Southern Education Notes

Southern Education Notes is a service of the Southern office of The Council of State Governments/Southern Legislative Conference.  The links below lead to education-related news articles and reports from across the region

back to top

Total elementary and secondary teachers
The total number of elementary and secondary teachers increased 27 percent between 1992 and 2005, a period of 13 years; and is projected to increase an additional 18 percent between 2005 and 2017, a period of 12 years, in the middle alternative projections. Actual and middle alternative projected numbers for elementary and secondary teachers, by control of school: Selected years, 1992–2017.
The number of teachers in public elementary and secondary schools increased 28 percent between 1992 and 2005; and is projected to increase an additional 18 percent between 2005 and 2017 in the middle alternative projections. The number of teachers in private elementary and secondary schools increased 22 percent between 1992 and 2005; and is projected to increase an additional 20 percent between 2005 and 2017 in the middle alternative projections.
Source: U.S. Dept. of Education, NCES, Common Core of Data surveys, various years; Private School Universe Survey, various years; and Elementary and Secondary Teacher Model.  

back to top

Needy Students Closing Test Gap Under 'No Child'  
Since enactment of the No Child Left Behind law, students from poor families in the Washington area have made major gains on reading and math tests and are starting to catch up with those from middle-class and affluent backgrounds, a Washington Post analysis shows.
The achievement gap between economic groups, long a major frustration for educators, has narrowed in the region's suburban schools since President Bush signed the law in 2002, according to Maryland and Virginia test data.
The Washington Post

FL: Popular class-size amendment may be sidelined by economy
Florida's popular class-size amendment may be put on ice, thanks to a weakening economy and a statewide budget crisis.
Despite strong public support, a broad consensus is forming that the goal of limiting class size is simply too expensive during the current economic crunch.
Even advocates of the amendment told the Orlando Sentinel this week that it might need to be scaled back.
The Orlando Sentinel

back to top

US: Amid Foreclosures, A Rise In Homeless Students
The pain caused by housing foreclosures and a weak economy is spilling over into the nation's schools. School districts nationwide say they're seeing a big increase in the number of students who are homeless.
California's Central Valley, for example, had seen a huge boom in construction, but now the foreclosure crisis has hit cities there hard.
National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, September

TX: Texas Move to Tighten GPA Formula Sparks Backlash
Some fear proposal would discourage students from taking rigorous classes.
Texas is working on a formula that all high schools would have to use to calculate students’ grade point averages. But it is encountering strong resistance from educators who fear it could discourage teenagers from taking challenging courses.
The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, which oversees public colleges and universities, is expected to vote on the proposed rule at its Oct. 23 meeting. But the public-comment period leading up to the decision has been rife with opposition.
Education Week

AL: Ala. schools use all $440M from 'rainy day' fund
School tax revenues in Alabama didn't keep pace with budet projections in fiscal 2008, prompting the state to spend all $440 million from a "rainy day" savings fund and leaving a gloomy outlook for the new fiscal year. The head of the House education budget committee, Rep. Richard Lindsey of Centre, said Wednesday he's concerned the lack of carry-over funds could mean there will not be enough tax revenues in the coming year to pay for the $6.3 billion budget to fund K-12 schools and colleges. That would cause the governor to declare proration and force schools and colleges to cut spending.
Education Week

TX: Texas university scientists criticize attempts to water down evolution instruction
Scientists from Texas universities on Tuesday denounced what they called supernatural and religious teaching in public school science classrooms and voiced opposition to attempts to water down evolution instruction.
The newly formed 21st Century Science Coalition said so far it has 800 members who have signed up online.
The State Board of Education is considering new science curriculum standards. It is expected to vote next spring. Because Texas is such a large purchaser of textbooks, its ongoing science debate affects textbooks nationwide.
The Dallas Morning News

MD: Child care staff to be certified
Requirement one of new Maryland laws to take effect today
Maryland becomes the first state to require certification of child care workers in 24-hour residential programs under a new law taking effect today.
The State Board for the Certification of Residential Child Care Program Professionals is now responsible for certifying an estimated 10,000 employees who work in residential child care programs. Previously, the panel oversaw certification for program administrators. The new rules require that workers have a college degree, or else have a high school diploma and have completed a training program. They must also pass an examination and clear state and federal criminal background checks. All workers must be certified by Oct. 1, 2013.
The Baltimore Sun

