News Clips – August 16-26, 2008

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STATE  
What the test scores say about our schools / Daily Herald
Chicago Public Schools to add more cameras, security personnel / Chicago Tribune
State must address school funding woes / Daily Herald
What Next For Meeks? Bring New Trier Kids To CPS / Huffington Post
New law allows school to avoid money penalty for closures / Champaign News-Gazette
Same goal, different paths / Chicago Sun-Times
District 108 Board questions sales tax law / Pekin Times
U-46 foes say there's a common thread at work: District is too big / Daily Herald
District 89 may open doors to nonresidents / Daily Herald
Don't whine, get involved in kids' education / CNN.com
Lawsuit filed over state school funding / Peoria Journal Star
                (also St. Louis Post-Dispatch & Lake County News-Sun)
Study links high school completion with drop in crime / Medill Reports
Teachers union official bounced by executive board / Chicago Tribune
Antioch parents don't mind proving residency / Daily Herald
D203 opens its Virtual Backpack to parents / Naperville Sun
New law lets schools avoid money penalty for closures / Quad-Cities Online
Daley backs lawsuit against state on school funding / Chicago Tribune
School funding reform advocates optimistic / Chicago Sun-Times
School funding inequity a civil rights issue / Chicago Sun-Times
Will judges dictate school funding? / SouthtownStar
Sen. Meeks' opportunity / Chicago Tribune
When education is unequal / Chicago Tribune
Radical idea: Open the doors of affluent suburban schools to Chicago students / Chicago Tribune
Lawsuit makes school funding a civil rights matter / Daily Herald
Too Poor to Play / Chicago Sun-Times
U-46 asks court to reverse class-action status / Daily Herald
Meeks justified in bid to draw attention to schools / State Journal-Register
Meeks has new school pilot project / Chicago Tribune
I'll call off boycott with deal: Meeks / Chicago Sun-Times
Substance abuse intervention programs cut at 28 schools / Pantagraph
Evergreen Park students get basic training in school etiquette / SouthtownStar

NATIONAL
Back to school: Shaky economy hits kids / Pantagraph
More kids walking to school as fuel costs rise / Pantagraph
D.C. Debates Pay-for-Tenure Swap for Teachers / Education Week
New U.S. Research Center to Study Education Technology / Education Week
Groups: Ban corporal punishment in school / USA Today
NYC cash-for-tests program shows mixed results / Chicago Sun-Times
Schools' later start is saving big bucks / Houston Chronicle
Back to School: Schools separate ninth-graders / Columbus Dispatch (OH)
Education officials predict more district consolidation / WCCO-TV (MN)
Texas truant students to be tracked by GPS anklets / Chicago Sun-Times
Hard Times Hit Schools / Education Week
While parents pack lunches and students pack bookbags, teachers in Texas town pack heat            Minneapolis Star Tribune

NATIONAL - NCLB
Revamp No Child Left Behind, but keep accountability / Great Falls Tribune (MT)
The real master: Utah kids are top priority, not NCLB / Salt Lake Tribune
Bush education law: shift ahead? / The Christian Science Monitor
Take Your Spirit to School / Washington Post

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STATE

What the test scores say about our schools
Daily Herald Editorial, 8/17/08

It is wrong to judge the quality of education on standardized test scores alone.

But one such test - the ACT - is a reliable indicator of whether college-bound students are doing well enough in high school to succeed in higher education.

In this regard, the results are promising.

There has been a steady increase in ACT test scores among Illinois students. The class of 2008 averaged a composite score of 20.7 out of a possible 36, up from 20.5 in 2007 and 20.1 in 2002, according to The Associated Press.

This increase is particularly significant in Illinois, because it is one of only three states that requires all juniors - not just college-bound students - to take the ACT. The rise in test scores indicates better performance across the board.

And ACT scores in many suburban school systems continue to be well above the average. That is gratifying but not surprising. One the things that makes for a fine quality of life in the suburbs is excellent schools.

If it were only that way in every school in the suburbs and the state.

As The Associated Press reported, an improvement in white students' performance on the ACT fueled gains in 2008 scores, which means a disturbing trend continues. There is still a wide and ever-growing gap in ACT scores between black students and white students.

In 2008, the average ACT score for black students was an alarmingly low 16.8 - a full five points lower than the average for white students.

Last year, Neuqua Valley and Waubonsie high schools, which serve Aurora and Naperville, began trying something new to close this gap, when little else has worked. They started all-black ACT prep courses. That raised some eyebrows, but the results speak of success. Great success. As we reported last month, roughly two dozen juniors who took teacher Natalie Johnson's class at Waubonsie during the 2007-2008 school year raised their ACT scores by an average of five to six points.

Not only have the students' test scores gone up, so has their confidence. Students say that being in an all-black class didn't make the difference as much as they had a fine teacher and well-structured class. In turn, the students worked hard and parents got involved. That is the key - excellence in instruction coupled with student and parental commitment is always the surest way to academic achievement.

