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PreK-12
TX:
Texas Coalition for a Competitive Workforce calls for tougher school standards
A coalition of
business and research groups announced Thursday that it will push for more
emphasis on career and college readiness in public schools, including tougher
performance standards for schools.
The Texas Coalition for a Competitive Workforce – headed by the Texas
Association of Business and Governor's Business Council – said it is time for
the Legislature and education officials to address the inadequate skills of so
many high school graduates.
Bill Hammond, president of the Texas Association of Business, said the
Legislature moved in the right direction last year by creating a series of
end-of-course tests for students in lieu of th
The Dallas Morning News
AL:
Students who fail can now get 2nd chance
When
17-year-old Dani Stokely failed a Baker High School geometry class by a couple
of points last year, she thought she'd have to spend an entire semester toiling
again in the class to graduate.
Instead, she became the first Mobile County student to complete a program that
will soon be offered at all Alabama high schools: She retook the course by
computer.
In 3 weeks, Stokely went from having a 12 percent mastery of geometry to 75
percent, which was enough to earn her a "C" on her report card.
The Mobile Press Register
MS:
26-city MEC tour details education push
One proposal would offer
incentives to keep veteran teachers from retiring
The
Mississippi Economic Council believes improving the state's education system
and work force training programs will help further the state's economic
development opportunities.
MEC, the state's chamber of commerce, detailed some of its legislative
initiatives at a stop in Jackson, which is part of a 26-city statewide tour.
An initiative would require new teachers to work 30 years before they could
draw from their state retirement fund and offer incentives to existing teachers
to entice them to continue teaching, Wilson told about 100 business and
community leaders Tuesday morning. The program is supported by MEC and Momentum
Mississippi. Currently, teachers and other state workers are eligible to retire
after 25 years.
The (Jackson, Mississippi) Clarion-Ledger
MS:
Task force: Get tough with school districts
School boards
in Mississippi could face tougher fiscal oversight, and district rankings might
be only as good as the the lowest-performing school's under proposals discussed
Wednesday at a legislative task force meeting.
The Legislative Task Force on Underperforming Schools and Districts,
established by the 2008 Legislature, met in advance of a public hearing on the
same subject. The group will meet again Oct. 29 with plans to firm up policy
recommendations before its November meeting.
Each of the proposals are geared toward improving student performance
statewide.
The (Jackson, Mississippi) Clarion-Ledger
GA: Ga. accrediting agency approves
Clayton schools
The troubled
Clayton County school system has won certification from the Georgia Accrediting
Commission.
Clayton County officials got the news Monday, just a couple of weeks after a
GAC team visited schools in the 50,000-student district. GAC head Carvin Brown
said the accreditation means students who graduate from Clayton County schools
are eligible for HOPE scholarships and admission to all Georgia public colleges
and universities.
Clayton County officials are still working to regain accreditation with the
Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. SACS, a federally recognized
national agency, yanked its certification Sept. 1 because of ongoing problems
with the Clayton County school board.
The Macon Telegraph
SC:
Few take advantage of free tutoring
School district
administrators say it's difficult to get poor parents to enroll their children
for free tutoring because the after-school help is inconvenient or seen as a
stigma instead of an opportunity.
Poor parents, who often are single and work more than one job, struggle to
clothe, feed and keep their family healthy, so tutoring isn't a high priority,
and students may have to baby-sit younger siblings.
While educators must make parents understand the importance of a good
education, tutoring "doesn't add another set of hands or more hours in the
day," Percy Mack, superintendent of downtown Columbia schools, said after
testifying last week at a U.S. Commission on Civil Rights fact-finding session
on South Carolina's compliance with the federal No Child Left Behind education
accountability law.
The Charleston (South Carolina) Post and
Courier
AR: No rise in
taunting because of BMI tests, study finds
Overweight
children in Arkansas have not received more teasing since schools began
measuring the body mass index of students in 2003, according to a study
released Tuesday.
The study by researchers at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
also found the percentage of parents who recognize their children are
overweight has risen, parents are promoting healthier lifestyles and students
are reporting fewer vending machine purchases.
Arkansas News Bureau
NC:
'Last stop' for dropouts
On paper,
17-year-old James Johnson is just another of Charlotte's 10th-grade dropouts.
