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News Clips –
STATE STATE Lean Times for Schools: Local Districts Prepare for Tight
Budgets BY KRISTEN CATES, Most school districts
in Southern Illinois have heard the preliminary figures on how much
state aid each will receive this year (with the final figures to be
distributed in September), and it's not a pretty picture for some. Although Anna- Jonesboro
high school got an increase in state aid, Superintendent William Schildknecht
said an increase of $13,536 just isn't enough when you consider all
the bills. "It's an insignificant
amount," he said. Back in the spring,
he'd heard that Anna-Jonesboro would receive $264,000 more this year
and then a month ago, it had dwindled down to $54,000. "It was all talk
and nothing," Schildknecht said. "It's been nothing but promises
and promises from the state. I thought this was the year something was
going to happen." For the Murphysboro
school district, this year's state aid package is $28,000 less than
last year, said district financial manager Jan Bush. It comes at a time when
the district finished the 2004 fiscal year with close to a $1 million
deficit. And if the situation stays the same, Bush said she's projecting
the district will have a $2.3 million deficit by the end of the 2005
fiscal year. She said by the end
of next year, the district will have to look at working cash bonds and
moving some money -- some of its reserve money -- over to the education
fund just to make ends meet. "I'm sure we're
not alone," she said. They're not. But property taxes are
being re-assessed and many school districts haven't received tax money
yet. So Williams said the district will take out a $1 million line of
credit. "I hope we don't
have to use that," he said. Officials predict the
district will finish the year in the black, however. "We have a balanced
budget -- barely," he said. Figures indicate a $20,000 surplus.
"But at least it's not a deficit." District financial officer
Steve Kosco said the district is happy to get that increase, but he
said many of the districts were told there would be an increase of $250
per student. That figured dropped to $154. "It was $100 less
than what they thought," he said. As interim superintendent
at the Regional Office of Education for Jackson and Perry counties,
John Hawkins said districts in both counties received more than $2.37
million more in state aid this year. "It looks good,
that's great," he said. "But what were their costs?"
Hawkins said there are
several variables that go into determining how much money a district
will get. Districts have to report
average daily attendance and the property tax money received, plus how
many low-income students are in the district. This helps establish
the foundation level that goes out to all districts, but things such
as assessed values, low-income counts and attendance can determine how
much money a district really gets. The more money a district
gets in property taxes, the less it gets in state aid, Hawkins said.
Also, the more federal funding a district gets for low-income students,
the less state aid it receives. If attendance numbers are down, that
affects how much money the district gets per student. In Jackson and Perry
counties, Hawkins said enrollment has steadily decreased. In the 1994-95
school year, there were 11,287 students enrolled. In the 2003-04 year,
it was 10,489. "It's been in a
continual decline," he said. "You add the economy, small communities
... it all works together." All this means more
deficit spending in the coming year, or creating working cash bonds
and cutting into savings accounts, said many administrators. Plus, there's
the dreaded cuts in faculty and staff. Pinckneyville high school
will have to look into layoffs or other budget cuts. Superintendent
Sandra Jerrells said an increase in state funding of $38,585 barely
covers the salary of one teacher. Besides that, she said
the district has a projected deficit of $500,000 in the coming year.
Schildknecht, of Anna-Jonesboro,
said certified and non-certified employees might be cut in the future,
but he's preparing a list of options for the district. Fortunately for the
"Yeah, we're fortunate,"
he said. "We're growing. We're at least staying even." He doesn't foresee making
any budget cuts in the coming year and he said the district tries to
be as conservative with its money as it can and watch class sizes carefully.
While the increase was
substantial, Brown said the district is getting ready to put an addition
onto one of its schools, but it will be paid for with money the district
has in hand. "We know the kind
of shape the state is in," he said. The problem with state aid
isn't the increases or decreases, either, most administrators say. It
has to do with the figures the Illinois State Board of Education takes
into account when dishing out money. Lori James-Gross, superintendent
of Murphysboro schools, said using property taxes as a way to determine
funds doesn't work. Hawkins agrees. He said
the property taxes help more of the school districts in the northern
part of the state than the south. "Funding for all
schools in In the meantime, Jerrell
said Pinkneyville will have to plan conservatively and work with what
it has and maybe hope for more funding in the future. Rising costs force schools to milk the lunch money BY LUCIO GUERRERO, Sun-Times
Staff Reporter, Many youngsters in the
The soaring cost of
wholesale milk is driving school districts throughout the region to
jack up the price they charge students for a carton or glass of the
white stuff. "The typical annual
food inflation is about 3 percent a year," said Patt Decker, director
of support services for The district, which
serves about 26,000 students in With numerous districts
trying to plug holes in their budgets, the recent spike in milk prices
has come at a bad time -- especially in In July, a gallon of
whole milk in the Nationally, whole milk
hit a record average of $3.64 a gallon. That's up about 30 percent from
last year, when a gallon of whole milk was selling for about $2.77. The national average
for skim milk isn't any better. In June 2003, a gallon was $2.70. This
June, the price skyrocketed to $3.51. For school districts,
the extra costs have to be recouped one way or another, and it's typically
through the kids. Although the increases aren't drastic -- a nickel
here or a dime there -- they can add up. Milton Madison, an agricultural
economist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said there is a combination
of factors that led to a supply shortage earlier this year and sent
milk prices to record highs in June. "We had fairly
low milk prices in 2002 and 2003, and that led to a big increase in
dairy cow slaughter during 2003," High beef prices have
made it more profitable for farmers to slaughter their cattle than to
use them for milk production, Some districts are absorbing
the costs. The Chicago Public Schools
system is paying more for milk -- the only food federally mandated for
every school meal -- this year but not passing the cost on to kids.
Other districts lucked out. "Our district locked
into a bid in March before this big leap took place," said Linda
Carlstone, spokeswoman for But that may not be
necessary. Milk prices could stabilize by the end of the year, analysts
say. The price in August was down from June, but still far off from
last year's. "The latest milk
report was positive," he said. "For the first time since September
we had an increase in production." THE SPILLOVER EFFECT
A snapshot of local
school districts that have raised milk prices for students: *Avoca, * * *Indian Prairie School
District 204 hiked the annual milk fee from $10 to $15 per kid. State wants to remove Associated Press, The ouster of The state school board
will keep fighting a lawsuit filed by the District 189 school board
to keep "We intend to continue
that lawsuit," said Craven, noting that the intergovernmental agreement
that led to the early demise of the oversight panel on July 1 had also
called for the continuation of efforts to remove Craven said the state
school board is still negotiating with The oversight panel's
attempts to remove In August 2003, the
school board rejected a qualified bid that was $171,294 lower than SodexhoUSA's,
and By GREG KLINE, Eggs are good for you.
No, they're bad. No, no, they're good. Many people – mostly
taught science as a set of facts and procedures for revealing "the
truth" – are moved to ignore science altogether when confronted
by such conflicts. The dilemma "turns
people away from using science for informed decision making," and
that may make them less effective citizens at a time when issues ranging
from stem cell research to global warming are on the public agenda,
"Caring about this
is very important," the education professor and science education
specialist said recently. "Science is such a big part of both the
culture but also everyday life, and scientific knowledge is growing
at such a great rate." "There should be
some understanding that allows you to approach science in the media,"
he added. Abd-El-Khalick thinks
the place to develop understanding is the schools and the way to start
doing it is by training teachers to teach science in a different way. Not as cold hard truth
uncovered by lone wolf researchers over long hours at a laboratory grindstone,
but rather as a creative, often collaborative, enterprise that asks
questions and uses logic, inference and evidence to yield answers. Answers
that aren't set in stone but open to change over time, and that may
be influenced to some extent by personal values and interests. Abd-El-Khalick was moved
to study science education by his own experience as an undergraduate
biology major. Among other things, he couldn't believe learning science
was really about memorizing phyla – the divisions of the animal
kingdom – and regurgitating the information on a test. He's spent more than
eight years examining how and when students' outlook on the nature of
science forms, and when and how it could be changed, working with students
and faculty from elementary school to college, including teachers in
training. "The biggest culprits,
if you can use culprits, are the schools and the media," Abd-El-Khalick
said. "The way to start changing this is in teacher education ...
and also in college-level science education as well." He doesn't say students
shouldn't be learning details like phyla. He does say that isn't enough. "We're missing
big components," he said. "Kids do not learn about how we
know." Abd-El-Khalick has developed
a number of activities designed to show students how science is done,
its power and its limitations. In one exercise, students
work in teams to explain a "water making machine," a sealed
shoebox with a funnel on top where a certain amount of water goes in,
and a tube emerging from the bottom where 10 times as much water comes
out. It is a lesson in the
concepts of atmospheric pressure and the siphon effect that at the same
time shows how scientists make and test hypotheses about things they
can't see, like the inside of the box, or the inside of atoms. "What we try to
do is construct theories, models, hypotheses," Abd-El-Khalick said.
"'This is an answer supported by this and that evidence ... when
you weigh things in the balance.' That's what we do in science." In addition to giving
students a more accurate view of the nature of science, and potentially
making them better science consumers, the method has the advantage of
being more attractive to girls, who generally are less inclined to pursue
scientific and technical careers. That's because girls
tend to favor a learning style characterized by subjectivity, creativity
and collaboration, a style that gives them a sense of participating
in the process of creating knowledge. One potential impediment
to reform: the standardized testing in favor now, which emphasizes memorizing
test answers over other kinds of learning, Abd-El-Khalick said. U.S. Department of Education
wants students to focus on personal finances By Kati Phillips, Daily
Southtown Staff writer, Move over reading, 'riting
and 'rithmetic. Personal finance is
going back to school. "Our objective
is to make economics and personal finance the fourth R — as in
the Real World," said Bob Duvall, president and CEO of the National
Council on Economic Education. The council is leading
an initiative to give kindergartners through twelfth graders a crash
course in financial literacy. The push for economic
education comes at a time when the state has decided to only test students
in subjects — reading, math and science — mandated by the
federal reform law No Child Left Behind. School districts are focusing
on those core areas. But that doesn't mean
economics is merely spare change. Economics is embedded
in the Teachers set up stores
and talk to 5- and 6-year-olds about spending money and making choices. "One of the really
important things, even at the kindergarten level, is what is money?