Moreover, education programs that have long been in place are giving minorities a real chance to succeed in school before they even take the ACTs. Early education, such as the Head Start program, has truly prepared children to succeed in kindergarten and beyond. We should know by now that throwing money at the schools isn't alone the answer to education reform. But a strong investment in early education makes financial - and educational - sense.

The true measure of success in the classroom is not a test score, but that every child is being given the best chance to do well in school, which leads to success in life.
 
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Chicago Public Schools to add more cameras, security personnel
Improved, simplified emergency procedures are set
Peter Mueller, Chicago Tribune, 8/19/08

When Chicago Public Schools open next month, some of the schools identified as troubled spots will see improved emergency procedures and more surveillance cameras and security personnel, school officials said Monday.

The new measures come after 26 students were killed during the last school year—mostly by gunfire—and 10 more were killed during a summer of violence, according to Chicago Public Schools.

Getting rid of firearms from schools is a top priority said Andres Durbak, director of the city schools' Office of Safety and Security.

"At schools we can deal with fights," Durbak said. "But we cannot have fights including weapons."

Neighborhood violence, particularly gang violence, also impacts school security, said Durbak, who oversees a budget of more than $50 million for the security of 409,000 students at 600 schools.

"Severe gang violence in the area affects our schools," he said. "When something happens in the evening, it comes and visits us in the morning."

Durbak stressed, however, that fights and killings near schools or close to dismissal times are rare. He also said that crime in schools is declining.

He has identified 10 areas and schools that are targeted for additional help. While overall funding for safety at schools was not increased, more resources will be channeled to schools in areas with a high crime rate, including Harper High School, Austin Community Academy High School and Crane Technical Preparatory Common School, where 18-year-old Ruben Ivy was shot dead in March.

Although Durbak declined to give details about the new measures, he did say there would be more security personnel and surveillance cameras.

The school system employs 1,740 full-time security personnel. In addition, 153 Chicago police officers are deployed at 75 schools.

The system now has surveillance cameras in 210 schools after spending $2 million on cameras last fiscal year. An additional $ 1 million will be spent on cameras this year.

"Cameras deter because they eliminate the element of anonymity," Durbak said. "Beat downs and false fire alarms immediately dropped once cameras were installed."

Durbak said emergency procedures were simplified by emphasizing plain language. So, "If a teacher comes from Indiana, he will know everything he has to know in Chicago," Durbak said.

He said parents should get involved. He encouraged them to take turns walking their children to school. He also said local businesses should serve as safe havens for students on the way to school.

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State must address school funding woes
Letter by Sally Zeit, Member of Board of Directors, AAUW Waukegan Area Branch, Daily Herald, 8/18/08

Adequate and equitable funding for the education of our children in Illinois is of priority concern to the American Association of University Women. The ability of our young people to compete successfully for college admissions and for jobs in a global economy is directly related to the quality of their educational experience in grade and high schools.

In Illinois, we fall woefully short of the primary responsibility for financing education as mandated by our state constitution. Coupled with an over-reliance on property taxes, Illinois finds itself with the country's second-worst funding gap between wealthy and low-income districts. This disparity is unacceptable in one of the wealthiest states in the nation. Some of our school districts are struggling to provide a quality education with outdated textbooks and severe cuts in vital programs. During election campaigns, most of our legislators have named education as a top priority. However, we're still waiting for meaningful education funding reform, even as the legislature was quick to develop a strategy for ensuring salary increases for themselves.

It is time for our legislators to muster the courage to take a hard look at a tax structure in Illinois that fails to adequately fund education as well as other vital services. AAUW Waukegan Area Branch stands with our 500 fellow member organization of A+ Illinois in calling for tax reform so that we can meet the educational needs of our children.
 
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What Next For Meeks? Bring New Trier Kids To CPS
Opinion by Alexander Russo, Huffington Post, 8/17/08
 
What to make of Reverend James Meeks' proposal to start off the fast-approaching school year by sending rough and tumble Chicago public school students to try and register at leafy New Trier High School?

Opinions vary wildly - as do predictions of whether the stunt will take place or make any real difference in Illinois' long-standing school funding fiasco. Me, I sort of like the idea -- and I'm not I'm not alone. The idea has been endorsed to varying degrees by folks as varied as the Reverend Al Sharpton and the Chicago Tribune editorial page. The Chicago Board of Education is suddenly talking about taking legal action to break the logjam in Springfield.

During these dog days of August, Meeks has somehow captured the public imagination to highlight an intolerable and seemingly intractable situation. Meeks has combined the simplicity of the Little Village Mother's Day hunger strike by parents who wanted -- and finally got -- the new high school that had been promised to them with the irreverent, pointed quality of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a made-up religion created to protest the teaching of creationism in public schools. Not coincidently, Meeks is also reminding us of the days before Brown. Vs. Board Of Education.

