June, 2004

Week of June 21st - June 25th, 2004

DENVER POST
"School Districts Form Alliance"
Fewer students and soaring operating costs have led six school districts in eastern Colorado to create an informal alliance, sharing everything from advice to buses -- and in the case of two districts, a superintendent. All six districts, known as the "Six Neighbors," are battling similar problems, such as the rising cost of fuel and health insurance for teachers, families leaving farming and difficulty luring teachers.

RALEIGH NEWS AND OBSERVER
"Value of Teacher Incentives Questioned"
Nearly 1,400 North Carolina teachers each were paid as much as $1,800 extra last year to work in schools hampered by poverty or lagging student achievement. The additional pay was an enticement for math, science and special education teachers to join or stay in those hard-pressed schools. State education and political leaders are now questioning whether the money helped do either and, more broadly, whether incentives alone can remedy teacher shortages.

NEWSDAY
"Prospective Teachers Learning New Tools for Special Students"
Advances in electronics and computers are making it easier for special education students to be taught in regular classes. But devices for such students do more than help them learn, prospective teachers say. These devices have become increasingly common since the enactment of a federal law in 1997 that put more emphasis on the use of assistive technology.

Week of June 6th - June 12th, 2004

FLORIDA Governor Jeb Bush has signed legislation that will provide funding for reading coaches to help train teachers in the state's lowest-performing middle schools. The law also requires that, by 2008, all reading programs in the state be research-based.
http://www.ecs.org/00CN1977

A report from the Education Trust recommends that states fund HIGHER EDUCATION institutions based on student progression through school and ultimately graduation -- not on the number of students enrolled. The report warns that current college attainment rates, which have slipped compared with other countries, threaten the nation's future economic competitiveness.
http://www.ecs.org/00CN1980

Wednesday, June 9th

DALLAS MORNING NEWS (free registration required)
"Perry: School Funding Suit Will Fail"
Governor Rick Perry, speaking privately to a group last month, said a lawsuit challenging the way Texas funds its schools will fail because he has appointed a majority of the Texas Supreme Court and he knows how it will rule. Perry's office acknowledged he made the statement, but said the governor was only commenting upon the conservative nature of the court.

DENVER POST
"Governor Rejects Study of State's Graduation Rates"
Governor Bill Owens killed legislation that would have created a commission to study high school graduation rates and whether Colorado is adequately preparing students for college. Currently, Colorado ranks 35th nationwide in how many students finish high school. Only 56% of African American students and 47% of Hispanics graduate from high school in Colorado. In his veto letter, Owens wrote he didn't like the bill because it's important to let local districts find their own solutions and so many of the appointees were from "trade associations and organizations" rather than a "wide variety of citizens."

EDUCATION WEEK (free registration required)
"Tenn. 'Value-added' System Survives Legislative Attack"
The Tennessee Legislature has passed a bill to continue the state's widely recognized "value-added" assessment system. The system measures the academic growth that students make from the beginning to the end of the school year, based on standardized tests. The bill would commit the state to a two-dimensional accountability system. First, public schools and districts would have to make "adequate yearly progress," as required under No Child Left Behind. In addition, they would have to meet "academic growth" targets in each tested subject and grade, with growth determined by the value-added assessment system.

EDUCATION WEEK (free registration required)
"Guidance Urges Input on 'Dangerous Schools' Definitions"
The Department of Education is urging states to seek advice from parents and other community members when defining "persistently dangerous" schools under No Child Left Behind, and to "review and revise" those definitions every year to make them more reflective of the actual threats students may face, according to new federal guidance. The "Unsafe School Choice Option" was praised by key House Republicans who had raised concerns about the lax criteria they said most states had developed to meet a mandate that students in such schools be allowed public school choice.

LINCOLN JOURNAL STAR
"State Education Board To Vote on Penalty for Failing Districts"
Nebraska school districts with students who perform below average in reading or math could be placed on probation and even lose all state funding under a penalty scheme. While the new policy before the state Board of Education puts penalties in place for the first time, those who are familiar with them agree that it is unlikely any district will face the harshest consequences.

Tuesday, June 8th

PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE
"Testing Standards Spawn Court Fight"
Pennsylvania is failing the children in its fifth-largest school district, which has a large number of children who live in poverty and understand little English, by holding them to the same academic standards as their counterparts in wealthier districts, an attorney for the Reading School District argued. A State Education Department attorney told judges the state must act within the federal guidelines and the state has not had enough time to develop Spanish-language assessment tests. The school district wants to prevent the state from imposing any sanctions until the department provides assessment tests in Spanish and until the district receives financial assistance that "fully funds" the cost of complying with the law.

Monday, June 7th

HOUSTON CHRONICLE (free registration required)
"TAAS Scores Rose as SATs Fell"
Even as Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) scores soared in the 1990s and into this decade, Texas high school graduates did no better on college entrance exams -- suggesting that schools may have emphasized the state-required test at the expense of everything else. The percentage of 10th graders passing TAAS increased from 61% in 1996 to 86% in 2002. During that same time, scores on the SAT and ACT dropped slightly. And half the students enrolling in public colleges statewide were so ill-prepared academically that they needed remedial coursework.

NEW YORK TIMES (free registration required)
"Robin Hood, Santa Claus and Financing for Schools"
It has been nearly a year since the state's highest court ruled that New York City's schoolchildren had been deprived of their constitutional right to a "sound, basic education" and ordered the state's elected leaders to find a remedy. Now, as the July 30 deadline imposed by the court nears, and Governor George E. Pataki and the leaders of the state legislature wage an increasingly bitter battle over what to do, there is this one area of agreement: They all want to increase school aid across the state, even to wealthier districts that have done fine by their students in the past.

NEW YORK TIMES (free registration required)
"States' End Run Dilutes Burden for Special Ed"
Like a dozen other states, Maryland is hoping to circumvent No Child Left Behind requirements that every category of student -- including special education -- must show improvement or the entire school can face penalties. Maryland officials say their proposals would avoid large numbers of schools being labeled "in need of improvement" when only small numbers of students are doing poorly. So far, the federal government already is giving special allowances to four states, in addition to Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, to require schools to have larger numbers of disabled or non-English-speaking children in order to be judged by their performance, and it is expected to approve similar proposals from at least five more.

WASHINGTON POST (free registration required)
"Poor Schools Sue for Funding"
According to experts who track lawsuits, half the states in the country are now involved in litigation over education funding. Recent lawsuits that seek sufficient funding for poor districts rather than parity with affluent ones, have been fueled, in part, by No Child Left Behind, which is designed to make every child in the country proficient in math and reading by 2014. Many poor school districts that fail to meet the targets established by the law have gone to court to argue they lack the resources to compete with their richer neighbors.