But his story is one complicated by years of hard luck, including five days his
family spent trapped in a flooded New Orleans church after Hurricane Katrina.
Life as an evacuee has been tumultuous for him, including one failed fresh
start after another. But Johnson is hoping that's all about to change with the
help of the BRIDGE Jobs Program, one of the smaller charities supported by
United Way of Central Carolinas.
The Charlotte Observer
TN: Leaders' isolation let schools fail
Garcia, Johnson rejected state's offers for No Child Left Behind help
Some Metro schools
were already failing state standards by the time about 4,500 "Blueprint
for Learning" books were delivered to district headquarters in fall 2003.
These road maps for teaching to Tennessee's standardized tests were supposed to
help districts avoid repercussions under the federal No Child Left Behind law.
But Metro didn't want them.
District leaders told the state education department to come get the books. And
today, Metro is the only Tennessee district with five years of failure under No
Child Left Behind and the only one under partial state control.
Last month, district leaders received more evidence of mismanagement, this time
on the financial side. A state audit revealed problems accounting for federal
grant money, which endangered $35 million in grants.
The Tennessean
NC:
N.C. scores plummet on harder reading test
A lot of
parents may be in for a shock in a few weeks when they see their children's
reading test scores have dropped off a cliff.
Many more North Carolina students failed end-of-grade reading tests this year
than in previous years. Students who, judging by test results, seemed to know
their way around a poem or short story just a year ago might rate as barely
passing this year.
But the big drop isn't necessarily because students aren't learning or because
teaching has gotten worse. Education officials say the drop is because the test
is more difficult.
Though the results won't affect individual students or cause teachers to lose
bonus money, the sharp declines will give school districts a jolt.
US:
Project Aims to Bridge Neuroscience and Schools
When children
with ADHD tackle a simple task—pressing a button when a green spaceship appears
on a screen, but holding back when a red spaceship pops up—their brains react
differently from those of their peers without the condition.
Using imaging technology that can probe the deepest workings of the brain,
researchers have found that children with attention deficit hyperactivity
disorder are using less of a certain part of their brains to hold back their
itchy trigger fingers, compared with typically developing children performing
the same task.
The hypothesis scientists are testing is that the regions of the brain that
control voluntary action function less effectively in children with ADHD. If
those children are calling on other parts of their brains to compensate, the
effort may leave less room for tasks like planning and organizing.
Education Week
MD/VA:
Layoffs, Trims In Education, Services Coming
The region's
governors are preparing to propose hundreds of millions of dollars in budget
cuts, including layoffs in Virginia and cuts to education and public safety in
Maryland, in an early sign of the impact of the economic slowdown on government
services.
Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine will announce plans today to use money from the
state's $1 billion reserve fund, lay off hundreds of state workers and announce
other major cost-saving measures.
Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley is weighing almost $400 million in potential
spending reductions and will present at least $250 million of those next week
to a panel with authority to make cuts while the legislature is not in session,
aides said.
The Washington Post
VA:
More kids graduating on time
Statewide rate is 81.3%, but
6 Richmond-area districts doing better
Six of the
20 school districts in greater Richmond beat the state percentage of 2008
graduates who finished school in four years.
Statewide, 81.3 percent of Virginia's graduating class of 2008 finished high
school on time, according to the state's first graduation rate calculated by
tracking individual public school students for four years from the time they
entered ninth grade in 2004.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
GA:
MILKEN FOUNDATION AWARDS: Shout-out for top teachers
National honors go to
educators in Marietta, Lithonia
Teacher
Susan Grigg planned her own party at Marietta’s Sawyer Road Elementary School,
though she didn’t know she was doing so. And in the end, she got the biggest
surprise of all.
The Milken Family Foundation named Grigg and Andrea King of DeKalb County’s
Rock Chapel Elementary School national teachers of the year Tuesday, awarding
both $25,000.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
TX:
TAKS rewards may violate privacy laws for students, state education chief says
Pizza parties,
field trips and other rewards – including cash – for students who pass the TAKS
may be in violation of federal privacy laws for students, the state's education
chief has warned.