What makes Meeks' idea especially delicious is that Board of Ed officials and the Mayor can't really object too strenuously. The Board pulled thousands of kids out of school in June for a much-derided rally against gun violence in Soldier Field.

Frustrated at two years of inaction to equalize school spending, Meeks rolled out his irreverent idea a couple of weeks ago. In response, the Chicago Board of Education worried about the impact on its revenue stream. New Trier tried to warn against the hordes threatening to invade Winnetka. And the Governor called a special session of the state legislature at which, predictably, nothing much happened.

To be sure, Meeks is known for pulling stunts that generate attention but little improvement. Eric Zorn reminds us that this is not the first time that Meeks has pushed on this issue as recently as two years ago, and failed.

But that's not entirely Meeks' fault. Most protests fail miserably, at least in the short run. And there's little disagreement that funds available to educate children in Illinois shouldn't be determined by their parents' residency in one of 800 obscure governmental entities called school districts. School districts -- and funding schools based on local property taxes -- are a relic of the past. A recent article in The Atlantic proposed getting rid of them entirely, both to equalize funding and improve academic achievement. Not entirely in jest, the article is titled, First, Kill All The School Boards.

Disrupting the start of the school year is a small price to pay for something that could transform education in Illinois, which has the second-most inequitable funding system in the nation. Nor would it hurt Governor Blagojevich's reputation, which has declined precipitously in recent years, to bring Illinois into the modern era of school funding. Those who argue that more money isn't the answer ignore the fact that those who can spend more -- affluent suburbs and private school parents -- generally do so.

They key to Meeks' continued success on this issue will be to maintain our focused attention on the specter of students trying to register for class. He should resist any further expansion or dilution of his original idea, and avoid the use of the term "boycott" to describe his plan. This is more than a boycott. It's political theater.

What would add to the drama and build more pressure? Perhaps Meeks should invite New Trier parents to come try and register their children at one of Chicago's neighborhood high schools. The sight of suburban kids coming into shoddy city schools -- even if it's just for a day -- would highlight the resource gap and startle the eye. (Chicago public school students are 85 percent poor less than 10 percent white.)

It's a short trip from Winnetka to Chicago. Helping change the state's unfair funding system would really be something to put on a college application.

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New law allows school to avoid money penalty for closures
By Amy F. Reiter, Champaign News-Gazette, 8/18/08

When schools are forced to shut down for a day for whatever reason, be it a death threat or a tornado, the repercussions go beyond the physical damage of the acts and the lost learning time, said state Rep. Bill Black, R-Danville.

Up until last week, schools lost a portion of their state aid because of that missed day at school, a loss that could amount to thousands of dollars, Black said, and one that newly passed House Bill 4309 purports to solve.

The bill states that if one school in a district has to close for up to two days because of "a hazardous threat to the health and safety of pupils," that district can apply to receive state money for those days based on the average attendance rate of the three previous days in school.

"It's the result, unfortunately, of some of the difficult times in which we live," Black said. "Twenty years ago, nobody ever thought we would have to address this kind of closure."

The bill, which passed the state House and Senate unanimously, was signed by Gov. Rod Blagojevich last week and took effect immediately.

Local schools have faced several threats in the last few years, including phone-message threats at Urbana and Champaign schools in September 2007 and threats of violence like that at Virginia Tech at Mahomet-Seymour High School in April 2007.

"In the last couple of those years ... those incidents have grown," said Ben Schwarm, associate executive director for government relations for the Illinois Association of School Boards, which supported the legislation.

He said that, in the weeks and months after the massacre at Virginia Tech, "there seemed to be a rash" of threatening incidents at schools.

Schwarm said that while incidents forcing a district staff to close a single school didn't happen often, when they did, the lessened state aid "would be a huge loss to the school district through no fault of their own." He noted the district would still have to pay school staff for the day.

Penalizing a school district for the closure "doesn't make a lot of sense," Black said.

"This was just a simple case of economics. There are districts that simply cannot afford to lose a day of state aid because one of their buildings didn't open that day," he said, adding that the bill would particularly effect downstate districts reliant on state funding.

John Wedge of the Champaign County region's Illinois Education Association, the union that represents many local teachers, said the new law is "very much a common sense piece of legislation. You don't want to see school districts or communities being punished ... for acts of vandalism."
 
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Same goal, different paths
1st Day of School - Kids urged to attend -- and skip
Maudlyne Ihejirika, Chicago Sun-Times, 8/20/08

As the first day of school nears for Chicago Public Schools, two movements to improve education for its mostly low-income, minority students are on a collision course.

The Black Star Project and its Million Father March -- a five-year-old movement steamrolling across the country -- are calling for men, especially black men, to take children to school en masse Sept. 2.