What is a penny? What is a dime," Udell said. "They get used
to the idea of thinking in terms of the math element." The national council
would like to infuse more personal finance into math classes, and it
offers free lesson plans on its Web site, Duvall said. In one called "Uncle
Sam's Paycheck," geared to ages 11 to 13, students are given $10
for working at a fast-food restaurant. They discuss why they must give
$3 back to the federal government for national defense, Social Security,
medical care and interest on the national debt. Another lesson directs
high school students to counsel a girl who ran up a credit card bill
buying clothes. Students then use a Web site to decide what credit card
would be best for them. Such topics are often
included in business, consumer economics or social studies courses at
the high school level, and rightly so, said Pete Sullivan, assistant
superintendent for curriculum and instruction at Lockport Township High
School District 205. "When you hear
about the number of college-age students going into bankruptcy through
credit cards, it certainly is an issue," he said. Alarming to economists,
60 percent of pre-teens can't make the distinction between check, credit
card and cash spending. "The challenge
is that too many people think economics is what you do at MIT or the
The national council
will distribute $1.5 million in federal grants to education and economic
agencies at the state and local levels this school year. The grants
will require matching funds and will be used for teacher training, materials,
assessment and research. "If our schools
don't teach the ABC's of finance and economics, our children are more
likely to fall into debt and behind in life, especially in today's global,
competitive economy," said U.S. Rep. Judy Biggert, (R-Hinsdale),
who advocated for the grant. Don Lockwood of Sullivan earns Ag Teacher of the Year
award
By KRISTA LEWIN, Herald
& Review Staff Writer, SULLIVAN - When two
of FFA adviser Don Lockwood's former students began firing questions
at him to help with his interview for a state award, it made him feel
a little uncomfortable to be on the hot seat. Lockwood of Sullivan
was honored at the Illinois State Fair the past week as the 2004 winner
of the Illinois Vocational Agriculture Teachers Excellence in Teaching
Award, also known as Ag Teacher of the Year. For former FFA students
Ryan Robinson and Zachary Horn, who Lockwood once coached through parliamentary
procedure and drilled with questions as they prepared for numerous interviews,
Lockwood's nomination prompted them to help prepare Lockwood for his
state interview. Lockwood said he doesn't
like to be interviewed, but he was thrilled his former students wanted
to help. "It was nice because
they cared enough to do something to help me," Lockwood said. "Actually,
some of the questions they asked me were similar to the ones the panel
asked me." Lockwood said the award
makes him think less about himself and his accomplishments and more
about the accomplishments of all the students he has worked with during
his 17-year career at "Seeing Ryan Robinson
as the 2003-2004 state FFA president will stick with me forever,"
Lockwood said. "Seeing Ryan Wildman become an ag teacher and knowing
that I may have influenced him ... seeing Zach Horn win two national
awards and then seeing somebody like Megan Coy who is just starting
college and wants to become an ag teacher ... and knowing that when
she first walked through the door of my classroom she had no interest
in ag ... will stick with me." Although Sullivan's
FFA program has experienced numerous successes and received community
support, it wasn't always that way. When Lockwood joined
Sullivan's FFA program in 1987, Lockwood said then-Principal Rich Voltz
bluntly told him, "Look, we just want you to finish out the remainder
of the semester from March to May. Don't even buy a house here." Voltz told Lockwood
there were so many problems in the past with the FFA program and its
advisers that after the 1987 school year closed, the program would be
ended. With barely 90 days, Lockwood knew it would be a challenge to
promote the merits of agriculture in the school district. "I figured the
only way to go was up," Lockwood said. Voltz was impressed
with Lockwood's enthusiasm and dedication. He and the district agreed
to continue the ag program if Lockwood would stay. "From the moment
he walks into the classroom until he leaves, he always has a smile on
his face," wrote Robinson in his letter of recommendation for Lockwood
as Ag Teacher of the Year. "He believes, by him having a positive
attitude in the classroom, it will rub off on his students." Sullivan High School
Principal Stuart Hott initially nominated Lockwood for the award and
also had to attend Lockwood's final interview at the State Fair the
past week. Lockwood thanked Hott, the community and the students for
their support. "We are proud of
our FFA program, and we are proud of Don," said Terry Pearcy, who
is beginning his second year as Sullivan schools superintendent. "His
leadership and the adaptations he has made to the program are a few
of the many reasons why he would be considered for this award." Top schools to face 'Left Behind' penalties Daily Southtown Editorial,
The number of The number of sanctioned
schools statewide increased from 555 last year to 694. In the Southland,
88 schools are facing penalties. Thirty of those are
listed at the initial level, which means they're required to let their
students transfer to a "better" school, either within the
district or without. Thirty-seven schools
were listed at the second penalty level, which requires them to offer
the transfers as well as tutoring to students. And 21 schools are at
the third level, which requires them to replace staff, change curriculum
or reorganize. Most startling about
this year's list was the inclusion of two school districts generally
considered to be among the Southland's best: Consolidated High School
District 230 and Lincoln-Way High School District 210. In both, most of their
students met the state's requirements on standardized tests, the criteria
for determining which schools are to be sanctioned. But in both District
230 and District 210, state officials say special-education students
failed to make adequate progress over the past two years, mandating
sanctions. District 230 has decided
to opt out of the No Child Left Behind law and avoid penalties by rejecting
the $115,000 in annual federal aid it had received. District 230 officials
say the cost of complying with the penalties would be greater than the
amount of federal aid the district gets. As we've said before,
we believe the stated objective of the No Child Left Behind law is wonderful
— to require public schools to give all their students adequate
educational opportunities. But it's clear the law as it is now written
is not doing that, for a variety of reasons. For one, the federal
government doesn't provide enough funds to enable schools to make the
changes the law envisions. For another, the law does not require "successful"
schools to accept students who want to transfer from "failing"
schools. As a result, no schools
in this region — or anywhere else that we're aware of — are
accepting out-of-district students who are eligible to transfer. In
addition, very few students who are eligible for transfers have sought
to do so, probably because most parents want their children to stay
close to home. In our view, the newest
list undercuts the credibility of the entire No Child Left Behind program.
To label Lincoln-Way's high schools or District 230's Sandburg, Stagg
and Andrew high schools as failures is absurd. The "failing"
label is being applied this year to some of the best schools in other
parts of the We continue to have
serious reservations about labeling schools as failures based on test
scores. We also are disturbed by continuing complaints by educators
that data has been recorded incorrectly, leading to schools being incorrectly
classified as failing. As the list of "failing"
schools continues to grow, it's beginning to look inevitable that most
public schools will face penalties unless they have virtually no minority
students, no special-education students and no low-income children.
When some of the best
schools in the state cannot comply with the law's academic standards,
it suggests that the standards are unrealistic. And we're not willing
to accept the idea that bureaucrats in It's the bureaucrats -- not the budgets -- that hurt
schools Opinion by Mary Laney,
Sun-Times, Fair warning: This is
going to frost you. If you own a home, or property, or a business, it's
going to make your blood boil. If you're on medication, make certain
you've taken it before you read further because what I'm about to tell
you can raise your blood pressure. Your property taxes
are being spent to hire lawyers to oppose you. That's right. Now let
me explain just what is going on. You pay your property
taxes to support schools and other municipal and county facilities.
And when your property taxes go way up, you appeal them to the Cook
County Board of Review. If you're unsuccessful with the Board of Review,
you have 30 days to appeal them to the Property Tax Appeal Board. But
here's what is going to get you fired up. School boards are hiring lawyers
to fight your appeals. Without you knowing it, they're voting to use
your tax dollars to pay for lawyers who fight against your getting any
relief from your high property taxes. Consider what is happening
in north suburban See what I mean about
this making your blood boil? It's one thing for a
board to vote to spend money on classrooms and teachers and buses and
security and special education and sports teams, but it's a true overreach
to hire attorneys to deny property owners relief from the property taxes
they're paying to support education. The public school bureaucracy
has become extremely adept at spending your money to get more of your
money so they can spend more money to get more money. Lobbyists are
paid to go to Superintendents and
assistants get high salaries and car allowances and expenses and paid
junkets, all at your expense. This education bureaucracy
has formed front group after front group in an effort to fool legislators
into thinking there is a ground swell of support to raise your taxes
and pay a bunch more money for school superintendents, assistant superintendents,
administrators and assistant administrators. But it's not a budget problem
in schools; it's a bureaucratic problem. At the same time these
bureaucrats fight to keep your property taxes high, they're turning
down federal money from McGee is paid $200,670
a year as superintendent of kindergarten through eighth-grade schools
in Those test scores ought
to be made public before the board hires another attorney to block yet
another property tax appeal. There must be a way to reconstruct six
years of test scores. It's not just Do we really need superintendents
and assistant superintendents paid in the six figures? Could that money
be better spent on more teachers, books and tutors? You bet it could. If your blood is boiling
and you're angry about what's happening, don't settle for the status
quo, do something about it. Demand that the state finally fund schools
correctly, cut down on multiple school districts, cut the fat in the
bureaucracy, stop superintendents from increasing their salaries for
fat pensions. Tell the state to fund schools properly, set up single-unit
districts with one superintendent and reasonable staffs. Demand that
your hard-earned tax dollars and property taxes not be used to pit lawyers
against you, but be put where it belongs. Put the money toward
the students. Parents have big impact on school success As school begins across
It appears there aren't
enough of them. For example, take the
Decatur Youth Agency Foundation, which offers a behavioral assessment
and counseling project for elementary students. This project is free
to students and parents, and its results are outstanding. The program involves
a behavioral assessment and counseling for those students who need it,
along with mentoring and tutoring. There also are weekly parental meetings. Out of 16 people enrolled
in the program this past school year, 13 exhibited no behaviors that
hurt their grades. Eleven of the students were in the program for the
second year. After a pilot year in 2000-01, the program served 15 students
in 2001-02 and 14 in 2002-03. During the past school
year, however, only five students enrolled in the program. A total of
54 students were referred to the program by the Let's make sure we understand
those numbers. Teachers, counselors or principals told 54 students -
and their parents - that the students could benefit from the Decatur
Youth Agency program. Given the opportunity to help their children succeed,
only five parents took advantage of a successful and free program. We
don't know why the parents didn't get their children involved. The program's
requirements were a commitment by the parents and a weekly meeting. Kent Phillips, founder
of the Decatur Youth Agency Foundation, says the program could help
more children. "If we could get more people to follow up, we could
be working for 40 or 50 kids," he said. "This free program
is a valuable resource in this city, and the results are staggering." Phillips says he's frustrated
by the response his program receives from parents. "This shows
just how much parental apathy we have," he said. "And parental
involvement is essential for the child to succeed." We couldn't agree more.