AL: Education Trust Fund Growth Slows
Tax collections for the Alabama education trust fund grew only 1.5 percent in the recently ended fiscal year, a sharp drop from previous years
Tax collections for the state Education Trust Fund in the fiscal year that ended Tuesday grew by 1.5 percent over the previous year, a much lower rate of growth than that of 2004-07, the state Finance Department reported Wednesday.
The trust fund's tax collections, each compared with the year before, grew 9.5 percent in fiscal 2004, 11.5 percent in fiscal 2005, 10.6 percent in fiscal 2006 and 6.5 percent in fiscal 2007.
The trust fund is the main source of state tax dollars for public schools, two-year colleges and universities. It gets most of its money from state income tax and sales tax collections, which tend to rise and fall with the state's economy.
Birmingham News

TX: Nearly 1 in 3 Texans speak Spanish at home
Nearly one out of three Texans speak Spanish at home, a rise attributed to an increasing number of immigrants coming from Mexico, according to a report by the U.S. Census Bureau.
At the same time, other studies suggest that children of Spanish-speaking immigrants are increasingly likely to also speak English as they come up through the American public school system.
The Houston Chronicle

FL: Florida starts virtual school mandate
A new state law will require public schools to offer fully online avenues for education.
Starting next school year, the first generation of Florida students can earn a diploma from their public schools entirely online, without ever setting foot in a classroom from kindergarten through 12th grade.
A new state law requires districts to create their own full-time virtual schools, collaborate with other districts or contract with providers approved by the state.
The law is believed to be the most wide-ranging virtual mandate in the nation.
By August, school superintendents must settle everything from how to provide the needed technology to how to engage squirmy kindergartners who lack the attention span to sit at a computer for hours.
The Miami Herald

US: In Most School Districts, the Doctor Is in Charge, but Some Question Degree
Nationally, the percentage of superintendents who hold an education-related PhD or the education doctorate known as an EdD rose from 36 percent in 1992 to about 51 percent in 2006, according to the American Association of School Administrators. An exception to this trend in the Washington area is D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee, who holds a master's degree in public policy.
Superintendents and many academics say the doctoral programs teach vital management and statistical skills while providing an intellectual challenge. But critics say the programs mostly provide financial rewards -- for the universities that collect tuition and for educators who pick up a credential that helps them earn a higher salary and a "doctor" title.
The Washington Post

SC: Higher bar means more schools didn’t make Adequate Yearly Progress
At the halfway point of a 12-year forced march toward the day when federal law requires that all children be "proficient" in reading and math, four out of five of the state’s schools did not make Adequate Yearly Progress, according to figures released this morning.
But state and local education officials said the benchmark has become more a measure of the failure of the federal accountability law than a measure of school performance. It dumps schools into the "not met AYP" column if just one of more than 20 demographic subgroups of students in a school didn’t score well enough.
The Greenville News

TX: Texas A&M expands offer of free tuition
Texas A&M University has sweetened its offer of free tuition for middle-income families.
The university said Monday this year's freshmen from families with incomes of $60,000 or less would be eligible for free tuition, up from the limit of $40,000 in another program.
Eligible students must be Texas residents entering A&M as freshmen, and they can take part in the "Aggie Assurance" program for a maximum of four years. A grade-point average of at least 2.5 is required as well.
The Austin American Statesman

AR: Hutchinson planning bills concerning college remediation
A Northwest Arkansas lawmaker said Wednesday she is having a bill drafted for the 2009 legislative session that would partially reimburse college freshmen at state universities who pass remediation courses.
The measure also would require two-year colleges to pay the entire cost of a student's remediation class if they pass the course.
College freshmen at state universities would be reimbursed $100 for each credit hour of remediation courses they pass, which would mean scoring above 19 on the ACT.
Arkansas News Bureau

US: Bank Limits Fund Access by Colleges, Inciting Fears
In a move suggesting how the credit crisis could disrupt American higher education, Wachovia Bank has limited the access of nearly 1,000 colleges to $9.3 billion the bank has held for them in a short-term investment fund, raising worries on some campuses about meeting payrolls and other obligations.
Wachovia, the North Carolina bank that agreed this week to sell its banking operations to Citigroup, has held the money in its role as trustee for a fund used by colleges and universities and managed by a Connecticut nonprofit, Commonfund.
The New York Times

back to top

U.S. Education Budget Roiled by Financial Crisis
The result of the presidential election will likely help determine how much money education programs receive in the 2009 federal fiscal year, which begins this week. But a multi-billion-dollar federal plan to assist the financial markets may leave the next president with very little room for major increases for K-12 schools, perhaps for the foreseeable future.
Congress late last week approved a bill extending funding for most education programs and other parts of the federal budget at fiscal 2008 levels through March 6, when the new administration will have been in office for more than a month.
Education Week