In a letter to school superintendents that was released Thursday, state
Education Commissioner Robert Scott said the Texas Education Agency has
received "numerous reports" from across the state that students'
confidential test score results may have been directly or indirectly disclosed.
The problem, according to the commissioner, is that typically only a minority
of students fail to pass the TAKS at each school. By recognizing those who pass,
it is easy to identify by process of elimination the students who fail.
The Dallas Morning News
LA: Tangipahoa
schools plan academy
Tangipahoa
Parish school officials plan to start an academy to identify future leaders for
the school system, the school superintendent said Tuesday.
The leadership academy is one of Superintendent Mark Kolwe’s 10 goals for the
2008-09 school year that he presented to the parish School Board on Tuesday
night.
Kolwe said school officials plan to use grant funding to seek out new leaders
from among the system’s faculty and staff.
Goals also include creating handbooks for child welfare and attendance, school
finance and human resources matters.
The Baton Rouge Advocate
LA: Reasons
differ for test score shuffle
Plan would send magnet scores
to home schools
A bid by
public school leaders in East Baton Rouge Parish to reshuffle test scores is
based in part on another school district that did so for different reasons,
officials said Tuesday.
Under a plan approved by the local board last month, standardized test scores
for students who attend magnet schools would return to neighborhood schools
they otherwise would have attended.
Those scores help determine how the state rates schools, and whether they are
taken over for poor performance.
Critics contend the change would deceive taxpayers and make it impossible to
judge a school’s true performance.
The Baton Rouge Advocate
VA:
County's Early Language Program Pays Off
Enrollment, Fluency Up in
Middle School
Although
it's just the fifth week of class, some roll their R's like pros, and Señora
Gueits doesn't have to utter a word of English. Many of these Seneca Ridge
Middle School students have studied Spanish since they were 6 as part of an
unusual program in which all children in the Loudoun school system take Spanish
classes in grades 1 through 6.
The first students to be exposed to the elementary classes are now in ninth
grade, and foreign language participation rates in middle school show the
effects of the program. Spanish, long the most popular foreign language, hasn't
grown in dominance over other languages, but total enrollment in language
classes at the middle school level has surged, said Suzette F. Wyhs, who
oversees foreign language instruction for the school district.
The Washington Post
KY: Lottery proves good bet for education
$1 billion has been raised for
scholarships, grants
If it wasn't for a
state scholarship and grant money awarded to him three years ago, Chad Capurro
said he would still be living with his parents and working at a restaurant with
no plans of attending college.
The 29-year-old expects to graduate from the University of Louisville in May
2009.
He is just one of thousands of students who have received scholarships and
grants paid for with proceeds from the Kentucky Lottery, which celebrated a
milestone yesterday -- $1 billion given to such programs as the Kentucky
Educational Excellence Scholarship, the College Access Program, and the
Kentucky Tuition Grant.
The Louisville Courier-Journal
MD:
State looks at ways to train, retain more teachers
Each year, more
Maryland teachers retire or leave the classroom than emerge from the state's
schools of education.
That needs to change, a Maryland task force said in a new report outlining 26
actions that should be taken in the next several years to produce more teachers
from state colleges and to provide incentives for teachers to stay in
classrooms.
Yesterday, the University System of Maryland Board of Regents education
committee recommended that the board begin taking action to get more qualified
teachers into classrooms.
The Baltimore Sun
NC:
Fewer N.C. students pass state reading tests
Far fewer North
Carolina students passed end-of-the-year reading tests this year, as the test
became harder.
The News & Observer of Raleigh reported the test was given to students in
grades 3 through 8 last spring. The newspaper reported today that fewer schools
are likely to meet the progress goals under the federal No Child Left Behind
law because of the results.
While nearly 84 percent of third-graders passed the test in 2007, only 56
percent did this year. Nearly 90 percent of 8th grade students passed in 2007,
just 55 percent did in 2008.
The Greensboro News-Record
US:
Students Make Literacy Day One for the Books
Elementary
school students from San Francisco to Washington participated on Thursday in a
literacy day intended to encourage adults to read to as many children as
possible and to set a record for the largest number of people reading the same
book on the same day.