Although we still believe public education needs reform to better meet
the needs of all students, educators cannot go it alone. Parents are
essential to a child's learning, both during early childhood and over
the school year. Consider this. During
a typical school day, educators work with children about seven hours
a day. The other 17 hours a day belong to the parents. While we would
never discount the impact of educators on children's lives, it's the
parents and other significant adults who have the greatest influence. Phillips' program is
one of many offered in Imagine if every parent
pledged this year to get more involved in their child's education. That
would have a greater impact on education than any school board, state
or federal program. 'No Child Left Behind' standards unreasonable America's Education
Secretary Rod Paige said a very curious thing the other day in defending
charter schools, which recently have been shown to lag behind their
public-school counterparts in reading and math scores. "It is wrong to
think of charter schools as a monolith," Paige said. "There
are schools for dropouts, schools for students who've been expelled,
schools serving the most economically disadvantaged families. Charters
are as diverse as the children they educate." OK. But aren't all those
things true of public schools, as well? Of course they are. So why doesn't
the Bush administration cut them some slack under its "No Child
Left Behind" legislation, then? Indeed, doesn't "No
Child Left Behind" punish public school districts for the very
kind of diversity Paige says he values and is willing to make certain
concessions for in the charter schools? Of course it does. On the whole your school
can have high test scores, but if one demographic sub-group within your
building - say special education students, or students who fall below
a certain income level, or students with language barriers, or those
from certain ethnic groups - doesn't see annual improvement, the whole
school gets labeled a failure by the federal government and is tarnished
and dealt with accordingly. In some cases that means the feds will help
pay for tutoring. In others it means giving students the opportunity
to transfer to another school, replacing staff, rewriting curriculum,
even closing buildings. So why not apply the
same tough-love standards to charter schools, Dr. Paige? What's more,
why would the U.S. Education Department bury this information, not even
acknowledging its existence until some enterprising journalist who'd
been tipped dug it up? Is this administration so wedded to ideology
- privatization is best, the free market has all the answers to what
ails public education - that the best interests of the kids in those
charter schools come second? Have these guys become apologists for educational
mediocrity or worse, too? Why the double standard? Regarding "No Child,"
we're no longer talking about just the likes of "The more sub-groups
you have, the more likely you are to not make (the testing goals),"
said one suburban superintendent whose school is 66 percent white, 27
percent black and four percent Latino. Said another: "You're sending
a letter home, in most cases, to parents whose children are having a
wonderful experience, and then you get this letter that there is something
profoundly wrong with their child's district." Some researchers
believe it will be only the rarest school that won't be dubbed a failure
eventually under "No Child," which calls for eliminating all
achievement gaps by the year 2014, or else. No wonder some states
are going out of their way to find loopholes in the law - by setting
their standards so low that no schools fail, for example - or are considering
opting out of "No Child" and telling Uncle Sam he can keep
his money. State's rights, you know. Funny thing is, many of the politicians
who embraced "No Child" are all too willing to "focus
on the family" in just about every area of American life but public
education. They're kidding themselves. "No Child Left
Behind" - along with all the rhetoric about the "soft bigotry
of low expectations" - is admirable in theory. It's unreasonable
in practice, as we're starting to see. Political
will to fix school funding as scarce as dollars, experts say Juliana Keeping, The
Star State funding for schools
in Panelists Thursday at
a town meeting titled "Solving the Illinois School Crisis: Achieving
High-Quality Education for All" agreed on that point. But they differed on
the "how," and on where the political will to do so could
be found. About 125 people attended
the forum at Rob Grossi, The session was moderated
by Franklin Shuftan, editor of Star Newspapers. Grossi highlighted disparities
in the funding of public schools across the region and state; Schock
explained his group's platform and urged those in attendance to endorse
it; and Martire discussed and promoted HB 750, property tax and school
funding reform legislation he has proposed. Schools in areas with
wealthy property tax bases have the ability to offer their students
far more than those in property tax-poor regions, Grossi pointed out. Schools are running
out of the ability to borrow, he said, and taxpayers are voting down
referendum questions for school funding. As a result, programs
are slashed in property-tax poor areas, creating a breeding ground for
boredom, troubled youth and crime. How, he asked, can children from
these areas possibly compete? Though school budgets
in property-tax poor areas suffer, Grossi said, property tax bills are
not necessarily lower in those communities. He compared a Schock, the mayor of
Schock called for a
consensus built around goals outlined in the caucus's position statement.
The statement outlines
short-term and long-term goals. Its short-term goals focus heavily on
revising fiscal and academic responsibility standards for schools. "How can we measure
how students are really doing if the target is always moving?"
Schock asked, noting with exasperation the recent deletion of writing
and social studies tests from the Illinois Standards Achievement Test. Third and fifth graders
in The group's long-term
goals include boosting state funding to at least 51 percent of the cost
of funding education, and raising the per-pupil foundation level to
$5,665. The state currently funds 36 percent of education costs, he
said. Martire spoke next,
asserting the problem with The state has little
flexibility in its budget and to properly fund education needs more
money, which in turn means a tax hike, he said The kindest, gentlest
tax increase would be an increase in the state income tax on individuals
from 3 to 5 percent, he said with structured reductions in other taxes. Martire said "everyone
wins" with the bill and highlighted perceived benefits. The bottom
60 percent of income earners would see no tax increase, he said, and
the bottom 20 percent of income earners would see a net tax decrease.
A $900 million tax credit to low- and moderate-income families would
create economic stimulus, with broader benefits to the state. The bill's biggest income-tax
increase would target the wealthiest 1 percent, Martire said. The bill would accomplish
long-term goals outlined by the mayors caucus, although the group has
not yet endorsed the plan. Under HB 750, the state would assume 51 percent
of the cost of funding education, and the state aid foundation level
would increase by more that $1,000 per child. Martire's comments were
clearly favored by the vast majority of those in attendance, and during
the question-and-answer session some audience members were pointed in
their comments directed toward Schock and the mayors caucus Sharon Voliva, board
president of cash-strapped Thornton High School District 205 and chair
of the Better Funding for Better Schools Coalition, asked Schock why
the caucus won't endorse Martire's plan. "We agree on some
of its points," Schock said. "But it isn't enough to say it's
a good idea. Schock also pointed
to a real-world concern: the bill doesn't have the support of Gov. Blagojevich,
who pledged during his campaign not to raise taxes. Voliva countered, with
applause afterward, that the bill has the support of area superintendents
and needs the support of the mayors. As for the governor, Voliva said,
"We could do it with a veto-proof majority" in the Legislature. Several audience members
expressed frustration at failed plans of the past and said they're growing
impatient after years of working on the funding problem without tangible
results. The forum was organized
by the Homewood-Flossmoor Area League of Women Voters and co-sponsored
by the Better Funding for Better Schools Coalition, Bremen Township
High School District 228, Other sponsors were
the District
203 e-mail touted, set to grow Ken O'Brien, The district sent a
survey to the 2,000 users, getting a response from 347 people. Of those,
96 percent offered positive comments about the Talk 203 program. Melea Smith, the district's
director of communications, said the results show that the program is
"an effective communication tool." About 100 people have signed
up to use the program since the survey was sent, she said. The district, which
serves about 19,000 students at 21 schools, has used the system to send
messages about district news, such as emergency alerts, and announcements
about coming events. The program was started
last year as a pilot at four schools-- IL school
mental health screening nears Rhonda Calling CMHA an “unfunded
mandate,” Superintendent of Urbana School District #116 Gene Amberg,
also a member of the Illinois Children’s Mental Health Partnership,
told IllinoisLeader.com, “School districts that are strapped financially
and economically will have a tough time." By August 31, all But, "there is
a difference between policy and administrative regulation,” said
Amberg. “How do you translate a board’s policy… and a
school district actually doing it in rules and regulations?” Responding to the scramble
and confusion, Illinois State Board of Education Superintendent Robert
Schiller has posted resources for schools to develop policies on the
ISBE website. The Partnership was
given the task of translating the policy into practice but has not yet
made public its plans for implementation or standards for screening. School districts aren’t
all that are confused. “There are far too many questions about
this proposed policy,” said David Smith, Senior Policy Analyst
for Illinois Family Institute. “The proposed policy's language
is alarmingly broad and gives the government far too much authority
over not only the well-being of our families, but our religious beliefs
as well.” Amberg outlined The committee would
determine if referrals or services are offered. Amberg admitted there
could be “a lot of people overworked” for the referrals, testing,
counseling, social work, and school psychology services. Smith said the citizen
review process in July was too short, and the task force’s proposed
plans are overreaching. “Before they implement this plan, there
must be additional forums in every part of the state, to hear public
concerns, comments and questions,” said Smith. “The one-week
fly through was not enough. The legislators who sponsored and voted
for this bill have an obligation to revisit this plan before it is implemented.”
This new initiative
makes The NFC explained, ““Every
day more than 52 million students attend over 114,000 schools in the
The NFC also recommends
using the Columbia University TeenScreen® Program. Grace Aduroja, Even in the summer,
Zoe Tomassi, 10, begins her day with a music appreciation lesson over
breakfast. "Summer doesn't
feel different for me, and that's because Zoe is with me just the same
as she is with me during the school year," said her mother, Terry,
who has taught her daughter at home since kindergarten. Like many home-school
families, the Tomassis of Batavia don't see the summer hiatus as a reason
to halt learning but instead view it as a time to expand education beyond
the standard fare. Plus, the routine helps children avoid the typical
post-summer sluggishness when school resumes, parents say. Zoe, who is starting
5th grade, spends her days bouncing from drama class and physical education
to English literature and music. A makeshift platform in the basement
is the staging area for fanciful plays and daily karate practice. She
composes tunes on the family's black lacquer piano. And the cozy green
sectional in the living room is her recreational reading area. Even a July trip to
A daily regimen can
help children maintain a sense of order and responsibility, parents
say, but some education experts believe there are physical and social
benefits to preserving a laid-back summer of games and outdoor exploration. "It's a time to
utilize imagination and build social skills," said Jean Matthiessen,
spokeswoman for the Illinois PTA. "That's the benefits of just
playing." Kathy Wentz of north
suburban Johnsburg and her teenage sons forgo school lessons and spend
time on the beach, horseback riding and tennis classes. They are exploring
interests that aren't centered on books, she said. "[We] don't compartmentalize
learning to when we're in school," she said. "It just kind
of flows into your lifestyle." According to a 2003
In Still, state officials
encourage home-school families to link up with districts to align their
curriculum "in case the parent wants to re-enroll their child into
the regular mainstream," said Harry Blackburn, legal counsel for
the Illinois State Board of Education. "[But] the state hasn't
been given the mandate and the authority to supervise these schools." Home-school families
are expected to meet the 176 minimum class days mandated for state public-school
students. That leads some families to maintain a year-round schedule. "We're schooling
year round and taking longer breaks at other times," said Reindl,
who began teaching Erik a year ago when she realized that he was already
starting to read. "It takes them
a while to get in the groove again, so we just do a little and that
keeps them up," said Harris, who has home-schooled all of her children
from kindergarten. The continual routine
enables them to take family trips during off-peak seasons and the children
to spend the summer in musical instrument rehearsals and debate camps
and with personal tutors. The five Merry children
in But she launches into
the occasional impromptu lesson. When Merry and her children ventured
into their back yard one mild afternoon, she discussed the best way
to catch fireflies and maintain their glow. "I read that if
you keep them warm they'll stay lit for longer," she advised her
two youngest daughters before adding, "I've learned more from teaching
them than I ever did in school." Officials:
State policy redundant Amanda Williams, The
Register-Mail The Illinois Legislature
passed the Children's Mental Health Act of 2003, which requires schools
to develop a policy for incorporating social and emotional development
into their educational program. The Act also requires schools to have
a plan for responding to children with social, emotional or mental health
problems that impact learning. The policies must be submitted to the
Illinois State Board of Education by Aug. 31. While districts have
been cooperating with the new law, some school officials say it is redundant
of what the schools already do. Clyde Grady, a Knoxville
School Board member, is among those who disagree with the new mental
health law. "I just have a
problem with a legislative act mandating what we're already doing,"
Grady said. "I would assume that all of our staff pays attention
to our students' mental health." According to the Act,
signed Aug. 8 by Gov. Rod Blagojevich, one in 10 children in Illinois
suffers from a mental illness severe enough to cause some level of impairment
but only about 20 percent of those children receive mental health services. The Act also states,
"Children's social development and emotional development are essential
underpinnings to school readiness and academic success." A sample policy was
provided to school districts by the Illinois Association of School Boards.
