office and local police departments, requires that such agreements specify guidelines for addressing acts that pose a serious threat to school safety, requires public meetings and public testimony, prohibits disclosure of the identity of a minor, encourages alternatives to expulsion or referral to law enforcement.
New Jersey - S 2707 Enacted:
Requires the Department of Education to establish a pilot program to recruit and issue teaching certificates to individuals with mathematics or science skills and work-related backgrounds demonstrating a requisite level of proficiency in and utilization of such skills, provides that the program shall focus on displaced state resident workers, and certified teaching staff members authorized to work in public schools in the state who do not currently have an endorsement in those curriculum areas.
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Stimulus and the states
Federal economic recovery aid for education has created or saved more than 7,000 jobs in the District, Maryland and Virginia, according to a report by the government board assigned to keep track of stimulus spending, part of about 400,000 jobs preserved nationwide. The report by the Recovery, Accountability and Transparency Board provided the first state-by-state breakdown of the jobs saved with $67.6 billion in federal aid provided by the Department of Education to the states through Sept. 30.
Leadership
In California, where school budgets are being slashed and achievement remains stubbornly low in many districts, there is mounting concern that the supply of principals is too limited to manage the financial and academic challenges facing public schools.
K-12 Governance
Milwaukee's mayor would have the power to not only appoint the city school system's superintendent but also set its annual tax levy under a legislative proposal Gov. Jim Doyle detailed Tuesday.
Dropouts
As education leaders align their programs with the goals set forth by Education Secretary Arne Duncan under the Obama administration, a major point of emphasis is turning around underperforming schools and stemming the nation's dropout rate. The proposed 2010 federal budget has marked $50 million for dropout prevention work, and the federal stimulus package adds another $3.5 billion to help turn around low-performing schools.
Researchers at Northeastern University used census and other government data to carry out the study, which tracks the employment, workplace, parenting and criminal justice experiences of young high school dropouts.
This report describes programs that have been proven to help young people successfully complete high school and be prepared for success in postsecondary education and careers. These programs represent a wide range of interventions, including school-wide reform initiatives, community-based afterschool services, work-based learning opportunities, and college access programs. From an analysis of the included programs, the report identifies common programmatic and structural elements that may contribute to their effectiveness and summarizes key outcomes.
This report investigates the linkages between students at risk of dropping out, their families, and the communities where they live. The underlying premise of this report from the 2009 NASBE Study Group on School-Community Partnerships is that only by implementing comprehensive dropout prevention plans that include a strong school-community partnership component can schools effectively reach all struggling students.
This guide cites initiatives such as the Texas High School Project, a public-private partnership that helps at-risk students in high-need areas by creating model high schools such as the Texas Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (T-STEM) academies, the Dropout Recovery Pilot Program, an effort to recruit dropouts and provide incentives to ensure students graduate; the district-based Reach Out to Dropouts program, which encourages district leaders to visit students who do not return to school; and the state’s high performing charter schools, which provide rigorous curriculum to minority and disadvantaged students.
School Choice
In Denver Public Schools, 41 percent of the district's estimated 75,000 students attend a school other than one in their attendance area, up from 34 percent in 2004. The numbers of DPS students "choicing" into schools continues to rise as the district's diversification of school programs continues.
Teaching
Representative Roy Takumi's opinion piece on teacher furlough in Hawaii.
Texas is among the first states to toughen its standards for colleges of education and other teacher-training programs amid criticism that too many are “cash cows” that produce weak instructors. Under a proposed new rating system, the programs would be held accountable for their graduates' effectiveness on the job — especially regarding student achievement. Teacher programs that repeatedly fall short of the standards could lose their state accreditation.
Denver is to reform in the way teachers are paid what Milwaukee is to private school vouchers: It's the place that's broken a lot of new ground and been a magnet for national attention. With the likelihood that the Wisconsin Legislature will take important steps in the next few weeks that will substantially increase the prospects for changing the classic system for teacher salaries, here's some advice for Wisconsin from Brad Jupp, a central architect of the Denver system…
On November 3, 2009, SMHC released this call to action outlining the dramatic steps necessary to improve teacher and principal talent. In this report, SMHC offers 20 policy recommendations for state and district actions to improve student achievement by recruiting, developing, evaluating, compensating and retaining more effective teachers and principals. Minor revisions will be made in the coming days.
