October 12, 2005
Education Week, Vol. 25, Issue 07
Education
A State Capitals Roundup
Florida Leaders Release Old Test Questions
Florida education officials on Sept. 21 made public some of the state’s standardized-test questions, after years of clamoring for the release by some parents and state legislators.
School & District Management
A State Capitals Roundup
Kansas Board Picks State Schools Chief
The Kansas board of education last week chose Bob L. Corkins, a well-known conservative policy advocate, as its new state commissioner of education, despite concerns about his lack of direct experience working in schools.
Education Funding
New Finance System Doesn’t Satisfy Governor
Lawmakers in the Granite State spent much of their 2005 session retooling the state’s school finance system. The new law targets more aid to poor districts, shrinks a controversial statewide property tax that was created to pay for schools, and reduces the number of “donor” communities, which have to give some of the tax money they collect to less prosperous districts.
Education Funding
Lawmakers Rewrite State Aid Formula
Establishing a new, more equitable system of paying for schools was the dominant legislative issue in 2005 for the Show Me State. The new formula, approved in May, sets a minimum per-pupil funding level from all sources of $6,117.
Education
New Law Targets Teacher Training
State lawmakers want to transform the teaching profession in Minnesota through a new Quality Compensation for Teachers program, also dubbed QComp, that will offer career ladders and performance-pay plans to teachers in participating districts.
School & District Management
Lawmakers Expand Full-Day Kindergarten
The $2.8 billion state operating budget for fiscal 2006 included an 8 percent increase in aid for K-12 education. That brought the fiscal 2006 education budget to $966 million, said Susan K. Haberstroh, an executive assistant at the state department of education.
Standards & Accountability
Data Fog
The document designed to inform California parents about the progress of their children’s schools—the School Accountability Report Card—is confusing, densely written, and hard even for people with advanced degrees to understand, says a study from the University of California, Los Angeles.
States
Choice Proponents Gearing Up for 2006 Legislatures
School choice advocates from conservative-leaning state policy groups gathered here recently to compare notes and map out strategies for expanding families’ school options during the 2006 state legislative sessions.
Education Funding
Calif. Law to Shed Light on Teachers’ Salaries
Thanks to new financial-reporting requirements, Californians soon will know how much is spent on teachers’ salaries at their schools. And when that happens, there may be some explaining to do.
College & Workforce Readiness
Success Graduating Black Males Earns Ohio Schools Praise
Three Ohio high schools are being honored this week for outstanding work in fueling the success of African-American male students.
English Learners
Report Roundup
English Proficiency
Three out of four U.S. elementary school students with limited proficiency in English were born in the United States, concludes a study.
Education
Report Roundup
Pre-K Choice
Florida’s voluntary public prekindergarten program, which operates much like a school voucher system, is giving parents freedom of choice because they can pick from a variety of early-childhood-education providers, an analysis concludes.
Education
Report Roundup
Child Immunizations
More than 27 million children worldwide who are less than 12 months old have not been immunized against diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus, and more than 29 million have not been immunized against measles, a study by unicef has found.
School Choice & Charters
Report Roundup
Charter Effects
The emergence of charter schools can have “positive and significant” effects on students’ reading and math scores in nearby regular public schools, concludes a study by researchers at the rand Corp., the University of Tennessee, and Texas A&M University.
School Choice & Charters
Report Roundup
Capital Charters
With more than one-fifth of its public school students in charter schools, the District of Columbia is “home to some of the best and worst charter schools in the country,” Progressive Policy Institute fellow Sara Mead says in the latest in a series of reports on charter schooling from the Washington-based think tank.
Education
Report Roundup
U.N. Tracks Education of Youths Worldwide
People ages 15 to 24 worldwide represent the best-educated generation in history, a United Nations report concludes.
School Choice & Charters
Majority of New Orleans Independent Schools Still Closed
Only one of the 11 independent schools in the greater New Orleans area that were affected by Hurricane Katrina has reopened, though most expect to reopen by January, private school leaders said last week.
Student Achievement
Study Finds Kindergarten Retention Harmful
Despite policymakers’ continuing pledges to end “social promotion,” a new national study suggests that, when it comes to kindergartners, schools do more harm than good by making struggling pupils repeat a grade.
School Climate & Safety
Schools Welcome FEMA Aid, But Not Without Frustration
After Hurricane Katrina flattened schools along the Gulf Coast and floodwaters swirled into classrooms, the Federal Emergency Management Agency did something it had never done before: It created strike teams of education experts to help schools in Louisiana and Mississippi.
Teaching Profession
Tentative N.Y.C. Accord Would Support Raises, Curb Seniority Rights
More than two years after the old contract expired, New York City and its teachers’ union announced a tentative agreement last week that would raise all teachers’ salaries by 15 percent over five years, require more time on the job, and strip away some rights conferred by seniority.
School & District Management
High Court Pick’s Record Has Little on Education
Harriet E. Miers, President Bush’s choice to replace retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, helped shepherd the No Child Left Behind Act through its final stages in her staff role at the White House, according to one of the president’s closest advisers on education at the time.
Special Education
Supreme Court Declines to Hear Appeals on Religious Murals, Special Education
A First Amendment challenge to a principal’s power to alter religious murals and a complaint by parents in a special education dispute over their child’s reassignment to another school were two appeals out of hundreds of cases that the U.S. Supreme Court turned away at the start of its new term last week.
Education
A Washington Roundup
Senate Bill Would Restore Colo. District’s Impact Aid
The Senate has approved a measure that would keep a Colorado school district from losing $1.2 million in federal impact aid.
Federal
A Washington Roundup
Contracts Awarded for NCLB Centers
The Department of Education last week awarded contracts for 20 new, comprehensive centers to provide advice to states and school districts on meeting the demands of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
Federal
GOP Plan Would Relax Rules for Storm-Affected Schools
House Republican education leaders released a proposal last week that they say would help schools and districts affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita by easing a number of federal restrictions.
Federal
Federal File
Bottom of the Curve
Two years ago, when the Department of Education ranked near the bottom on a survey of federal employees on the best places to work, a department spokesman suggested that one reason for the poor showing was that the agency’s employees were expressing discomfort over being asked to think differently about what they do.
Federal
GAO: Armstrong Williams PR Contract Violated Law
The Department of Education violated a federal law prohibiting covert government propaganda when it paid for the commentator Armstrong Williams to advance its policies, the Government Accountability Office has concluded.
Special Education
Court Weighs Burden of Proof in IDEA Cases
The U.S. Supreme Court delved into the complexities of federal special education law last week as it took up a case involving the burden of proof in disputes over individualized education programs.
Curriculum
Study: Relationships Key to Monitoring Children
A parent’s relationship with his or her kindergartner can help determine what kind of behavior that child exhibits by the 4th grade, according to a recently published study of 267 children by James Snyder, a psychology professor at Wichita State University in Kansas.