It outlines such things as student social and emotional development,
student support services and a procedure for responding to students
with social, emotional, or mental health problems. It also requires teachers
and administrators to refer a student suspected of having social, emotional
or mental health problems to the Student Support Committee appointed
by the principal. The committee reviews information about a referred
student and suggests steps for referral and follow-up. "Good teachers
don't need an act. They don't need a committee to say 'this kid's having
problems'," Grady said. "But if our folks down in Knoxville District 202
approved the policy at its regular meeting last week. Galesburg Superintendent
Neil Sappington said the school district already had policies in place
that address the needs of students with mental health problems. "So it's kind of
outlining what we already do," Sappington said. District 205 first discussed
the new mental health policy in July and approved it earlier this month. Because the new policy
repeats existing procedures, Sappington said the district plans to remove
two policies at a future board meeting. The school district will keep
the new policy in place, as required by law. Sappington said the
district does not see a big change from the way things were done under
previous policies. Letter by Jeanne Allen,
President, The Center for Education Reform, Washington -- This is
regarding "Testing scores lag in charter schools" (News, Aug.
17). More than 10 years of comprehensive research demonstrates that
charter schools produce strong student achievement, especially among
minority and at-risk students. In Unfortunately these
students are caught in the middle of a political battle. Opponents of
charter schools are threatened by the growth of independent public schools
that offer a promise of performance, are held to account by contract
and open to parents by choice. The most important test data for all
public schools are those that are used by states to measure student
achievement. Those data, coupled with national data, reveal that charter
students are achieving despite their challenges. They perform at least
as well as their public school counterparts and many achieve at even
higher levels. For example, 4th grade
students in Charter schools are
working, here in Letter by Jennifer Martin,
Chicago -- This is regarding
the report that 694 I suspect, however,
that the state is blaming the wrong party for these children's failures. The only differences
between kids who get ahead and kids who don't are parents who insist
on good study habits. Here's a better idea: If your child gets an
F on his report card, the state will fine you $50. That money will go into
escrow, and you don't get it back until your child brings his grade
up. Radical? Perhaps, but I am confident
we would see children's grades rise dramatically if parents were held
accountable for their children's school performance. =========================================================================== NATIONAL Harshness of red marks has students seeing purple By Naomi Aoki, When it comes to correcting
papers and grading tests, purple is emerging as the new red. "If you see a whole
paper of red, it looks pretty frightening," said Sharon Carlson,
a health and physical education teacher at That's the cue pen makers
and office supply superstores say they have gotten from teachers as
the $15 billion back-to-school retail season kicks off. They say focus
groups and conversations with teachers have led them to conclude that
a growing number of the nation's educators are switching to purple,
a color they perceive as "friendlier" than red. As a result, Paper Mate
introduced purple to its assortment of blue, red, and green X-Tend pens
and increased distribution of existing purple pens this school year.
Barry Calpino, Paper Mate's vice president and general manager, estimated
that the Office superstores such
as Staples and OfficeMax also are making a splash with purple pens,
stocking more of them, adding purple to multicolor packs, and selling
all-purple packs. By comparison, Staples did not stock any exclusively
purple pen packs last year and it hardly had any purple pens in its
stores two years ago, said Robert George, the A mix of red and blue,
the color purple embodies red's sense of authority but also blue's association
with serenity, making it a less negative and more constructive color
for correcting student papers, color psychologists said. Purple calls
attention to itself without being too aggressive. And because the color
is linked to creativity and royalty, it is also more encouraging to
students. "The concept of
purple as a replacement for red is a pretty good idea," said Leatrice
Eiseman, director of the Pantone Color Institute in For office supply stores,
color and fashion trends spell opportunity and risk. The trends allow
them to freshen up staid old categories such as pens and markers, fueling
sales. But getting a trend wrong -- betting on purple pens when teachers
and students are buying green, for example -- can cost them sales during
a critical retail period. Red's legacy as the
color used in correcting papers and marking mistakes goes back to the
1700s, the era of the quill pen. In those days, red ink was used by
clerks and accountants to correct ledgers. From there, it found its
way into teachers' hands. But two or three decades
ago, an anti-red sentiment began surfacing among teachers. Since then,
no one color had emerged as red's replacement. Is purple here to stay? "I do not use red,"
said Robin Slipakoff, who teaches second and third grades at Sheila Hanley, who teaches
reading and writing to first- and second-graders at Hanley said a growing
contingent of her colleagues is using purple. They prefer it to green
and yellow because it provides more contrast to the black or blue ink
students are asked to write in. And they prefer it to orange, which
they think is too similar to red. But aside from avoiding
red, Hanley said she is not sure color matters much. At times, she uses
sticky notes rather than writing on a child's paper. What's important,
she said, is to focus on how an assignment can be improved rather than
on what is wrong with it, she said. Ruslan Nedoruban, who
is entering seventh grade at his His mother, Victoria
Nedoruban, who is taking classes to improve her English, said she thinks
papers should be corrected in red. "I hate red,"
she said. "But because I hate it, I want to work harder to make
sure there isn't any red on my papers." Red has other defenders.
"We need to be
honest and forthright with students," Jago said. "Red is honest,
direct, and to the point. I'm sending the message, 'I care about you
enough to care how you present yourself to the outside world.' " Librarians say school cuts are shrinking library time AP, August 23, 2004 PROVIDENCE, R.I. --
Cutbacks in school funding are leaving school librarians with less time
in the library and more time in the classroom pitching in for short-staffed
teachers, library staffers said. At But during the academic
year that ended in June, the number dropped to 335, the librarian, Carol
Felino, told The Providence Journal. She and two other middle
school librarians, Jim Wynn of Bridgham and Chris Spinelli of Nathan
Bishop, said the dramatic decline is a ripple effect of a cutback in
the teaching staff. With fiscal constraints
forcing the district to lay off staff, primarily teachers of electives,
school librarians, who generally are certified teachers, have been pressed
into service to fill the holes in students' schedules, the librarians
said. They've said the shift
in their roles runs contrary to their training, the education practice
endorsed by the American Association of School Librarians, and basic
education requirements of the state. Frances Gallo, the The librarians said
that while they are teaching, they cannot work with students who want
to do research or borrow books. Nor can they work with teachers who
want to bring classes to the library to gather information on a subject. Chris Spinelli, who
until now has had no classes, will be teaching 15 hours a week this
year--half the school day--leaving only 10 hours of open library time
for the school of 900 students. The library is unavailable to the rest
of school when a class is in session. Jim Wynn, the librarian
at Bridgham, taught classes for the first time this past year. Wynn said he gave up
his daily free period so that teachers could bring classes into the
library. He said he routinely stayed late an hour or two every day to
do work that was impossible to do during the school day. Are Advanced Placement
courses growing too fast? AP, She took three college-level
Advanced Placement courses as a sophomore and five more as a junior.
Having aced them, she begins 12th grade at "A lot of people
are pushing themselves to take as many AP classes and tests as they
can," said Melba, a 17-year-old with eyes on an Ivy League education.
"I think it's amazing that people really care, that they want to
be pushed. ... They're looking to their future." The Advanced Placement
Program, which began as a tiny experiment for top seniors seeking college
courses and credit, has swelled to the point of altering the high school
experience. Over nearly 50 years,
the number of students taking annual AP exams has grown from about 1,000
to more than 1.1 million, with a 140 percent increase during the last
decade alone. A few hundred public
high schools used to offer AP; now two-thirds of them do. By last year,
one out of every three public high school graduates had taken at least
one AP test. The subject list has more than tripled, from popular core
courses such as history and biology to additions in the arts and social
sciences, with more world languages coming soon. Such growth is widely
viewed as an education success story, because more students have been
given access to training colleges demand of them. But some educators see
an academic arms race, with students piling up AP courses to impress
colleges and schools adding classes without ensuring teachers are prepared
for them. The AP goal remains
to challenge students to analyze subjects at the kind of depth found
in a college classroom, with a payoff that goes beyond learning. Most
Yet as more sophomores
and juniors take AP courses and exams, their motivation has become not
to just to prepare for college, but to gain an edge getting in to one. College admission officers
place more importance on grades in college-prep courses such as AP than
they do on any other factor -- including SAT scores, grade point average,
class rank and student essays, a 2003 survey found. Colleges give less
emphasis to AP exam grades in admitting students, in part because such
scores may come in too late in the process. The AP is not intended
as an admissions tool, but the connection makes sense, said Trevor Packer,
executive director of the AP Program at the not-for-profit College Board. Research shows students
who have taken two or more AP exams have better rates of completing
bachelor's degrees. And the College Board itself promotes the admissions
angle, telling students AP can dramatically improve their chances of
getting in where they want. In Melba's school in
"The old philosophy
was that only the very best students were sent to AP courses. We've
changed that," said Erick Hueck, who oversees the AP program and
teaches AP chemistry at Miami Senior High. "We're going to be more
inclusive. We're going for the greater good." Nationwide, minority
participation is improving but remains a challenge. Hispanics and blacks
make up 31 percent of high school students but only 17 percent of AP
test-takers. Minority students sometimes
steered away Researchers have found
schools have steered minority students away from AP courses, and those
who make it in sometimes endure the scrutiny of being the only minority
in class. At "These students
often don't get the credit they're due," she said. "A lot
of times people don't understand that it's a language barrier they have,
not a lack of a capacity to learn." Yet Education Trust,
a nonprofit that advocates for poor and minority children, says test
scores raise questions about whether all AP classes are high quality.