Jumpstart, the early childhood literacy program behind the event, broke the
Guinness record in 2006 when it first held the event, known as Read for the
Record. It broke the record in 2007, and this year the organization says it may
attract more than half a million readers, nearly double the 258,000 who
participated last year. A final tally will not be available until Friday.
The New York Times
NC:
N.C. reading failures rise as test gets harder
Individual schools' results aren't being reported yet, but pass rates
down statewide.
A lot of parents
may be in for shock in a few weeks when they see their children's reading test
scores.
Many more N.C. students failed end-of-grade reading tests this year than in
previous years. Students who, judging by test scores, seemed to have known
their way around a poem or short story just a year ago might this year rate as
barely passing.
But the big drop isn't necessarily because students aren't learning or that
teaching has gotten worse. Education officials say the drop is because the test
is more difficult.
Though the results won't affect individual students or cause teachers to lose
bonus money, the sharp declines will give school districts a jolt.
The
Charlotte Observer
FL:
Florida schools struggle to get kids active
Elementary schools statewide
are under the gun to offer 150 minutes of physical education a week -- in
blocks of no less than 30 minutes.
When the
talk turns to physical education, several things probably come to mind:
running, jumping jacks, team sports, sweat.
But walking to and from lunch?
No way, say state legislators and health experts, who were concerned that some
schools were using the time it took to walk across campus to meet a state law
that said elementary school kids need to have 150 minutes of physical education
a week.
The law, which went into effect last year, did not specify how schools should
fit those 2 ½ hours into days already crammed with reading, math and writing.
So some took a creative approach, cobbling together minutes of stretching,
recess and health talk in a given day.
The Miami Herald
SC:
Hispanics account for most of school growth
One student
comes from a family of Cuban “boat refugees” who survive on $625 a month.
Another is from a remote area of Guatemala and speaks only the Mayan Indian
language.
Alexander Elementary School is a cultural melting pot, not only of black, white
and Hispanic students, but also of a blend of Hispanic subcultures from across
Latin America.
It’s also a microcosm of what’s happening in the growth trend in Greenville
County Schools.
Despite a new state law aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration,
Hispanics — an unknown number of them here illegally — account for most of the
growth this year in Greenville County Schools, according to new enrollment
figures.
The Greenville News
TX: Proposal to
standardize high school GPAs in Texas stirs controversy
Texas school
districts say a state proposal to standardize the way they calculate high
school grade point averages will "dumb down" public education and discourage
students from taking rigorous courses.
Later this month, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board will consider
approval of a new regulation designed to help Texas colleges and universities
better assess the academic records of high school students.
Texas Higher Education Commissioner Raymund Paredes said the current system for
calculating GPAs is not consistent. A 4.0 in one district, for example, could
vary greatly from a 4.0 in another district.
The Dallas Morning News
MD: School System Cannot Afford Raises, Chief
Says
Montgomery
County's schools chief has told principals that the system cannot afford to
fund scheduled pay raises for the coming budget year, underscoring grim
economic conditions that could also have repercussions for thousands of other
local government workers.
School Superintendent Jerry D. Weast has said that labor contracts will have to
be renegotiated, and Board of Education President Nancy Navarro said yesterday
that planned raises of 5.3 percent for teachers are probably unrealistic when
the county faces a projected $250 million shortfall for fiscal 2010.
The Washington Post
US: A Dead
Language That’s Very Much Alive
The resurgence
of a language once rejected as outdated and irrelevant is reflected across the
country as Latin is embraced by a new generation of students like Xavier who
seek to increase SAT scores or stand out from their friends, or simply harbor a
fascination for the ancient language after reading Harry Potter’s Latin-based
chanting spells.
The number of students in the United States taking the National Latin Exam has
risen steadily to more than 134,000 students in each of the past two years,
from 124,000 in 2003 and 101,000 in 1998, with large increases in remote parts
of the country like New Mexico, Alaska and Vermont. The number of students
taking the Advanced Placement test in Latin, meanwhile, has nearly doubled over
the past 10 years, to 8,654 in 2007. While Spanish and French still dominate
student schedules — and Chinese and Arabic are trendier choices — Latin has
quietly flourished in many high-performing suburbs, like New Rochelle, where
Latin’s virtues are sung by superintendents and principals who took it in their
day. In neighboring Pelham, the 2,750-student district just hired a second
full-time Latin teacher after a four-year search, learning that scarce Latin
teachers have become more sought-after than ever.
