Education Program
This Week in Education
November 29 - December 5, 2007
K-12
Schools for Deaf Confront Other Disabilities (edweek)
The California School for the Deaf’s Fremont campus will soon start offering a day program for adolescents with a daunting set of educational challenges: autism or severe developmental disabilities, in addition to deafness. The new class is part of a legal settlement between the school and the parents of a 15-year-old student who believe their daughter is better served in an environment where American Sign Language is used than in a program for hearing students with autism.
Longer school day appears to boost MCAS scores
Last fall, 10 Massachusetts public schools embarked on an experiment: Lengthen the school day by at least 25 percent, give students extra doses of reading, writing, and math, and let teachers come up with creative ways to reinforce their lessons.
17 school days may be added for 2010-2011
The school year will be at least 17 days longer by the 2010-11 school year if the recommendations of the state's Time Reform Task Force go into effect — and seven days longer beginning next year.
High-tech harassment; Schools find 'cyberbullying' on the rise
A study by the Journal of Adolescent Health released last week says cyberbullying or electronic aggression is a growing public health concern. Face-to-face bullying is still more dominant, but the percentage of youths who were victims of online harassment rose 50 percent between 2000 and 2005, according to the report.
At N.J. college, students must buy a cell phone with GPS for safety
Montclair State University is one of the first schools in the U.S. to use GPS tracking devices, which along with other security technology are increasingly being adopted on campuses in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre last spring. Students can use the timer, or, in an emergency, activate the GPS technology to instantly alert police.
High-Quality After-School Programs Tied to Test-Score Gains (edweek)
Disadvantaged students who regularly attend top-notch after-school programs end up, after two years, academically far ahead of peers who spend more out-of-school time in unsupervised activities, according to findings from an eight-state study of those programs. Known as the Promising Afterschool Programs study, the new research examined 35 programs serving 2,914 students in 14 communities stretching from Bridgeport, Conn., to Seaside, Calif. The programs, all of which had been operating at least three years when the study began, were selected because of a record of success.
Leadership
Academy in N.Y.C. Prepares Principals for Toughest Jobs (edweek)
The outcome of New York City’s gambit to give schools greater autonomy over their budgets and curriculum in exchange for heightened accountability for results will arguably rise or fall based on the skills of its principals. So the role of the New York City Leadership Academy—created by Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein to recruit, train, and support new principals for the city’s toughest schools—has never been more central.
School Choice
Moratorium on approval of new Nevada charter schools imposed
A state panel has imposed a temporary freeze on the approval of new charter schools in Nevada, citing inadequate staff to monitor a growing number of such schools.
Lawsuits may decide future of Florida charter schools
Who has the right to approve the creation of charter schools, make sure their students learn and their bills get paid? And how much taxpayer money should go to the privately run schools? Until recently, the answers were clear: Local school boards authorized and then monitored charter schools, which receive state dollars based on the number of students in attendance. That has changed, prompting two potentially significant legal challenges.
STEM
New report ranks U.S. teens 29th in science worldwide
The United States lags behind most other developed countries when it comes to science education. That, at least, is one conclusion of a major report released Tuesday by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). It measures student literacy in science, math, and reading (focusing this year on science) among 15-year-olds, and is an often-cited reference for policymakers sounding the alarm bells about the state of education in the United States and its implications for the ability of Americans to secure jobs in a global economy.
More states move to require consumer-math classes
Once a common course offering, consumer math is being phased out as school systems raise their expectations of how much math students should know when they graduate. Twenty or 30 years ago, Algebra I might have sufficed. Today, that course is regarded as an absolute minimum, a gateway to Advanced Placement study and college. Students routinely take it in middle school.
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