But state Sen. James Meeks' Save Our Schools Now campaign wants them to stay away, as he and supporters rally CPS parents toward a massive boycott of CPS' first day of school. Meeks is also pastor of the Far South Side mega-church, Salem Baptist.

"This began as black fathers doing this for black children because the system is failing our children. In America, per the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the average 17-year-old black child has the reading and math scores of the average 14-year-old white child," Black Star Project founder Phillip Jackson said. "We want men to go up to schools to be fathers for children who might not have fathers that day. Our motto is any child, any man, any school."

Jackson's vision, hatched in a 2004 meeting with 10 other men in the basement of a South Side church, today is a nationwide movement with 475 cities participating.

Its premise is based on research showing children with fathers who take active roles in their educational lives are more likely to graduate from high school and attend college, and that the first day sets the tone for attendance and academics.

But many of the statistics he quotes, such as CPS graduating only 37 percent of black males from high schools -- Meeks quotes as the reason for his stay-away campaign.

"It's our kids that are suffering," Meeks said. "They've suffered for the last 30 years, and now they're producing children whose parents were not educated and so cannot properly educate or provide for their children. That's why we have the social ills. These are children of products of the school system."

Meeks is asking CPS parents to send their children to Winnetka on Sept. 2 -- to attempt to register at New Trier High and Sunset Ridge Elementary there. On Sept. 3, 4 and 5, he wants students to converge on the lobbies of corporate buildings downtown, for a sit-in and classes with retired teachers.

Anthony Robinson, father of a Dvorak Elementary fifth-grader, says he's participating in the Million Father March because he believes his child will lose out awaiting change.

"I've taken him the first day for the last five years, and it makes a difference -- along with the time I spend volunteering at his school during the year," Robinson said.

Come Sept. 2, both leaders say they'll do what they must, as common ground ends at the premise on which the movements are founded.

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District 108 Board questions sales tax law
Sharon Woods Harris, Pekin Times, 8/19/08

PEKIN - The Pekin District 108 School Board wants answers to some pointed questions about the new County School Facility Occupation Tax law before it even considers it as an option to repay construction bonds or renovate schools or build new schools.

The new law, which took effect on Oct. 17, 2007, allows school districts that make up at least 51 percent of the total county population, or the county board to place a resolution on the ballot allowing up to a 1 percent sales tax to fund school construction, renovations and bond repayment.
 
“In the cases in which this has been tried, and it has only been incorporated once so far, essentially there is a lot of fuzziness in it,” said Superintendent Bill Link to board members. “The fuzziness is that even if it has gone to the voters and the voters approved it, the county board could decide actually not to collect the tax.

“There's a lot of information that's unknown right now that I would like to get a better handle on and pass along to you. The county Š is basically in the research process right now, gathering more information and considering that. I think it is something we would want to look at with a careful eye - both ways.”

“You have to watch the fine print,” said District 108 Board member Chris Zimmerman.
 
The law, which has not even been in effect for one year, has only been approved by voters in one county in the state of Illinois - Williamson County in southern Illinois - and already a businessman there has filed suit against it, said the Illinois State Board of Education Web site.

Williamson County placed the referendum on the Feb. 5 primary election ballot where voters embraced the program, the ISBE site said.

Citizens in Crab Orchard Community Unit School District 3, Marion, are slated to save $133 on each $100,000 assessed in property taxes during the first year of the tax there, and subsequently $266 a year. The tax rate for the community's schools dropped $.80 on every $100 in assessed value, the Web site said.
 
Districts like Crab Orchard benefit proportionally from the tax on merchandise sold in Marion, as do the other districts in Williamson County: Carterville CUSD 5, Herrin CUSD 4, Johnston City CUSD 1 and Marion CUSD 2, the Web site said.

A lawsuit was filed in May 2008 by a local Williamson County business in Williamson County Circuit Court. The seven-count suit against the county alleges that the referendum was invalid because it was held in a primary election.

For school districts in Williamson County, the suit has slowed progress on badly needed repairs and financing larger projects. Schools feel they cannot proceed until a judge rules on the case, the Web site said.
 
Board member Rich Root said he wanted to make sure people know this is not a run around the Property Tax Extension Limitation Law. He said that any consideration of the law should be with an eye to reducing property taxes. He said much more information is needed about the law and its implications.

Board member Dean Bacon said the district needs to investigate further before deciding if the new law would be right for it.

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U-46 foes say there's a common thread at work: District is too big
Kerry Lester, Daily Herald, 8/20/08

It's been more than three years since Bartlett residents voted overwhelming in favor of disconnecting from Elgin Area School District U-46.

And more than three years since a racial bias lawsuit was filed against the district.

The two battles aren't directly related, Village President Catherine Melchert said Tuesday.

She calls them "parallel."

"There are several issues both that the Elgin families who filed the lawsuit have and we have here," she said. "We have complained for 20-plus years about our kids being bused all over the district. About crowded classrooms. And certainly we have had our share of mobile units. Our issues kind of parallel theirs."