In 2003, for example, 69 percent of white students passed one AP calculus
course. Only 34 percent of blacks did. Jeannie Oakes, a UCLA
education professor, says giving students access to more AP courses
without sufficiently preparing them and their teachers is a "cruel
hoax." She served on a National Research Council panel that found
AP courses were improperly used to rank schools and that classes lacked
the kind of quality standards that the brand name implies. Each AP class has an
outline, not a specific lesson plan. Schools decide whether a teacher
is ready for the advanced material. The real check on quality is the
AP test, Packer said. College faculty help shape the exams, craft course
outlines and review them annually. The College Board is
responding to challenges of access and teacher training, with targeted
help in rural areas and subsidized courses for middle and high school
teachers. Taxpayers are chipping
in, too. Many states now pay for AP course development and test fees,
and, in this election year, President Bush wants to double federal spending
on the AP to $51.5 million, to expand course access for poor children
and training for their teachers. Few states improve rail crossings Vehicles and trains
collide average nine times a day AP, The National Transportation
Safety Board says 12 states have made satisfactory progress since then. "Children continue
to be unnecessarily killed in school bus accidents at grade crossings,"
NTSB Chairman Ellen Engleman said this week. "Children's lives
can and will be saved if state authorities adopt the simple safety measures
that the board recommended. With the school year beginning, action is
needed." The accident in "Hey! Hey!"
the engineer shouted when he saw the bus, then slammed on the emergency
brakes. It was too late. The
2,465-ton train smashed into the side of the bus. One witness said the
crash sounded like "damn thunder or a bomb blown up." Two girls, ages 7 and
9, and a 9-year-old boy were killed in that crash in 2000. Three more
children were seriously hurt, one of them the bus driver's daughter. Vehicles and trains
collide an average of nine times a day. More than 1,000 people have
been killed in the four years since the The 82,000 crossings
where there are no gates present the greatest danger -- the accident
rate is seven times that for crossings with gates that block vehicles. A key NTSB recommendation
for such crossings was installation of stop signs. That was seen as
a far cheaper alternative to other railroad crossing safety measures,
such as installing gates at a cost of $150,000 apiece, building bridges
or rerouting tracks or roads. The 12 states that the
safety board says have made sufficient progress toward improving safety
at railroad tracks crossed by school buses are Arkansas, Connecticut,
Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico,
South Carolina and Texas. Seven of the 10 states
with the most collisions between trains and all kinds of vehicles at
grade crossings have largely ignored the recommendation. They are Every state requires
school buses to stop, turn off noisy equipment, open the doors and look
both ways before crossing railroad tracks, according to the National
Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services, which
supports the NTSB's recommendations. It's a real easy solution.
Leaving an ambiguous sign that means different things to different people
in different states is not a good answer. -- NTSB investigator
Joseph Osterman on replacing railroad crossing signs with stop signs. But that doesn't always
happen. The 34-year-old bus driver in the Research shows that
while some know to "stop, look and listen" when they see a
crossbuck, many others think the sign means "slow down" or
doesn't require any special action, NTSB investigator Joseph Osterman
said. There is no such confusion with a stop sign, which is why installing
them at crossings makes sense, he said. "It's a real easy
solution," Osterman said. "Leaving an ambiguous sign that
means different things to different people in different states is not
a good answer." Barbara Harsha, executive
director of the Governors Highway Safety Association, agreed crossings
present significant danger but said she doesn't believe stop signs will
persuade drivers to halt. "They think, 'I
never see a train on this track, so I'm just going to ignore the stop
sign,"' Harsha said. She suggested placing video cameras at crossings
and issuing tickets to anyone who fails to stop. Beyond stop signs, the
NTSB recommends equipping school buses with "option kill switches,"
which enable drivers to turn off noisy devices like fans and radios
when a bus approaches a rail crossing. Only The NTSB also called
for better training and oversight of bus drivers, including using video
cameras to help monitor performance. State's virtual classrooms
report rise in enrollment Monica Mendoza, An estimated 3,500 Arizona
children are expected to log on to education's newest trend of virtual
schooling, as the state's cyberschools report increases in enrollment
this year over last school year. Under "As the information
has gotten out there, people are saying, 'Wow, there are virtual schools.'
They have filled a much-needed gap," said Brad Lester, director
of online expansion for Cyberschool history Last year, lawmakers
expanded the program to allow 14 cyberschools, seven run by charter
schools and seven run by traditional school districts. With virtual schooling
still an emerging trend in education, even those involved are split
on whether cyberschools are an alternative for a few students or whether
it's the future of all schooling. In its short life, Some children take all
their lessons over the Internet from their home computers, touching
base with teachers by telephone or e-mail. Some take half of the
courses over the Internet and the rest in a traditional school. And some take all their
courses over the Internet but go to a school building where they have
daily face-to-face contact with teachers. As cyberschooling gains
interest, going back to school just isn't what it used to be. Cheyenne Miller, 8,
is taking third-grade courses offered by She went "back
to school" last Monday but wasn't worried about her outfit or being
tardy. Instead, she started
out her day at the workstation her mom set up, which has all of her
supplies, books and her computer. She said the Pledge of Allegiance,
had show-and-tell time with her mom, then started her lessons. "It's like I was
on a first-name basis with the UPS man," said Debbie Miller, Different approaches "Philosophically,
we believe the best place for kids is in school," said Robert Mackay,
"However, we recognize
there are niches of students who have difficulty attending school." Students who are ill
or those who have dropped out of traditional schools may be attracted
to the more flexible computer-based learning program, he said. "Bottom line is
there is no such thing as a student who wants to drop out," Mackay
said. "If you provide the right school, everyone will be successful." Last school year, 530
students enrolled in This year, the district
added cyberschool programs for children in Grades K-6. Already 125 children
have enrolled, Some cyberschool officials
have discovered that children want and need to talk with their teacher
and fellow students daily. Teachers at Kids At
Hope Online Academy stepped up their e-mails, telephone calls and letters
home to students. Their cyberschool program also includes textbooks
and novels that kids take home. "We have found
that being on the computer reading all day long is hard on the eyes,
and it confines you," said Arlene Duston, academic director of
Kids at "The students want
to go outside and read a book." At Pinnacle Education
online school, teachers wrote the high school lessons based on the Some students are just
not ready to give up the face-to-face contact with friends, teachers
and counselors, said Michael Matwick, president of Pinnacle Education
Inc. But students are ready
for technology-based courses, he said. This year, about 1,000 students
in Grades 9-12 are taking the computer-based courses from the six sites
and about 250 are taking the courses from home, keeping in touch with
teachers by telephone or e-mail. Pinnacle hired more
student advisers to help students choose courses and keep tabs on their
progress. "The last thing
we want is for a student to drift away," Matwick said. 'Becoming the norm' School officials at
Primavera sees both
high achievers and those struggling in school enrolling in online high
school courses, Lester said. As in traditional schools, students move
through the lessons at the same pace in a block schedule. They take
two courses a day for six weeks. Lester said block schedules allow students
to dive into a subject and spend time on it, not rush through six courses
in a day. "We see online
education becoming the norm," said Lester, who described Primavera
as the high school version of the "I tell students
(that) online education is something you will do for rest of life -
whether it's research or taking classes. A major part of projects is
done online," Lester said. "To me, it's not
realistic to pigeonhole this and say it will only work for a certain
crowd." Schools join state in
decrying lack of funding. By Bonnie Eslinger,
Local education leaders
are joining a chorus of state officials who say the federal government
needs to put up or shut up when it comes to education standards. "I believe in accountability
and setting high expectations," said San Francisco Superintendent
Arlene Ackerman. "We know that in this school district we need
more support, and that requires more funding for recruitment, for school
resources, and for giving students who fail activities to help them." The state resolution,
which passed in the Senate on Thursday and in the Assembly in June,
says that NCLB's mandates are not fully funded. "It's fine for
the federal government to try and raise the bar in terms of expectations
and try to get some sort of standardized mechanism," said School
Board Commissioner Heather Hiles. "But I think it's harmful to
create lots of new expectations and not provide enough funds for the
schools to do the work they need to do to get the skills up." The measure also seeks
to exempt A lack of funding for
NCLB is a "myth," according to U.S Department of Education
Representative Mary Jane Pearson, who said NCLB came with a 36 percent
increase in education spending. "We're not talking about underfunding,
we're talking about schools funding appropriately." Under NCLB, all students
in a district must take standardized tests in required subjects such
as English and math. The scores determine if a school is making Adequate
Yearly Progress -- denoted AYP -- towards a national goal of proficiency
for all children by 2014. "The California
API is a better measure than the AYP," Ackerman said. "It
looks at growth over time, year to year, and it looks at it realistically.
They want to have consistency, but you have to also have flexibility
for different states to make some of those changes." Approximately one-third
of " Title 1 schools must
boost all of their students to proficiency by 2014, or face possible
restructuring or even a state takeover. "I don't fear that
this will happen because we're working so hard," said Ackerman.
"I don't intend for that to happen." Eric McDonnell, the
Chief Investment Officer for Education at the United Way of the Bay
Area, said NCLB is strengthening accountability standards for low-income
and minority students whose needs are not fully addressed by state standards
alone. "Is it unfunded?
Yes," said McDonnell of NCLB. "Is it [the AYP] duplicative?
