Education Program
This Week in Education
Week of March 13 - March 19, 2008
Highlighted Bills of the Week
(Powered by State Net)
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Colorado HB 1354 (Introduced) |
Provides that students enrolled in the 11th grade shall take a standardized, curriculum based, achievement college entrance examination. |
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Pennsylvania SB-545 (Introduced)
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This bill would prohibit anyone convicted of a serious crime from working in schools. In addition SB 545 would require annual fingerprinting for all those working near children. It would require the fingerprints to be kept in a database and would compel law enforcement agencies to notify administrators whenever school personnel are charged with crimes. |
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This Week in Education
March 13 - March 19, 2008
K-12
U.S. Eases ‘No Child’ Law as Applied to Some States
The Bush administration, acknowledging that the federal No Child Left Behind law is diagnosing too many public schools as failing, said Tuesday that it would relax the law’s provisions for some states, allowing them to distinguish schools with a few problems from those that need major surgery.
No small plan: Public boarding schools for Chicago (Video)
School chief wants to launch first residential program as early as 2009.
Senate OKs bill to curb bullying
The Senate unanimously passed a bill Thursday that would require school districts to create a policy to deal with bullies. House Bill 91, sponsored by Rep. Mike Cherry, D-Princeton, has been approved in the Democratic-controlled House in past legislative sessions but has never gotten out of the Republican-controlled Senate.
Smaller Classes Don't Close Learning Gap, Study Finds
For 20 years, a large study of class size in Tennessee, known as Project STAR, has raised hopes that reducing the number of children in inner-city classrooms to 17 or fewer would yield significant increases in achievement. Researchers have concluded that high achievers benefited more from the small classes than low achievers. Since low-income students in urban neighborhoods have lower achievement, on average, than students from more affluent families,
Teaching Kids a Healthy Way to Start the Day
A balanced breakfast is a routine start of the school day for District Heights Elementary students, who recently shared the meal with someone who appreciates its scholastic and nutritional benefits: John E. Deasy, the county school superintendent.
Leadership
Patrick names Reville as new education secretary
Gov. Deval Patrick on Tuesday named Paul Reville, one of the architects of the landmark 1993 Education Reform Act, to be his new Chairman of the Board of Education, a Cabinet-level position responsible for implementing the governor's education reforms.
Calif. District Makes Instructional Leadership a Priority (EdWeek)
The Norwalk-La Mirada school district is transforming the principals of its 29 schools into leaders of instruction, rather than managers of school buildings. Policymakers nationwide increasingly see the shift as crucial for academic achievement, but relatively few districts have taken concrete steps to help principals make it.
Education leadership topic of public hearing
The Senate Education Committee wants to change education leadership in Vermont by upgrading the Commissioner of Education to a Secretary position. A proposed bill to do that is scheduled to be discussed by the Department of Education in a public hearing before the Senate Education Committee today at 6:30 p.m. The first change listed in the bill would be to transform the Department of Education into an agency that would be under the direction of a secretary of education, who would be appointed by the governor.
New-Leaders Group Offers Initial Insights Into Effective Practice (EdWeek)
School leaders who are turning around low-performing schools use three distinctly different leadership strategies for early, middle, and late-stage improvement, says a new report by a national organization that trains principals.
Principal Recruitment Another Move in Reform
Boosting the D.C. public schools' principal corps is a critical component of Rhee's and Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's (D) strategy to reform the city's troubled school system, where about two-thirds of its 49,600 students have poor reading and math skills. Rhee has embarked on an aggressive $180,000 national advertising campaign to recruit high-performing principals who have dramatically helped students learn.
School Choice
Parents will have to wait two years for school tax break
A new tax break for parents of children in Louisiana private schools and a smaller benefit for parents of public school students won't have an impact on their pocketbooks for at least two years. Senate Bill 5, an initiative backed by Gov. Bobby Jindal and sponsored by Sen. Rob Marionneaux, D-Livonia, was passed in a special session that ended Friday. It offers a deduction from state income of 50 percent of elementary or secondary private or parochial school tuition and fees up to $5,000 per student. The deduction is available to anyone who pays nonpublic-school tuition for a student, even if not related.
Charter Schools Get Top Marks
Rather than pitting charter and public schools as sector vs. sector, we’ll do better to think of charters and traditional schools as components of a broad public education system, ultimately responsible for democratic processes and open to change and adaptation as we feel our way along toward better schooling and a better society for all.
Bill broadening charter school eligibility meets resistance
Currently, Tennessee's six-year-old charter school law has one of the most restrictive enrollment provisions in the nation, allowing charter schools only to draw their enrollment from failing schools or students considered to be failing. Sen. Jamie Woodson (R), the chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee, is pushing legislation that would broaden the state's current law on charter school eligibility to allow charter schools to fill some slots with any student who participates in the federal free or reduced-price lunch program.
STEM
State puts Web-only schools on short cord
Online charter schools can operate in Oregon only under severe restrictions, including limits on enrollment and securing permission from each local school district before enrolling students, the state Board of Education decided.
Post-Secondary Education
Mo. bill would bar illegal immigrants from colleges
Missouri public colleges and universities would be barred from enrolling illegal immigrants under a bill given first-round approval by the House. The proposal would require colleges to certify that they have not knowingly enrolled illegal immigrants before they can receive state money. No specific penalty provisions are outlined in the proposal, but lawmakers could withhold some of a college's funding for violating the guidelines.
Education Finance
Latest education funding bill advances in state Senate
The latest plan to fund public education advanced in the Senate yesterday on a 15-9 vote. The plan in SB 539 spends a total of $962 million in basic and supplemental grants for public schools. The added grants are meant to help districts that have more financial challenges.
Tough budget year overshadows panel's report
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's blue-ribbon committee on education released a list of sweeping recommendations Friday to overhaul California's public school system at an additional annual cost of $10.5 billion - a staggering amount even if the state's budget weren't already hemorrhaging red ink.
Governor grilled about changes to education-system funding
Gov. Janet Napolitano addressed about 400 teachers and educators from the Arizona Education Association at a Capitol lawn luncheon earlier this month. About 40 lawmakers were on hand. Along with fielding questions, Napolitano outlined a plan to fund education by cutting spending in other areas, moving unused money to the general fund and dipping into the state's so-called rainy-day fund.
Coalition rebuts state on schools
The Montana Quality Education Coalition is renewing its request for a court hearing on the 6-year-old school-funding lawsuit and disputing state arguments that the problem has been fixed. The arguments came in a court filing the group made Friday in the case, in which it is seeking another hearing and more money for the upcoming school year.
Suit contests state property tax
A federal lawsuit filed on behalf of some Lawrence and Sumter county public school students challenges the state's property tax system, contending property-tax revenues do not sufficiently fund K-12 schools and that disproportionately hurts black students.
Gov. signs school finance bill; wealthy districts unsatisfied
Gov. Dave Freudenthal signed a bill intended to help clear up a long-running school finance dispute, but wealthy school districts said the law is unlikely to affect their lawsuit against the state. The new law spells out the date that Wyoming's wealthiest school districts should have stopped reaping windfalls from local property tax revenue far above the amounts collected by other districts.
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