The lawsuit, stemming from 2004 boundary changes, charges that the district violated the rights of black and Hispanic U-46 students by placing them in older, more crowded schools; forcing them to ride buses longer and more often than their white peers; and providing them with inferior educational opportunities.

Both the lawsuit, granted class action status by a federal judge last week, and the disconnection fight, Bartlett residents say, can be blamed on one fact: U-46 is too large.

"We would say that these things are happening because of the district's size," Melchert said.

"And to that point, had the district been smaller, and less bureaucratic, many of those issues would not have arisen."

Bartlett resident Joe McCain, who spearheaded a referendum campaign for disconnection in 2004, agreed with Melchert's assessment.

"I don't think this is just a racial issue," he said. "It's a districtwide issue. The size of enrollment and the physical size of the district... it's almost impossible to meet everyone's needs."

Melchert pointed to a recent district decision to remove a majority of teacher aides from Channing Elementary's dual language classrooms.

With 72 percent of students coming from low-income homes, and nearly 85 percent identified as minorities, the majority of Channing students have been labeled "at risk" of educational failure.

High test scores from a site specific program helped bump Channing off the state's academic warning list in 2005. It has not returned since.

Channing's dual language program has featured full-time aides in its 25-student classrooms since the program's inception eight years ago.

The decision to remove aides, Assistant Superintendent for Administrative Services Lalo Ponce said, was made shortly before the start of the school year. Ponce said the program does not meet the standard of a 27-to-1 student-teacher ratio for bilingual programs.

"Think about that for a minute," Melchert said. "They've got a program, it's working well. But it's a large district and they feel that they have to treat everyone the same. As a consequence, where good programs aren't the same, you have to get rid of them. The point is, one size can't always fit all."

While Melchert says village officials remains steadfast in support of disconnection, they face an increasing number of roadblocks.

At the forefront is inaction in Springfield.

A House bill that would make it easier to split from the state's second-largest school district missed an April 2007 deadline for floor action and has been on the back burner ever since. A similar state Senate bill was killed last year before even reaching a committee discussion.

Adding to that is continued opposition from U-46 officials, and OK needed from all 11 U-46 communities.

Bartlett's disconnection - removing about 10,000 mostly white students from this district - would leave the U-46 largely minority and more economically stressed.

The lawsuit's class-action status will also likely make it harder for the village to disconnect in the near future.

"It would be hard to imagine a scenario where Bartlett disconnecting would not impact the rights of the 17,000 or more class members," said Carol Ashley, a lawyer for Futterman Howard, the law firm representing the plaintiffs.

"The court at some level would have to review any attempt by Bartlett or any other community to try to disconnect at this point," she said.

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District 89 may open doors to nonresidents
Hafsa Naz Mahmood, Daily Herald, 8/20/08

Glen Ellyn Elementary District 89 officials may have found a way to slightly boost the district's declining enrollment: out-of-district students.

District leaders are considering a policy that, if approved, would allow students living outside the district's boundaries to request admission into District 89's schools.

Accepted students would have to pay an annual tuition fee of about $10,000 - an amount equal to how much the district spends per student, officials said.

So if a family from Itasca wanted to send their child to school District 89, they technically could. However, the family would be responsible for the student's transportation.

Superintendent John Perdue said every year a few families request to come into the district.

"We're trying to accommodate those families who request to attend our schools but are nonresidents," he said.

If the policy is changed in the coming months, students would be accepted on a space-available basis.

"We have been declining in students, so we have the space to accommodate additional students," Perdue said.

However, some school board members said only students with good academic standing should be admitted.

"I don't want to open our district up to people who are having problems and will be a problem for our teachers and students," said Mike Nelson, a board member.

Board Vice President Frank Zak agreed.

"The rules need to be complete," he said.

The district's staff will review the policy, which will be discussed again next month.

"So is this going to have a major influx of students in our district," Perdue asked. "No, the likelihood of that is small.

"It's certainly a small accommodation that we could possibly make for those few families who have requested to come (in the district) but don't reside here," Perdue said.

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Don't whine, get involved in kids' education
Commentary by Roland S. Martin, journalist and CNN contributor, 8/20/08
 
Today was my first day in elementary school.

My wife and I have been married seven-and-a-half years and we don't have any children. But two weeks ago, we persuaded one of my three sisters to send her four girls -- ages 9, 7 and twin 4-year-olds -- to Chicago, Illinois, so we could take care of them and get them caught up academically.

I take seriously my role as a godfather and uncle. For a lot of folks, being a godfather is all about a ceremony and giving gifts on birthdays and Christmas.

But if you remember the admonition of the priest or pastor, the purpose of a godfather is to stand in the gap for the parents when they are unable to do so. That has surely been the case in my family. The consequence of drama in a marriage has left the two older nieces behind academically.