No." The resolution also
asked for a waiver in the NCLB requirement that all teachers working
in a Title 1 program hold at least a bachelors degree and have a teaching
credential. Teachers with emergency credentials would not meet this
standard. "I think we've
been very successful in reducing the number of teachers that are on
emergency credentials," said Ackerman. "The areas that we
have the most difficulty is the same as with many other districts: in
special education, math and science." Top official targets abuse by educators Driscoll to urge school
vigilance By Anand Vaishnav, On the eve of a new
school year, Education Commissioner David P. Driscoll plans to urge
schools today to act more vigilantly to protect students from sexual
abuse by educators. Calling for increased
scrutiny, Driscoll said in an interview yesterday that neither the Department
of Education nor school districts have paid enough attention to the
problem. Sexual misconduct is the primary reason that The commissioner said
he wants school districts to work harder to make students feel comfortable
enough to report a possible sexual offense by a teacher or another adult
in school. The state defines sexual misconduct as a range of activities,
including verbal harassment, improper correspondence with a student,
physical abuse, or inappropriate use of the Internet, such as browsing
adult websites or chat rooms. Worrisome cases involving
educators In his scheduled remarks
at the monthly Board of Education meeting in Driscoll said he was
spurred to do more by recent high-profile cases of alleged abuse by
teachers. A middle-school teacher in "It doesn't take
long to recognize that this is something we have not dealt with as a
society, as schools, as an agency, in a way we perhaps should have,"
Driscoll said. "We're talking about a small number, but I think
the time is right to be more diligent. We're seeing more and more instances,
so we just have to recognize that they may be there." In the past six years,
the Department of Education has revoked, suspended, or denied 26 teaching
certificates, including those a teacher voluntarily surrendered, because
of some type of sexual misconduct. Those cases range from suggestive
e-mails to a physical relationship, state statistics show. Last year, the state
suspended, denied, or took away 17 teaching certificates, up from five
the year before, and as in previous years, the majority of the cases
involved sexual misconduct, said Cathleen Cavell, a lawyer whom the
Department of Education hired last year to help pursue the cases with
its lone investigator. Not all of the cases
have involved physical abuse, Cavell said. Some involved verbal harassment
or improper correspondence with a student, which also can harm a student. Nationally, a report
commissioned by the US Department of Education estimated that as many
as one of every 10 public school students faced sexual misconduct by
school employees. Teacher unions raised questions about the study's
validity because of its broad definition of sexual misconduct; the study
allowed inappropriate comments, along with assault, to count as sexual
misconduct. Still, given the national
study, Driscoll said he wonders whether the problem has reached similar
proportions in Principals applauded
Driscoll's call for heightened vigilance, but said that background checks
do not always solve the problem, because sometimes nothing appears on
a check. In 2003, within a month
of each other, two popular Both lost their teaching
licenses, were placed on probation, and had to register as sex offenders.
And both, Headmaster Robert J. Weintraub said, had been perceived as
"esteemed members of the community." Ulich had been accused
in 1997 of grabbing another student's buttocks repeatedly and was charged
with indecent assault and battery. But a judge threw out the case because
Afterward, Weintraub
said that he walked into Ulich's office frequently and monitored his
behavior, but that the teacher faced similar charges five years later. "That's one case
where if we couldn't tell what was going on after that, doesn't that
say something about how tough it is to find out about this stuff?"
Weintraub said. "What can you do? You can be aware. Pay attention.
Watch interactions. Be visible." Last year at 4,400-student
"Absolutely, we
need to be vigilant, and every time a kid comes in, it can't be passed
off," said Szachowicz, now the principal of the state's largest
high school. "But it isn't simple. [Perpetrators] are bright, they're
articulate. This guy had two lives." In 2002, the Department
of Education began requiring school administrators who fired or obtained
the resignation of a teacher for any reason to report those teachers
to the agency. In June, it began requiring
administrators to notify the state if damaging information came to light,
even after a teacher left the system; administrators who don't turn
over such information can lose their own educator credentials. Under
law, educators also must report allegations to the Department of Social
Services. Still, All 50 states and some
countries have access to the National Association of State Directors
of Teacher Education and Certification's database of educators who have
lost their teaching licenses. States can check a roster of 23,500 names
dating back to the 1970s to ensure that applicants have not lied about
their records. However, new applicants
who have never had a credential revoked would not appear in that database,
and states are just beginning to find ways to share information on applicants'
backgrounds, said Roy Einreinhofer, the association's executive director. "It's never happening
fast enough," Einreinhofer said. Small schools' test area districts Angela Townsend, Plain
Dealer Reporter, 8/22/04 Making schools small
can be a big hassle. Just ask Then, with opening day
just two weeks away, they got an earful from worried parents. Would
each school have an honor society? Would all math classes be alike?
Could students switch schools? Some parents still didn't
know which schools their children would attend. "Have some patience,"
Superintendent Joffrey Jones told the crowd of 150. "Let it unfold."
Over the next three
weeks, the highly touted reform movement known as "small schools"
will come to five Statewide, 51 small
schools will open this fall. More than two years
have passed since the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched the
effort by giving millions of dollars in grants to be administered by
the KnowledgeWorks Foundation, the state's largest public education
philanthropy. The aim is to carve
up large, troubled urban high schools into smaller learning communities
that encourage stronger relationships among students, teachers, other
staff and parents. At least one district
decided it needed more time to create small schools. Earlier this year,
How many small schools
Buchtel will have and whether they will open next fall remains unclear,
Ingraham said. "When you're in
the planning stages, a lot of things can change," she said. Creating new environments
out of existing space also created challenges. None of the local districts
had the luxury of building new high schools this year. A new At Middle school students
who would have gone to Heritage are instead going to other elementary
schools and nearby modular units. Winning acceptance Getting teachers, parents
and the larger community to embrace small schools has been challenging
for most districts. "Many people -
taxpayers, parents, teachers and even some administrators - expect you
to fail," Sandra Brown and Claudia
Bolden, two of "We're making sure
that unity still stands," Bolden said. "We can take that unity
with us to another building." Christine Fowler-Mack,
deputy director of educational services for Cleveland Heights-University
Heights, said some of the biggest concerns have come from parents of
academically gifted students. Their worries are that
their children won't benefit as much from the new structure, Fowler-Mack
said. "Our small schools
will accommodate everyone," she said. "The misconception is
that this is for students who can't achieve. But it really is for all
students." Similarly, not all teachers
have been convinced that small schools are the right way to go. In Cleveland Teachers Union
members at In What eventually turned
things around, Jones said, was a group of "very motivated teachers
who wanted to see this change happen." When the change finally
does happen on Thursday, Renee Sanders, whose daughter will be a sophomore
at the But Sanders, who went
to the Aug. 12 meeting to get a better handle on what small schools
are all about, said both she and her daughter are excited about the
changes. "I always thought
that They will be voluntary
until Dec. 1. A public hearing on the policy drew little protest from
parents. By Melanie Burney, Inquirer
Staff Writer, 8/25/04 Camden public school
students will have a choice about what they wear to school when classes
begin next month - but not for long. A voluntary uniform
policy will take effect Sept. 7 for the district's nearly 18,000 students,
with each of But on Dec. 1, the uniform
policy will become mandatory, school board member Sara T. Davis said
at a public hearing last night. The policy drew little
opposition at the two-hour hearing, attended by a handful of parents.
The district was required to hold the hearing before implementing the
policy. Marian Young, 50, said
she had already bought uniforms for her 5-year-old grandson, who will
begin kindergarten at Forest Hill Elementary in the city's Parkside
section. "It was easy for
me financially," said Young, a day-care worker. Jose E. Delgado, a former
school board member, expressed mixed feelings about the policy. He also
said the public should have more time to weigh in on the issue. "I come from the
generation when what I wore said something about me," Delgado said.
"That was my expression of who I was." Critics contend that
uniform policies stifle self-expression. Community activist Mangaliso
Davis said the policy was needed because parents in the impoverished
city were under pressure to buy the latest fashions for their children.
Some students have been held up at gunpoint and robbed of their sneakers
or jackets, he said. "They're buying
things they can't even afford," School Superintendent
Annette D. Knox said she believed uniforms would help reduce discipline
problems and improve learning and security because students would be
easily distinguished from nonstudents. Parents demanded the change,
she said. The policy will not
require traditional parochial uniforms. Instead, students will have
a "uniform look," such as khakis and a shirt in their school
color. It is unlikely that
violators will face disciplinary action, Sara Davis said. Knox said the district
had set aside $10,000 to assist students who cannot afford uniforms.
At least 10 "All of our schools
can stand some significant change," Knox said. From schools to security, a reluctance to fix blame Accountability is a
popular concept, but a poll finds Americans hesitant to punish schools
for poor results. By Gail Russell Chaddock,
Christian Science Monitor Staff writer, 8/25/04 WASHINGTON – Americans
expect public schools to be more accountable for student progress, but
oppose concrete steps in a new federal law to punish or even identify
schools that fail to meet that goal. That's the unlikely
conclusion of the 36th annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the public's
attitudes toward public schools, released Tuesday. While critics say that
some of the questions are leading and biased, the results fit a larger
pattern in American politics and culture: a reluctance to assign blame
or hold people accountable for bad results. The pattern shows up
in another election-year anomaly: While only about half of American
voters approve of the job Congress is doing, most incumbents face no
difficulty getting reelected, according to Congress watchers at the
Cook Political Report. From the 9/11 attacks
to the botched "The That's due, at least
in part, to a growing tendency in American culture in the 1980s and
'90s to frame issues in terms of victims - buffeted by larger forces
around them - rather than individual responsibility, he says. "We
talk a great deal about accountability, but we never seem to find the
people who are directly responsible." There are obvious exceptions,
generally when an issue can't be avoided. Recent prosecutions of corporate
malfeasance and of prisoner-abuse in But public views of
education offer a good window on the nation's ambivalence on the issue
of accountability. President Bush pulled together a bipartisan coalition
to pass the "No Child Left Behind Act," which penalizes schools
that have sub-par test results. While large majorities
of Americans say that public schools nationally need improvement, most
assign their own local school much higher grades. An example from the
Phi Delta Kappan poll: 47 percent grade their own public schools an
A or B, while only 26 percent give such high marks to public schools
nationally. This conclusion fits
a report by the Education Testing Service last month that concludes
that American parents offer fairly upbeat assessments of their children's
own schools, but say that public schools overall must improve. Moreover, the public
is not in favor of measures that appear to punish schools for poor performance,
according to this poll and 10 years of surveys by the Public Agenda,
a nonpartisan polling group. Such measures in the new federal law include:
allowing students to exit low-performing schools and the shift of public
funds from local schools to parents to purchase supplementary educational
services for their children. On one level, this reflects
specific concerns about how "No Child Left Behind" is designed
- whether it will harm school districts rather than help them. But it
reflects also society's wider ambivalence about the idea of accountability. The mixed feelings have
been on display, prominently, in the 9/11 investigation. Nearly three
years after the worst attack ever on Again, in one sense
that's not surprising. President Bush - who came into office with an
MBA and determination to run government based on measured outcomes -
has said the person to blame for the attacks is Osama bin Laden. But if the reluctance
to probe the wounds of 9/11 is understandable, it has also stirred controversy.
