Education Program
This Week in Education
September 13 - September 20, 2007
New Website for Charter Leaders
Research suggests that most charter schools that fail are forced to close for non-academic reasons, most often because of organizational mismanagement and financial difficulties. This new website provides an array of resources to help policymakers, authorizers, and operators build and support stronger charter schools. Highlights of the site are a resource clearinghouse searchable by finance or governance topic; an expanding compendium of promising practices in charter school finance and governance; and an open discussion board for information exchange among leaders in the field. Other resources, including guides to state policy in charter school finance and governance and a catalog of federal funding sources for charter school operations and facilities, are coming soon. The website is operated by the National Resource Center on Charter School Finance and Governance.
www.CharterResource.org
Leading for Learning 2007
The Education Week series "Leading for Learning," funded by the Wallace Foundation, includes several special reports on leadership in education. http://www.edweek.org/ew/collections/wallace/index.html
Roosevelt: New School Superintendent
The state education commissioner, Richard P. Mills, has appointed a new superintendent, Robert-Wayne Harris, for the troubled Roosevelt school system in Nassau County.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/nyregion/17mbrfs-schools.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1190213502-nhHoicJdqceLcKhiDnitXg
Steiny: State policies make it hard for principals and parents to talk freely
School principals have difficult conversations all day long — with kids, staff, parents, central office, neighbors, substitutes, and the electrician who said he’d be in and out of that classroom in an hour but wasn’t. Principals have tremendous responsibilities — everything from school reform and student achievement to running out of toilet paper.
http://www.projo.com/education/juliasteiny/content/se_educationwatch16_09-16-07_HH743GS.380c82.html
Alabama Plan Brings Out Cry of Resegregation
After white parents in this racially mixed city complained about school overcrowding, school authorities set out to draw up a sweeping rezoning plan. The results: all but a handful of the hundreds of students required to move this fall were black — and many were sent to virtually all-black, low-performing schools.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/education/17schools.html
States’ Fiscal Woes Raise Anxiety Level on School Budgets
A long-projected revenue chill is beginning to bite in a number of states, putting pressure on education policymakers to defend existing programs…While the slowdown in the real estate market and its effect on state revenues are national concerns, some regions are harder-hit economically than others, according to Daniel G. Thatcher, an NCSL research analyst.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2007/09/19/04finance.h27.html?tmp=278338411
Few seek to be School-district Superintendents
Arizona school districts are finding it harder to recruit and retain superintendents as the job becomes more complex, time-consuming and political. Beyond dealing with the high school exit exam and No Child Left Behind, superintendents function as fundraisers and lobbyists. On average, public schools replace about 15% of superintendents per year. The average superintendent serves 3.8 years. The state is encouraging districts to identify and nurture their own talent.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0917edsuperintendent0917.html
Dann sues 2 charter schools: Dayton schools accused of betraying standards
Attorney General Marc Dann moved to shut down two failing Dayton charter schools yesterday, vowing to take similar legal action against others across Ohio that fail to meet state academic and financial standards.
http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2007/09/13/chsuit.ART_ART_09-13-07_A1_KF7SSIS.html?sid=101
Report: No way to assess how well schools work
The state spends well over $1 billion a year on public education but there is almost no way to compare how individual schools use the money or whether children whose schooling costs more are better educated, a state consultant says.
Economists were asked by lawmakers to "drill down" into the causes behind education spending and figure out why some schools are more expensive and what taxpayers are getting for their money. But that basically can't be done without a large-scale effort to reconcile and sort data. That is because below the supervisory union level there is little consistency in how difference expenses are allocated and accounted for. For example, in one supervisory union special education costs maybe counted as a supervisory expense, but in another a school-by-school expense.
http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070918/NEWS02/709180327/1003/NEWS02
Inequality within districts cited
Ohio's embattled public schools were confronted with a new lawsuit Monday challenging whether students within each district being treated equally. The Ohio Supreme Court has repeatedly declared the state's school funding system unconstitutional, saying a heavy reliance on the local tax base created inequality between districts because a poor district can't raise as much money as a wealthy one. Monday's lawsuit argues that two buildings within one school district also can be unequal.
http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070918/NEWS01/709180368
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