P-12
American schools have struggled for decades to close what's called the 'minority achievement gap' — the lower average test scores, grades and college attendance rates among black and Latino students. Typically, schools place children who are falling behind in remedial classes, to help them catch up. But some schools are finding that grouping students by ability, also known as tracking or leveling, causes more problems than it solves.
Since 2003, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has sponsored the development of a method for mapping each state’s standard for proficient performance onto a common scale—the achievement scale of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). When states’ standards are placed onto the NAEP reading or mathematics scales, the level of achievement required for proficient performance in one state can then be compared with the level of achievement required in another state. This allows one to compare the standards for proficiency across states.
For more than a decade, the state has judged a school’s MCAS success by comparing each grade level with the ones before it; this year’s fourth grade results, for instance, would be judged against last year’s fourth grade scores. That method will remain in place but added to it will be a new analysis that measures whether individual students are making gains on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System tests they take over the course of several years. Schools, in turn, would be assessed on whether their students are exceeding expectations over time or falling short.
Parents and elected officials across the USA are demanding that schools slacken zero-tolerance policies that are meant to reduce violence because strict adherence has lead to some students being forced out of school for bringing items such as eyebrow trimmers and a Cub Scout's camping tool to campus.
A respected literacy-research organization is asking that a process be put in place to make more transparent potential conflicts of interest that writers of the common national academic standards might have, and to address them. The Literacy Research Association sent a letter Oct. 21 to the groups overseeing the development of common standards that, among other points, expresses concern that many of the authors are “representatives of multiple commercial entities that stand to profit enormously from selling curricula, instructional materials, assessments, and consultancies as the standards are rolled out.”
Frederick County officials are considering asking state lawmakers to require a count of students with questionable immigration status in the county's public schools.
Because of a retroactive change in state graduation requirements, some students who didn't pass the state competency tests as far back as 1981 may now get a high-school diploma. In Forsyth County, an average of 30 to 40 students in each graduating class since 1981 could be eligible for a diploma, said Kenneth Simington, the assistant superintendent for student services for Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools. Eligible students are those who completed all requirements for graduation except passing the state competency tests in reading and mathematics and passing the N.C. computer-skills test. The General Assembly eliminated those as graduation requirements, retroactively.
Maine voters have rejected a move to repeal the state’s school district consolidation law — and they did so in convincing fashion. With 87 percent of the state’s precincts reporting early Wednesday morning, the vote was 284,117 to 201,203 — or 58.5 percent to 41.5 percent — against repealing the law.
Post-Secondary Education
The share of 18- to 24-year-olds attending college in the United States hit an all-time high in October 2008, driven by a recession-era surge in enrollments at community colleges, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly released data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Just under 11.5 million students, or 39.6% of all young adults ages 18 to 24, were enrolled in either a two- or four-year college in October 2008 (the most recent date for which comprehensive nationwide data are available). Both figures -- the absolute number as well as the share -- are at their highest level ever.
Texas voters took a modest but significant step Tuesday toward lifting more of the state's public universities into the ranks of major national research institutions by approving a constitutional amendment freeing up about $500 million from a dormant higher education account.
LSU must increase its graduation rate to 75 percent by 2018 and all other public universities in the state must hit at least a 50 percent plateau, according to a recommendation approved Tuesday by a statewide college review commission.
Despite criticism that they are setting the bar too high, the South Dakota Board of Education passed a new set of high school graduation rules Monday that make upper- level math and science classes mandatory.
The perception and the worry is that U.S. students aren't pursuing, or prepared for, careers in science, technology, engineering and math, those so-called STEM jobs. A new study released today found that "STEM retention" increased from the late 1970s to the 1990s and that overall interest in math and science has not wavered in the past 30 years.
Budget cuts could force a Missouri school to close midway through the academic year, leaving students with half-earned credits scrambling to complete their education. Some students, just a few credits shy of graduation, could wind up as high school dropouts. Others, struggling with cancer, could miss their only chance to earn a degree.
School Finance
The Meridian School District usually counts on increased student enrollment to bring in more state revenue. But in this economy, schools and state agencies have been forced to live on less. Meridian schools had 860 more students this year and received $4 million less from the state.
Seven months later, as states issue the first reports on how the education stimulus money is being spent, Duncan and the U.S. Department of Education have criticized several states — including Hawaii — for using stimulus money to close budget gaps while reducing state spending on education.
Amid a still-shaky economy, a troubling reality is starting to set in for states and school districts: The budget situation may get a lot worse when the federal economic-stimulus spigot runs dry.
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