Last week a senior CIA officer who led the agency's effort to track
Osama bin Laden criticized the 9/11 commission for failing to hold anyone
directly accountable for failure to stop the 9/11 attacks. "The
report seems to deliberately ignore those who were clearly culpable
of negligence or dereliction," says the officer in a reported e-mail
to the commission. That, he argues, will allow such failures to persist. Before 9/11, there was
the The issue of personal
accountability runs from education and politics through recent the corporate
accountability scandals. "I'm concerned that in very broad segments
of our society there has been a decline in the willingness to accept
responsibility for action," says Robert Pfaltzgraff, a professor
at the Last fall's anti-Islamic
remarks by a senior military leader, Lt. Gen. William Boykin, stirred
controversy. But the Pentagon investigation into the matter settled
on issues of procedure (Did he clear the speeches with proper Pentagon
authorities? Did he "preface his remarks with a disclaimer?"
Did he report travel reimbursement exceeding $260 on his financial disclosure
forms?), not whether he must resign. "There is a growing,
very pernicious sense in the Yet no notion is more
current in "As a strong advocate
for truth and transparency in government operations, GAO is committed
to ensuring that recent accountability failures, such as Enron and WorldCom,
are not repeated in the public sector," he added. Yet there have been
no conspicuous firings or cutting of programs as a result of the new
focus, say GAO spokesmen. Audit criticizes charter schools Lax accountability is
problem, it says By Kavita Kumar of the
Post-Dispatch, 8/26/2004 An audit released Wednesday
asserted what many have been saying for years about charter schools:
There needs to be a stronger accountability system. The report says It says a lack of oversight
has contributed to the hiring of too many teachers without certification;
missed deadlines for annual financial audit reports; and fiscal irresponsibility.
State Auditor Claire
McCaskill, whose office issued the report, said that if charter schools
cannot be held to basic standards of accountability, "then we need
to take a look at this public experiment." The audit singled out
four of the state's eight charter school sponsors for inconsistent oversight
- characterized by not visiting the schools regularly and not attending
school meetings. Those sponsors, including
Harris-Stowe State College, the Bob Samples, a spokesman
for UMSL, said the auditors "have their own subjective criteria
and they felt that going and sitting at a board meeting was important,
whereas we put more of an emphasis on making sure that they were adhering
to charter laws and state regulations." Samples said the university
sent letters Tuesday notifying the "In general, neither
school performed to the level that was satisfactory to the university,"
he said. A spokesman for the
And Charles Gooden,
a member of Harris-Stowe's charter school task force team, disputed
the audit's assertion that it has not conducted the required performance
evaluations of Gooden said the state
had not provided money for oversight - a common complaint from charter
school sponsors. The audit found that
many charter schools were failing to meet the state requirement that
80 percent of their teachers (compared with 95 percent of public school
teachers) be certified. Only half of the state's charter schools were
at that benchmark in September. Those rates fluctuate as teachers come
and go. For example, only about 39 percent of teachers at Lift for Yet, since September
2003, only four schools have been placed on probation by sponsors or
notified that their charter renewal was in jeopardy, the audit said.
Most sponsoring organizations
agreed that the state's charter school laws need beefing up to delineate
the level of supervision and the standards of accountability. The audit also points
a finger at the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education for
not taking an active role in ensuring that charter schools are fully
accountable and in compliance with state laws. Bert Schulte, the state
deputy commissioner of education, said he thought the audit was "pretty
accurate," but said that the state charter school laws do not give
the department the authority to provide that oversight. Dave Camden, director
of the "I'm very frustrated
with the sponsors," he said, but added, "The schools have
to take the first responsibility for what is going on." Governor's task force prepares to address gap in school
funding By NANCY BADERTSCHER,
Gov. Sonny Perdue intends
to charge a task force of educators, legislators and business people
today with determining how to overhaul "It's time,"
Perdue said in an interview this week. "Twenty years ago, quality
basic education was a great goal. Today, we can't afford just basic
education. We need excellence in education." The 23-member task force
will focus on reforming the school funding formula established in 1985
as part of then-Gov. Joe Frank Harris' Quality Basic Education Act. Its members also will
be asked to help develop a new approach to funding education that considers
not only year-to-year but also long-term investment, Perdue said. "That's a sea change
in the way we think about education," said the governor, who has
promised to involve a national expert on school funding. Dean Alford, chairman
of the task force and a member of the state Board of Education, said
the group initially might recommend some adjustments to the QBE formula
and, ultimately, a replacement. "I don't think,
in any way, that QBE has delivered a level of achievement we're happy
with," said Alford, who was in the Legislature when QBE became
law. Rural school officials
have been pushing for years to change the school funding formula, which
is based on student enrollment. They argue that it is much tougher for
them to raise money locally to supplement the funds they receive from
the state. Lawmakers have responded
by providing extra money to poorer districts through equity grants and
a low-wealth construction fund. The rural systems — after two years
of state budget cuts and increases in local property taxes — also
have picked up sympathy and allies, even in some of the wealthier school
districts. Even so, about 50 of
the state's 180 school systems have organized as the Consortium for
Adequate School Funding, and their leaders say a lawsuit that has been
threatened for at least two years should be filed in September. Alford said the task
force was not formed "in response to a threat of a suit and was
in no way influenced by it." "We want every
child in this state to have an opportunity for an excellent education,"
he said. Al Hunter, superintendent
of southeast "Even if we succeed
in the lawsuit and the funding is determined to be inadequate, you would
still have the process of determining what should be done and what amount,"
Hunter said. "We've been asking that the [funding] gap be closed,
and instead it's widened." Similar lawsuits The lawsuit would be
similar to others filed across the country since the California Supreme
Court ruled about 30 years ago that that state's method of funding schools
was unconstitutional. "The [ Perdue, who has been
receptive to the consortium, said he thinks the lawsuit is "lawyer-driven." "I think most of
[the consortium members] ultimately understand they are going to get
a lot more equity and parity from being a part of the process, part
of this task force, rather than part of litigation," the governor
said. The task force, which
includes state School Superintendent Kathy Cox, Gwinnett County Schools
Superintendent Alvin Wilbanks and three legislators, will be watched
closely across the state by people like Ralph Noble, a teacher in "The needs across
the state are very apparent," Noble said. The disparities are equally
obvious, he said. " Legislators would have
to agree to any changes in law proposed by the task force, and Speaker
Pro Tem DuBose Porter (D-Dublin) said no consensus exists on the best
course of action. "The good part
of QBE is, for the first time, it funded the formula based on student
counts," Porter said. "One of the problems is the lapse of
time between the student count and when the money is allocated to the
system — sometimes almost a year and a half." That lag makes it difficult
for school systems to plan for extra classroom space or teachers, he
said. Changing the funding
formula to send more money to the rural systems means taking money from
the medium-size and larger systems, Porter said. "And you can imagine
the politics of that." Number of single-sex classes grows / CNN.com States experimenting
with single-sex schools AP, That's just fine with
Kristielle Pedraza, a 13-year-old who says she will not miss the boys
while she attends the Irma Rangel Young Women's "Usually it's the
guys that distract all the whole class. They're usually the class clowns,"
said Kristielle, who entered the seventh grade last week. "With
no guys in the school, I can know we will really get busy without much
distraction." At least 10 single-sex
public schools were to open this fall in five states -- Advocates say separating
the sexes can improve learning by easing the peer pressure that can
lead to misbehavior as well as low self-esteem among girls. "John Kerry, George
W. Bush, his father and Al Gore all went to all-boys schools. We don't
think that's a coincidence," said Dr. Leonard Sax, a Some women's groups
and the American Civil Liberties Union say segregation of any kind is
wrong. "We think segregation
has historically always resulted in second-class citizens," said
Terry O'Neill, a National Organization for Women vice president. The number of Advocates said they
expect the number to increase now that the U.S. Education Department
has announced plans to change its enforcement of the landmark discrimination
law Title IX, which bars sex discrimination in schools. "Many school districts
wanted to offer this option, but they feared being sued by interest
groups," said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Texas Republican who
fought for an amendment in the No Child Left Behind Act that encouraged
districts to experiment with single-sex education. The 126 seventh- and
eighth-graders at the Focusing on different
ways boys, girls learn Sax said separating
the sexes allows teachers and administrators to focus on the different
ways boys and girls learn. Girls, he said, learn better in quiet classrooms
and intimate schools where they are on a first-name basis with their
teachers. Boys learn better when teachers challenge them to answer rapid-fire
questions and address them by their last names. Single-sex schools also
reduce the pressure to preen for boyfriends or girlfriends, Sax said. "Single-sex schools,
in ways that matter, are much more like the real world. Because unless
you are a model or an actress, how you look is not the most important
thing in your life," Sax said. Roy Young, a former
defensive back for the Philadelphia Eagles, founded One former student who
was enrolled in special education when he came to the Pro-Vision Center
in fifth grade is now taking college prep courses at his high school,
Young said. "If you added other
dynamics to it, say male-female, I don't know if this kid would've ever
came clean and came to us and said, 'Look, this is the problem I'm having.
I can't read,"' Young said. The new all-girls school
in Kristielle's mother,
"She's getting
all this experience," Pedraza said. "It's just awesome. I
wish I could have been her age and doing the things that she's already
doing." Big increase in number of schools missing No Child goals
Norman Draper, The number of underperforming
schools in This year's numbers
showed 472 schools not meeting federal and state testing goals, compared
to 143 last year. Much of that increase comes from new listings of high
schools and middle schools, which were judged on test scores for the
first time. This year's underperforming
schools list includes 144 high schools, 94 middle schools, 124 elementary
schools and 106 alternative schools. Forty-nine charter schools are
included in those numbers. In addition, 150 school
districts did not meet their goals for "adequate yearly progress."
Fifty-five schools improved
enough to get off the list. Low test scores posted
by special education and non-English-speaking students were factors
that pushed many schools on to the list, said new state Education Commissioner
Alice Seagren. Seagren announced the results this morning at a press
conference at the State Fair with Gov. Tim Pawlenty. She pledged to work
with the federal government to give schools more flexibility. The law
now requires schools to meet testing goals not just for the whole student
body but also for specific subgroups: students in specific racial groups,
poor students, special education students and those not fluent in English.
Schools must meet their test score goals for students as a whole and
in each subgroup, or they wind up on the list. Star ratings, too The state is required
to identify underperforming schools under the federal No Child Left
Behind law. The law also requires states to issue report cards for all
schools. Those report cards were
also released at the fair for the second year. They feature star ratings
that award schools up to five stars for academic quality. This year, said Seagren,
an error in the mockup of the new report card released in July led at
least one school district to calculate its own star ratings incorrectly.
