November 8, 2006
Education Week, Vol. 26, Issue 11
Education
Opinion
Chat Wrap-Up: Do Teacher-Pay Incentives Work?
On Oct. 25, readers’ questions on teacher-pay incentives were answered by a panel that included Tricia Coulter, the director of the Education Commission of the States’ Teaching Quality and Leadership Institute, in Denver; Sabrina W.M. Laine, the director of the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality, in Washington; and Ben Schaefer, the program manager of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future.
School & District Management
Opinion
Graduation-Rate Calculations, the 9th Grade Bulge, and Race
Many aspects of American public education that attract attention for one reason or another, no matter what their seeming subject, turn out at some level to be about the American Dilemma: race, writes Michael Holzman, a consultant to the Schott Foundation for Public Education.
Education
Letter to the Editor
N.Y. School Funding Case: Misframing the Debate?
My observations on your article “Advocates Turn Out for N.Y. School Funding Case” (Oct. 18, 2006) begin with its accompanying photograph of eight protestors, taken from inside a bus.
Federal
More Teacher-Incentive Grants Trickle Out
The U.S. Department of Education announced a dozen more grants last week for schools and districts willing to link the pay of teachers and principals to student test scores.
School & District Management
Mass. District Steps Into Licensing Role for Administrators
When the Springfield, Mass., school district decided five years ago that it needed administrators with a different set of skills, it took matters into its own hands. Under a highly unusual arrangement, the district won state approval to run its own licensing program.
IT Infrastructure & Management
Web Sites Gauge Proof of Whether Programs Work
A federal research center has added another Web site to the lengthening list of similar ventures that distill what the research says on “what works’’ to improve the achievement of students in grades K-12.
School & District Management
Elimination of School Fees Drives Student Enrollment
School days in Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, and several other nations in sub-Saharan Africa are now just that for more children than ever before. Millions who, in the past, were more likely to stay home or go out to work than sit in a classroom—especially girls and poor youngsters—now are crowding into government schools.
Education
Letter to the Editor
Photos of Amish Tragedy Disappointed This Reader
Some 25 years ago, I was introduced to Education Week in a doctoral course. I have been an avid reader ever since, as a principal, director, and superintendent of schools. That is, until this past month. As I opened my Oct. 11, 2006, issue and saw the front-page photo of a cluster of Amish children waiting to go to school, I was deeply offended and disappointed.
Education
Letter to the Editor
Animal-Training Lessons for School Policymakers?
Brenda Powers’ Commentary about what schools can learn from exotic-animal trainers ("We Are All Shamu," Oct. 18, 2006) took me back to a valley floor in Northern Thailand, where I once watched an old Shan man train a young elephant.
Education
Letter to the Editor
Two Arguments Favoring ‘People Over Machines’
My thanks go out to Larry Cuban for his Commentary reminding us that technology does not create student achievement ("The Laptop Revolution Has No Clothes," Oct. 18, 2006).
Education
Letter to the Editor
What to Do in Light of the Reading First Report
As one who has had the opportunity to work with states, school districts, and schools in preparing Reading First applications, it is with great interest that I read the U.S. Department of Education inspector general’s initial report on the federal program, and I look with anticipation to future reports ("Scathing Report Casts Cloud Over ‘Reading First’," Oct. 4, 2006). The findings come as no surprise.
Education
Letter to the Editor
To Make Schools Safe, First Know the Facts
Violent crimes in schools are neither widespread nor increasing, contrary to the implications and assertions in Sam Chaltain’s Oct. 25, 2006, Commentary.
Student Well-Being
Scholars Test Out New Yardsticks of School Poverty
When education researchers want to measure the collective poverty level in a school, they typically use the same yardstick: the percentage of students who qualify for free or reduced-rate meals under the federal school lunch program. But dissatisfaction with that indicator is prompting some researchers to cast about for better ways to gauge the socioeconomic status of schools.
Families & the Community
IDEA Issues Getting Ear of High Court
By granting review of its third case in two years involving the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the U.S. Supreme Court has signaled a renewed interest in resolving legal conflicts arising under the federal law that governs services provided to nearly 6.7 million schoolchildren in special education.
Curriculum
Opinion
The Wounds of Schooling
As Americans, we have profound, passionate beliefs in the power of education to transform lives but, for many, the connection between school and learning is a negative one, writes Kirsten Olson.
Federal
Opinion
Border Blind Side
Clifford Adelman warns that the United States cannot afford to sleep through the international revolution currently under way in higher education.
Equity & Diversity
‘Unaccompanied Minors’ Land in School
Picked up by immigration authorities, undocumented children who are apprehended without their parents are sent to shelters throughout the United States and educated while they wait out deportation proceedings. At one such shelter in Miami, new students appear almost as rapidly as others leave.
School Climate & Safety
Study: More Bus Injuries Than Widely Thought
Children riding school buses suffer more injuries than previous public data have suggested, according to a report in the November issue of Pediatrics that examined a national database of emergency room visits.
Assessment
A Better Measure of Student Growth?
While interest in judging school performance based on the gains individual students make over time is high, the best way to do so is not even part of the current debate, one veteran testing expert argues.
School Choice & Charters
Report Roundup
Unions and Charters
Teachers’ unions and charters schools often act like sworn enemies, but productive coexistence could come through fewer assumptions based on the polarized philosophical positions of both camps and more evidence about charter schools’ performance, says a report based on discussions from a symposium.
Families & the Community
Report Roundup
Parent Measures in NCLB Examined
Although the No Child Left Behind Act stresses parent involvement in their children’s education as an important route to improved student achievement, many schools and school districts have given short shrift to the federal law’s requirements related to parents, a report concludes.
College & Workforce Readiness
Report Roundup
College Completion
Of every 100 students who enter the 9th grade in the District of Columbia’s regular public or charter schools, only nine obtain a college degree within five years of enrolling in college, says a report.
Education
Report Roundup
Summer Academic Programs
Summer programs with an academic focus can yield significant improvement in learning, suggests a policy brief by the Harvard Family Research Project.
Federal
NIH Study of Children Aimed at Preventing Juvenile Diabetes
Children across the country are rolling up their sleeves for blood tests as a part of a major new study in juvenile-diabetes prevention.
Education
NFL, Heart Association Seek to Get Children Moving and Learning
The National Football League and the American Heart Association have joined forces in the fight against childhood obesity. They’re collaborating on an activity kit that will be sent to about 25,000 middle schools nationwide.
Student Well-Being
CDC to Conduct Large-Scale Study in Search for The Causes of Autism
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in Atlanta, is launching what it says is the largest ever federally financed study into the causes of autism.
College & Workforce Readiness
A Decline in Males Brings Experiment
As the proportion of male students on college campuses across the nation declines, Towson University in Maryland is experimenting with a program that could help it attract more men without running afoul of anti-discrimination laws.