NCLB Debate at the Sidelines
The No Child Left Behind Act has been the subject of intense debate in school board meetings, state legislatures, and Washington policy circles. Everywhere, it seems, but the presidential campaign—the winner of which may have the most important voice in reshaping the federal role in K-12 education.
In their education proposals, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain have outlined specific plans to address provisions of the almost 7-year-old federal education law. But neither candidate has said what he would do to address significant questions about the NCLB law’s future, such as whether to keep its goal of universal student proficiency in reading and mathematics by the end of the 2013-14 school year, how to increase the rigor of states’ academic standards, and how to improve the interventions in schools failing to meet achievement goals.
Education Week

back to top

Learning From Mistakes Only Works After Age 12, Study Suggests
Eight-year-old children have a radically different learning strategy from twelve-year-olds and adults. Eight-year-olds learn primarily from positive feedback ('Well done!'), whereas negative feedback ('Got it wrong this time') scarcely causes any alarm bells to ring.  Twelve-year-olds are better able to process negative feedback, and use it to learn from their mistakes.  Adults do the same, but more efficiently.
The switch in learning strategy has been demonstrated in behavioural research, which shows that eight-year-olds respond disproportionately inaccurately to negative feedback. But the switch can also be seen in the brain, as developmental psychologist Dr Eveline Crone and her colleagues from the Leiden Brain and Cognition Lab discovered using fMRI research.  The difference can be observed particularly in the areas of the brain responsible for cognitive control. These areas are located in the cerebral cortex.
Science Daily

Study: Many 8th-graders can't handle algebra
Peering beneath the hood of a national push to have all students take algebra by eighth grade, a new study out today finds that many of the nation's lowest-performing middle-schoolers are in way over their heads. They take algebra and other advanced math courses before they've mastered basic skills such as multiplication, division and problem-solving with fractions.
For more than a decade, "algebra for everyone" has been a high-minded mantra for the idea that virtually all students should take algebra by eighth grade. Since the mid-1990s, schools nationwide have pushed more and more students into challenging middle-school math courses. Last year, 38% of eighth-graders were enrolled in advanced math (Algebra I, Algebra II or Geometry).
But when Brookings Institution researcher Tom Loveless looked at the skills of eighth-graders taking advanced math, he found something startling: Between 2000 and 2005, the percentage of very low-performing students in advanced math classes more than tripled.
USA Today

back to top

WA: Factory-built schools save money
John Bingham walked through the carpeted halls of the administration building on the Marysville Secondary Campus.
A handful of school officials from central Washington followed him. They felt the walls, tapped the floor and snapped photos of the hallway, which like the three schools that surround it, was built in a factory.
When the Marysville Secondary Campus opened last spring, it made history as the first major public school project built from manufactured housing in Washington. Except for the gymnasium, which was built from the ground up, the entire campus was constructed in a factory and trucked to its home on the Tulalip Reservation.
The Seattle Times

IA: Interest grows in 4-day week for Iowa schools
A growing number of Iowa school officials want the power to shorten the school week to four days, a cost-saving concept that has caught on in other states.
School officials in Van Buren County want a waiver from the mandatory state schools calendar so they can switch to a four-day week as soon as next year. Other educators who aren’t completely sold on the idea want state lawmakers to free them from the calendar’s confines, just in case.
In Iowa, the four-day week has found its biggest fans in the smallest school districts, where shrinking enrollment and historically high fuel costs have battered budgets.
The Des Moines Register

NY: Teachers to Be Measured Based on Students’ Standardized Test Scores
New York City is beginning to measure the performance of thousands of elementary and middle school teachers based on how much their students improve on annual state math and reading tests.
To avoid a contentious fight with the teachers’ union, the New York City Department of Education has agreed not to make public the reports — which described teachers as average, below average or above average with various types of students — nor let them influence formal job evaluations, pay and promotions.
The New York Times

back to top

PreK-12
NC: Increase in Latino students slowing
WV: School drug-testing proposal blasted on Web site
LA: Senator leaves Legislature to take new education job
LA: La. graduate loss decried
TX: Group urges no politics, religion in science curriculum
SC: Local panel targets better state funding for schools
SC: S.C. schools fall by federal standards
AR: Schools get rules for status reporting
NC: Dozens kept out of school for failing to get shots
GA: Clayton superintendent offers to trim power
Higher Education
MS: Private funds for public schools
LA: Technical college enrollment figures spike