So we decided that it's time for them to be in a stable environment , immersed in academics. That's what took me to the nearby Chicago public school.

As I filled out the paperwork and looked through the folder provided by the school, I came across a variety of forms: for a school fundraiser at a restaurant, a raffle, and an application to join the school's Parent-Teacher Association.

For me, there is nothing more important than that PTA application.

In a world where the two presidential candidates spar over education funding, merit pay for teachers and whether vouchers are a good idea, a lot of folks spend their time complaining. They talk about failing schools and what administrators should be doing, and how teachers don't care like they did back in the day.

I'm sure you've heard the complaints before.

Trust me, I get it when folks say schools need more funding. But I also remember a conversation a few years ago on the syndicated television show America's Black Forum. Education advocate Jonathan Kozol was arguing that the issue is money, and Ohio's Wilberforce University president, the Rev. Floyd Flake, said that is just one of the critical elements.

Flake, a former congressman who runs his own school in New York, asked why schools in Washington, D.C. can spend more than $10,000 per child and kids fail, yet his New York school was spending $5,400 at the time and more than 75 percent were passing.

Kozol argued that one reason was Flake's charisma as a leader, but Flake contended -- and I agree -- that success is related to a nurturing environment where parents are mandated to take an active role in their child's education.

I thought of this in May during a conversation on my Chicago radio show with Rufus Williams, president of the Chicago Board of Education. A lot of parents called in, angry with the Chicago school system because they didn't find out until graduation that their child would not graduate because of failing scores.

The phone lines lit up and they bombarded Williams with all kinds of insults.

He promised to get them answers. The next day, he had them.

Apparently, parents were sent reminders during every report-card period when their child was at risk of failing.

But the parents couldn't say the dog ate the sheet before it came through the door. The parents had come to the school themselves to pick up the cards, and the warning was attached.

So the real deal was that these parents were informed of their child's poor classroom performance, but chose to overlook it.

Guess what? The phones were silent. Oh how the truth hurt.

The reality is that whether it's the 390,000 kids in Chicago public schools, or millions across the country, no school can educate the next generation alone. It requires committed teachers, but also informed and active parents who are willing to make sacrifices.

It would have been easy for my wife and me to live in our empty nest, take get-away trips on the weekend, or save a ton of dough and retire early. But there was no way I could sit back as those four girls were denied even a fighting chance at a great education so they could live their lives to the fullest.

One of my first questions was related to the dates of the parent-teacher conferences. I wanted to plug them into my Blackberry immediately. Those sessions are a priority. I can guarantee you the teachers will know me by name, and not just because I'm on CNN or WVON Radio.

See, I had good role models: my parents. They didn't go to college and have six-figure jobs. They simply cared about the education of their five children.

So, the nation's children are preparing for another school year. The parents must do the same thing.

My nieces begin September 2. We guardians and parents need to get our minds right, and make the decision now whether we are going to be those who work for solutions or those who just whine about the deficiencies.

Show up on the first day and do not make it your last. There is no greater gift you can provide your children, nieces, nephews or grandchildren than your full attention to their educations. As the United Negro College Fund has said for years: A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
 
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Lawsuit filed over state school funding
Associated Press, 8/21/08

CHICAGO -- Using property tax revenue to fund schools is unconstitutional and discriminatory, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday by the Chicago Urban League.

The use of property tax violates the 2003 Illinois Civil Rights Act, the group says in the lawsuit, filed in Cook County against the state and the Illinois State Board of Education.

Illinois' current system of funding exacerbates the state's segregated housing problem, especially in Chicago, said Lisa Scruggs, a lawyer for the group. Because homes in neighborhoods with high percentages of minorities have lower values than homes in white neighborhoods, schools in minority districts get less funding.

"The basic fact that you have a distinction between low property-wealth districts and high property-wealth districts, ultimately that leads down the road to gaps in education performance," Scruggs said.

Some lawmakers have suggested funding education through a tax swap, where income taxes rise and property taxes go down. The state would then use the income tax increase to fund education rather than leaving it to the districts.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich has said he won't support any plan that involves an income tax increase. Spokesman Lucio Guerrero declined to comment Wednesday, saying he hasn't seen the lawsuit.

Board of Education spokesman Matt Vanover also declined to comment.

Minority students are simply not getting a quality education, said Chicago Urban League President Cheryle Jackson.

"The foundation is wrong. It makes it impossible for us to connect our constituents to job opportunities, to internships, to college," she said.

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Study links high school completion with drop in crime
By Rob Heidrick, Medill Reports, 8/20/08

An increase in Illinois high school graduation rates would bring about a sharp reduction in violent crime statewide, according to a study released Wednesday.

Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, a national organization of law enforcement officials and former crime victims, sponsored the report in an effort to investigate the root causes of crimes committed by young adults.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who presented the report with the organization’s Vice President Jeff Kirsch, said the study revealed a growing need for the state to play an active role in ensuring quality early education and on-time high school graduation.