The New York Times
Higher Education
FL: Voters get
chance to decide whether community colleges can request tax increases
Voters to decide whether colleges can request special tax
Residents in some
Florida counties might be asked to pay higher taxes if they approve an
amendment giving cash-strapped community colleges permission to ask their local
communities for help.
Right now, the state's 28 community colleges get their money directly from the
state Legislature based on the number of students as well as state-set tuition.
Tuition costs about $2,200 for a full-time student taking 15 hours.
Some colleges say the money is inadequate, and they need support from their
communities to boost their budgets. The state's poor economy has led it to cut
funding in recent years, while a record number of people are turning to
community colleges for job training, officials say.
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
TN: TennCare,
colleges will cut again as tax collections fall
Faced with a
faltering economy and falling tax collections, Tennessee is turning to its
public colleges and universities, and its health-care programs for the poor to
absorb a new round of budget cuts worth more than $106 million.
The 42,000-student University of Tennessee system and the 180,000-student
Tennessee Board of Regents system have been told to develop a plan by next week
to save $43.7 million.
TennCare, Tennessee's $7 billion expanded Medicaid program, will have to find
ways to save $44 million, while the remaining $20 million in savings will be
spread across state government.
Then Tennessean
TX: UT relents,
will permit political signs in dorm windows
Students at the
University of Texas at Austin will be allowed to put up signs in their
dormitory windows starting today, officials said -- one day after two students
were barred from registering for classes after refusing to remove their
political signs.
All disciplinary action resulting from enforcing the ban will also be lifted,
officials say, including the action against the two students, cousins Connor
and Blake Kincaid.
The Dallas Morning News
SC: State’s
largest universities stick with bank-based student loans
Clemson
University is enrolled in a federal direct-lending program that guarantees
loans to qualified students, but even as hundreds of colleges join the program
amid a banking crisis, Clemson continues to use a bank-based system.
As a result of a rapidly changing financial environment nationally, Clemson
Financial Aid Director Marvin Carmichael said he recently looked into the
federal Department of Education’s direct lending program and found Clemson on
the list of approved schools.
Clemson participated in the program at its inception in the 1990s, when former
South Carolina Gov. Richard Riley was Secretary of Education, and was never
dropped, Carmichael said.
The Greenville News
KY: U of L
creates office to help resolve disputes
Plan to help settle disputes follows Felner controversy
The University of
Louisville says it will create an interim office to assist its employees in
resolving conflicts, disputes and complaints.
The office's creation is a response to concerns raised over the handling of grievances
and complaints involving former U of L education Dean Robert Felner, who is the
focus of a federal investigation into the alleged mishandling of grant money.
During Felner's five-year tenure at the College of Education and Human
Development, faculty and students filed 31 complaints and grievances against
him, ranging from challenges to annual reviews to intimidation.
The Louisville Courier-Journal
MS: Speaker
confident of better IHL funding
House Speaker
Billy McCoy, D-Rienzi, said Wednesday he is confident that a special committee
he named will provide solid recommendations on ways to provide more consistent,
enhanced funding for Mississippi's eight public universities.
McCoy, as chair of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee, which also includes
Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant, formed the special committee to develop a five-to-10-year
plan to adequately fund and maintain the university system.
In recent weeks, university and legislative leaders have talked about looking
for ways to enhance state funding to hold down rising tuition. The College
Board has received criticism from many legislators because of the tuition
increases it has approved in recent years.
The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal
TX: University
of Texas bars students with political sign in dorm window from registering for
spring classes
Two roommates
at the University of Texas at Austin were barred from registering for spring
classes Wednesday after they refused to remove political signs from their dorm
room window.
In a hearing before a judiciary committee on campus, the students were told
that if they didn't remove them within 48 hours, they could be subject to
further discipline – which could include being kicked out of the dorms or
expelled from school.