The district, The error on the mockup
had no bearing on the star ratings released today. But a clearly vexed
Pawlenty noted that the state Legislature created a waiting period specifically
so such errors could be corrected before the ratings go public. So why care? The list of underperforming
schools was expected to balloon this year. Last year, high schools were
judged to be underperforming only if their graduation rates were too
low. Middle schools got tagged as underperforming if their attendance
was too low. But, this year, those schools are also graded on test scores. Because secondary schools
are so much larger than elementary schools, more of them have enough
students to require counting in the specific subgroups. Schools put on the list
this year face no immediate consequences. And schools that aren't designated
as Title 1 schools face no federal sanctions. Only 5 to 10 percent of
So why should they care? "I think the incentive
is the public information out there telling the public that some student
groups are not doing well," Seagren said. But schools that do
receive Title 1 funds and have been on the list before face a series
of steps that range from providing extra services to a complete restructuring
of the school if they continue to struggle. This year, for the first
time, eight chronically underperforming schools will be subject to what's
called Phase 3 sanctions. School districts must work with Phase 3 schools
to devise a plan to improve test scores. In addition, they must continue
using Title 1 money to transport students who want to go to other schools
and provide additional study services for students. Opponents of the list
also showed up in force at the fair today. They include representatives
of teacher, parent and school administrator organizations. They charge
that the tests used to identify underperforming schools measure information
that students might no longer be learning. That is because the tests
are not completely in sync with the new academic standards schools are
supposed to adopt this year. Old-fashioned pencil still school staple By Kata Kertesz, Associated
Press Writer, August 27, 2004 WASHINGTON -- Back-to-school
shopping lists are constantly evolving to keep up with technological
advancements, many even including cell phones, laptops, Blackberrys
and iPods. But one clear staple remains -- the pencil. As 5-year-old children
opt to play computer learning games instead of using traditional learning
toys, and middle schoolers would not even think to research a school
project with a physical encyclopedia, the staying power of the little
wooden pencil -- like the ones George Washington used -- seems remarkable. Not only are pencils
still used in classes like art and math, the good old No. 2 pencil is
the key to the multiple-choice, computer-graded tests that open doors
to the nation's universities and graduate programs. Tom Ewing, spokesman
for the Educational Testing Service, which administers tests like the
SAT, GRE and GMAT, said that while the number of people taking them
on computers is increasing, the paper and pencil versions still predominate. He said ETS would like
to increase the number of computer tests, though a major shift is far
down the road. "For the foreseeable future paper and pencils remains
the reliable workhorse of educational measurement," Lack of access to computers
is one of the major reasons computer testing is still far behind traditional
pencil tests, said Tim Loomer, president of testing and assessment and
Scantron Corp. Scantron provides many of the multiple-choice tests in
K-12 education. Though there is a trend
toward online testing, there has not been a real drop-off in paper and
pencil testing, Loomer said. "Not everyone has a computer, but
I guarantee you can get everyone a pencil," Loomer said. Technological initiatives,
such as Mike Finn, spokesman
for PaperMate, which says it is the biggest producer of pencils in the
Musgrave Pencil Co.
in At Burning As for calculators,
Shapiro said they may be used to check over work, but most work is done
with paper and pencil. If students rely only on calculators, they will
not be able to do basic tasks like adding and subtracting, she said,
leaving them unable to "do simple things like balancing a checkbook."
Internet Gives Teenage Bullies Weapons to Wound From
Afar
By AMY HARMON, New York
Times, August 26, 2004 The fight started at
school, when some eighth-grade girls stole a pencil case filled with
makeup that belonged to a new classmate, Amanda Marcuson, and she reported
them. But it did not end there.
As soon as Amanda got home, the instant messages started popping up
on her computer screen. She was a tattletale and a liar, they said.
Shaken, she typed back, "You stole my stuff!" She was a "stuck-up
bitch," came the instant response in the box on the screen, followed
by a series of increasingly ugly epithets. That evening, Amanda's
mother tore her away from the computer to go to a basketball game with
her family. But the barrage of electronic insults did not stop. Like
a lot of other teenagers, Amanda has her Internet messages automatically
forwarded to her cellphone, and by the end of the game she had received
50 - the limit of its capacity. "It seems like
people can say a lot worse things to someone online than when they're
actually talking to them," said Amanda, 14, of The episode reflects
one of many ways that the technology lubricating the social lives of
teenagers is amplifying standard adolescent cruelty. No longer confined
to school grounds or daytime hours, "cyberbullies" are pursuing
their quarries into their own bedrooms. Tools like e-mail messages and
Web logs enable the harassment to be both less obvious to adults and
more publicly humiliating, as gossip, put-downs and embarrassing pictures
are circulated among a wide audience of peers with a few clicks. The technology, which
allows its users to inflict pain without being forced to see its effect,
also seems to incite a deeper level of meanness. Psychologists say the
distance between bully and victim on the Internet is leading to an unprecedented
- and often unintentional - degree of brutality, especially when combined
with a typical adolescent's lack of impulse control and underdeveloped
empathy skills. "We're always talking
about protecting kids on the Internet from adults and bad people,"
said Parry Aftab, executive director of WiredSafety.org, a nonprofit
group that has been fielding a growing number of calls from parents
and school administrators worried about bullying. "We forget that
we sometimes need to protect kids from kids." For many teenagers,
online harassment has become a part of everyday life. But schools, which
tend to focus on problems that arise on their property, and parents,
who tend to assume that their children know better than they do when
it comes to computers, have long overlooked it. Only recently has it
become pervasive enough that even the adults have started paying attention.
Like many other guidance
counselors, Susan Yuratovac, a school psychologist at "I have kids coming
into school upset daily because of what happened on the Internet the
night before," Ms. Yuratovac said. "’'We were online
last night and somebody said I was fat,' or 'They asked me why I wear
the same pair of jeans every day,' or 'They say I have Wal-Mart clothes.'
" Recently, Ms. Yuratovac
intervened when a 12-year-old girl showed her an instant message exchange
in which a boy in her class wrote, "My brother says you have really
good boobs." Boys make many more explicit sexual comments online
than off, counselors say. "I don't think
the girl is fearful the boy is going to accost her, but I do think she
is embarrassed," Ms. Yuratovac said. "They know it's mean,
it's risky, it's nasty. I worry what it does to them inside. It's the
kind of thing you carry with you for a lot of years." The new weapons in the
teenage arsenal of social cruelty include stealing each others' screen
names and sending inflammatory messages to friends or crush-objects,
forwarding private material to people for whom it was never intended
and anonymously posting derogatory comments about fellow students on
Web journals called blogs. ED REVIEW for Ed Reviews is a bi-weekly
update on U.S. Department of Education activities relevant to the Intergovernmental
and Corporate community and other stakeholders. This week, Phi Delta
Kappa International and Gallup unveiled its 2004 "Public Attitudes
Toward the Public Schools" poll, which documents significant trends
in public opinion and explores the latest approaches to school improvement
(http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/k0409pol.htm). While the poll found only one-third of the public
considers itself well informed about No Child Left Behind, the percentage
of public school parents saying they know "a great deal" or
"a fair amount" has increased from 22 to 37 percent in the
past year. Plus, the more the
public knows about the law, the more likely they are to favor it. Regarding specific No Child Left Behind provisions,
56 percent believe the goal of having a highly qualified teacher in
every classroom by 2006 will be met; 62 percent say there is "not
enough" or "about the right amount" of emphasis on testing;
and 86 percent say it is important the academic gap be closed (with
56 percent stating it is the responsibility of schools to close it). Overall, 51 percent believe the law will improve
student achievement in their schools.
On the other hand, the public is concerned about using a single
test to evaluate a school or student; emphasizing English and math,
exclusively; disaggregating data by race/ethnicity; and expecting special
needs students to meet the same standards as other students. Other findings: (1)
local schools continue to be regarded favorably, with 70 percent of
public school parents giving the school their oldest child attends either
a grade of A or B; (2) the public supports adding rigor to the high
school curriculum, with 78 percent favoring at least four years of English,
math, and science in order to receive a diploma; and (3) while 54 percent
of those surveyed oppose vouchers, given a full-tuition voucher, 56
percent of respondents would choose a private school for their child. Throughout September
2004, the Department and more than 50 national organizations will host
a series of events to highlight the importance of emergency preparedness. Schools and communities are encouraged to get
involved by learning how to prepare for emergencies (try http://www.ed.gov/admins/lead/safety/crisisplanning.html),
offering volunteer opportunities in preparedness efforts, and receiving
training on first aid and CPR. FOR
MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE GO TO http://www.ready.gov/ or call 1-800-BE-READY. During this week's "Ask
the White House" chat (http://www.whitehouse.gov/ask/20040824.html),
a parent asked Secretary Paige what could be done to increase children's
awareness of the importance of a "great education." As part of his answer, the Secretary recommended
the "Education Pays: Stay in School" web site at http://www.educationpays.org/. Here, parties can access a calculator that allows
them to select (1) an occupation they would like to pursue and (2) how
much school they plan to have when they enter the workforce. The result is a fact sheet providing information
about expected income and unemployment for different educational attainment
levels. To really accentuate
the point, earnings may be converted into CDs or movie tickets. For example, compared to physical therapists
with a two-year college degree, those with a four-year degree could
buy 1,201 more CDs or 2,644 more movie tickets every year. Created through the
support and vision of the NFL and the NFL Players Association and developed
in collaboration with Scholastic, One World is an interdisciplinary,
multi-tiered program for teachers, students, and their families in grades
4-6 that "tackles" prejudice and stereotyping and teaches
diversity and understanding. The program builds upon ten key lessons; the
lessons (from "Understanding Who We are Through Identity"
to "Roots of Stereotypes and Prejudice" and "Choices
and Consequences of our Actions") may be taught in the days preceding
or immediately after a 9/11 commemorative event or at any time during
the school year where there is a need to build community.
And, the lessons are designed to be taught individually as well
as in sequence, allowing teachers to incorporate single lessons into
their lesson plans as needed. FOR
MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE GO TO http://www.scholastic.com/oneworld/. (Note: The web site will go live Monday, August
30.) For the first time since
1997, the national average score for the ACT exam increased, from 20.8
(on a scale of 1 through 36), the average each of the past two years,
to 20.9, a statistically significant gain.
English, math, reading, and science scores also rose one-tenth
of a point over last year. At
the same time, the scores indicate that an "alarming number"
of graduates are not ready for college math and science courses.
In fact, only 26 percent earned a score of 24 or higher on the
science test, while just four in 10 earned a score of 22 or higher on
the math test. (Students who reach these scores have a high
probability -- 75 percent -- of earning a "C" or better and
an even chance of earning a "B" or higher in college biology
and algebra courses, respectively.)
This data is unchanged from 2003.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE GO TO http://www.act.org/news/releases/2004/8-18-04.html.
(Secretary Paige's statement
is available at http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2004/08/08182004.html.)
Illinois State Board of Education |