“Education is simply the most fundamental crime-prevention method that we have, and the key to success is starting early,” Madigan said.

According to FBI data, high school dropouts are three and a half times more likely than graduates to be arrested, and eight times more likely to be incarcerated.

The study also showed that early education is an important factor in keeping kids out of trouble: students who have completed high-quality preschool programs are 44 percent more likely to graduate from high school than those who did not attend preschool, according to the report.

Madigan acknowledged significant shortfalls in state funding of preschools, estimating that more than half of families who cannot afford to pay for quality early education do not have their needs met by the Head Start program or allocations from the Illinois State Board of Education.

The attorney general pledged to encourage lawmakers to devote more funding to preschool programs, adding that the investment would likely pay for itself several times over through money saved in welfare spending and crime-fighting expenses.

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Teachers union official bounced by executive board
Ted Dallas denies any financial improprieties
By Stephanie Banchero, Chicago Tribune reporter, 8/21/08

The vice president of the Chicago Teachers Union is out of his job after the group's executive board voted to expel him following allegations of financial improprieties.

Ted Dallas, a 38-year member, also was kicked out of the union during a meeting of the executive committee Tuesday night. Dallas, who is on leave from his job as a special education teacher at Wells High School, said he is considering an appeal.

"This was a kangaroo court that was rigged from the beginning," said Dallas, who lost his $120,000-a-year job. "I am not guilty of these charges and they just wanted to get rid of me."

Dallas has been at odds with union President Marilyn Stewart over how union money has been spent since she took office in 2005.

The acrimony bubbled over at a meeting this year when Stewart and other union members alleged that Dallas charged the union more than $6,200 for food and liquor at pricey restaurants. They also claimed that he signed a nearly $20,000 check for sick days for himself and used union equipment to copy and send out fliers against Stewart.

Dallas sued Stewart and the union in June, charging they were retaliating after he filed a complaint against Stewart with the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board.

In court papers, Dallas claimed Stewart mismanaged union finances and misspent more than $500,000 on meals and other personal items. Stewart has denied the charges.

"This is no one's fault but Mr. Dallas," said union spokeswoman Rosemaria Genova.

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Antioch parents don't mind proving residency
Vincent Pierri, Daily Herald Staff Writer, 8/21/08

Clutching electric bills, mortgage statements, insurance policies and other documents bearing their home address, about 300 families attended the first-ever proof of residency event in Antioch Elementary District 34 Wednesday afternoon.

The first day of a three-day push went smoothly with only a handful of people not having the right proof, according the District 34 Superintendent Scott Thompson.

"It seems most parents were extremely happy with the process today," Thompson said. "Ive only heard positive comments and no complaints."

District 34 held the event for the first time this year to ensure that taxpayers aren't funding the cost of an education for out-of-district students. He suspects that students may be slipping into the district from Wisconsin and McHenry County.

Parents, many with kids in tow, followed green arrows taped to the floor at the Antioch Upper Grade School, pointing to the next station. In addition to showing documents to prove residency in the district, parents were able to check bus schedules, see classroom assignments and ask questions of the school nurse.

"This was painless," said Karrie Bellefeuille of Antioch. "It was really smooth. No problems."

Robert Zuidema, who has children in third, fourth and eighth grades, agrees the program is needed.

"Some of these kids are living with their grandma or grandpa or family friend just to go school in our district," said the Antioch man. "It's not fair for the rest of us."

All of the district's 2,200 families should have attended by week's end. There are 3,200 students in the district.

Some parents who didn't mind proving they weren't interlopers did have a suggestion for the future.

"They should think about doing this every two years instead of annually," said Julie Wyant of Lindenhurst. "But this a good thing. I don't think we should be paying to educate kids who don't live in the district."

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D203 opens its Virtual Backpack to parents
By Tim Waldorf, Naperville Sun, 8/21/08

Like its students, Naperville School District 203 now has a backpack - a green one, in fact.

Actually, the district has added a new section to its Web site, www.naperville203.org, called Virtual Backpack 203.

According to the district, vB203 is a "new approach to distributing (approved) information from nonprofit organizations, intergovernmental agencies and business partners ... with our students and families. Rather than sending fliers home via backpack mail, the district will be posting this information on a Virtual Backpack Web site for all to see."

Only fliers will be posted at vB203. Forms, which are already available in a different section of the district's Web site, will still be sent home with students.

The district estimates that this green initiative will save more than trees; vB203 will save nearly 2,000 hours per year spent sorting and handling these materials. The district will publicize this new feature over the next several weeks using its Talk203 e-mail notification system. It will update the information on the vB203 portion of its Web site on a weekly basis.