The Dallas Morning News
TN: UT must cut
$17M from budget
Petersen e-mail says state demand ‘serious concern for university’
A year that’s
already seen plenty of bad fiscal news for the University of Tennessee got
worse Monday as UT President John Petersen announced that the state has told
him to cut $17 million from the system’s already dwindling budget.
“Coming on top of the $21.1 million reduction previously enacted, this of
course, is a serious concern for the university,” Petersen said in an e-mail
message that was sent to all faculty and staff.
Peterson said UT must submit a “general plan” to the state Wednesday and
“leadership for all campuses and institutes had already been working on
contingency plans which will enable us to respond in a strategic manner.”
The Knoxville News
SC: Clemson
University yearbook named nation’s best
Clemson
University’s annual Taps yearbook has been named the most outstanding college
yearbook in the country for the fourth straight year.
The American Scholastic Press Association awarded Taps with both First Place
with Special Merit and Most Outstanding University Yearbook for 2008 in its
annual competition, according to a press statement from Clemson.
This year marks Taps’ 100th volume. The yearbook is actually 102 years old but
no editions were published in 1944 or 1945 due to World War II.
The Greenville News
AL: UAB
students ride the market
Business school's student-managed fund beating S&P
Laura Bordelon is
probably watching the current economic situation more closely than most of her
fellow students at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Bordelon is the chief investment officer for the Green and Gold Fund, a
$400,000 investment portfolio managed entirely by students from UAB's business
school. Despite the turmoil, they're doing pretty well, says the senior, who's
double-majoring in accounting and finance.
The Green and Gold Fund managers were recognized this year at a national
competition for university funds called Redefining Investment Strategy
Education, where they finished first for the growth-style portfolio category in
the undergraduate division.
The Birmingham News
WV: Hearing set on college textbook costs
The average
American college student forks over almost $1,000 a year just for textbooks.
The cost of those books has risen much faster than most other school expenses -
almost 110 percent between 1987 and 2004, according to a congressional advisory
report issued last year.
On Oct. 10, students and parents can speak out on textbook costs at a hearing
sponsored by the state's Higher Education Policy Commission. The hearing is
scheduled for 10 a.m. at the Wilson University Union at West Virginia State
University in Institute.
The (Charleston, West Virginia) Gazette
GA: 14 state
technical colleges to merge; 7 presidents to lose jobs
The state’s
deepening fiscal crisis has prompted Georgia technical college officials to merge
14 of the system’s 33 schools.
The 14 colleges will be merged into seven. The move, which include the pairing
of Chattahoochee Tech in Marietta and North Metro Tech in Acworth, will save
about $3.5 million in top administrators’ salaries, fringe benefits and other
expenses, officials said.
Once the mergers take place, the Chattahoochee and North Metro campuses will
have almost 14,000 students, by far the largest in the state, system officials
said. The boards governing the affected schools will pick new names for the
colleges before July 1, when the unions will be complete.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
AL: Alabama
two-year college background checks yield few felons
Criminal
background checks on employees of the state's two-year college system have
almost been completed and, as expected, those checks turned up few employees
with felony convictions.
But they did turn up some, including one employee who had been convicted of
killing someone, and several others who have been convicted of rape, assault
and serious theft charges.
In all, checks have been run on 9,349 of the system's 10,500 employees. Of that
number, 73 - less than 1 percent of the total - were found to have felony
records, two-year Chancellor Bradley Byrne told the Alabama Board of Education
during a meeting Thursday.
The Birmingham News
Outside the Region
NY:
Video Game Helps Math Students Vanquish an Archfiend: Algebra
The
eighth-grade math class at Intermediate School 30 in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn,
sounded like a video arcade on Monday morning as 30 students zoomed through
virtual tunnels and zapped competitors with a blue freezing light.
Then all action stopped as an algebra problem popped on screen: What is the
slope-intercept formula for points A and B?
This fall, New York City is rolling out Dimension M — M stands for math — in
109 middle schools across the five boroughs after trying the game out in two
dozen schools, including I.S. 30, last year. Like a modern twist on
“Jeopardy!,” the fast-paced video game quizzes students on prealgebra and
algebra topics ranging from prime numbers to fractions and complex equations. A
correct answer brings 500 or more points, a wrong one as few as 25; the player
with the most points wins. (No prizes, just glory.)
The New York Times
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