Those organizations wishing to submit fliers for approval and, consequently, inclusion on vB203, should do so electronically by e-mailing a PDF of the flier to dgrier@naperville203.org at least 10 days in advance of the desired posting date. District 203 is asking organizations to limit their postings to one a month, and it will leave them on the site for no more than two months.

In certain instances, the district will allow an organization to make a limited number of printed materials available at schools, but the organization must provide those materials, and those materials will not be distributed to individual classrooms or students.
 
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New law lets schools avoid money penalty for closures
Jessica Fink, Quad-Cities Online, 8/21/08

School officials put student safety first during threatening school incidents.

But closing a school for a day because of a bomb threat or facility problem means losing thousands of dollars for Illinois districts already strapped for cash.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich last week signed House Bill 4309, setting new boundaries for school districts forced to close a building up to two days due to “a hazardous threat” to students beyond the district's control. What once resulted in the loss of state funds now allows districts to seek reimbursement for missed days, based on average attendance from the three previous school days.

“State funding is always something we're concerned about,” said Alan Boucher, Aledo School District superintendent. “Knowing that we have more assurance is a good thing.”

The Illinois Association of School Boards supported the legislation, which associate executive director Ben Schwarm said stems from an alarming rise in threatening incidents nationwide. Although such situations are infrequent, he said the resulting financial impact can deal a hard blow.

“This is one of those issues that may not be an issue for a lot of school districts,” Mr. Schwarm said. “But for those who suddenly find themselves in the middle of an unexpected crisis, it's a huge issue.”

Mr. Boucher said student safety comes first and foremost in emergency situations. With a student population exceeding 900 and an attendance rate of 95 percent, the district receives approximately $2.7 million in state funds annually. Prior to the new bill, closing school for a day would have amounted to $15,000 in lost funds.

“That's the equivalent of two teacher's aides or half a teacher,” he said. “That's a substantial amount of money. We spend about that much each year just for copying costs.”

Paul Seymour, chief financial officer for the East Moline School District, said losing a day of state aid would cost East Moline Schools nearly $35,400.

“I can't imagine any school not sending students home in a threatening situation,” Mr. Seymour said. “We're not in the business to put these kids in jeopardy because of state funding. If you are, you don't belong here.”

Earlier this year, threatening messages led Sherrard High School officials to place the school on lock-down. Last year, a false bomb threat caused the evacuation of Aledo High School.

But Joe Vermeire, Rock Island County Regional Superintendent of Education, said school threats are still less likely to force closure in area schools than building or mechanical failures.

“Bomb scares and stranger danger are always possible,” he said. “But in most cases you're dealing with things like boiler problems or a water supply that breaks outside the building.

“Things happen sometimes that you can't control, but this bill will take some of the guesswork out of whether or not to close a school,” Mr. Vermeire said. “Many times, administrators are reluctant to close a building when an emergency occurs for fear of losing state funding.”

Abuse of the law is unlikely, he said, since administrators still need approval from the Regional Office of Education and Illinois State Board of Education. The bill's passage presents a “win-win” situation for students and school officials, he said.

“Students won't be kept in an unsafe environment, and the district will continue to receive general state aid,” Mr. Vermeire said.

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Daley backs lawsuit against state on school funding
Dan Mihalopoulos, Chicago Tribune, 8/21/08

Mayor Richard Daley said Thursday he supports the Chicago Urban League's lawsuit against the state to alter the education funding system in Illinois, calling it a "very constructive" attempt to bring about change.

The suit filed Wednesday alleges that the state discriminates against black and Hispanic children because it relies too heavily on local property taxes to fund education. Schools in poorer minority communities – such as Chicago – receive funding at a dramatically lower rate than affluent white school districts.

"I think it's a good lawsuit," Daley said.

Daley has repeatedly expressed his frustration with state leaders who have not passed legislation to change the way Illinois pays for schools. The mayor wants a reduction of real estate taxes and an income tax increase to pay for schools---a plan that's been around for decades but never won enough backing in Springfield.

"They have been talking about this for 25 years," he said. "It's not good for Illinois in the long run … Other states have done this … Other states have been very successful in these lawsuits, and we think we can be here."

Daley joked that the courts should mandate school funding change because "they mandate everything else." A federal judge appointed a monitor to police city hiring in 2005 amid a patronage hiring scandal in Daley’s office.

Daley again dismissed calls by some ministers for a boycott of schools on the first day of classes to protest the lack of a school funding change.

"You cannot use children as part of this issue, in regards to not going to school," the mayor said. "We have a difficult time convincing parents to get their kids to school on the first day."

Daley said the lawsuit is a "much wiser" approach than a boycott.

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School funding reform advocates optimistic
LAWSUIT | Cite similar case that succeeded in N.Y.
Maudlyne Ihejirika, Chicago Sun-Times, 8/22/08

A day after a civil rights lawsuit called the state's school funding system discriminatory, those who have been battling inequities in the Chicago Public Schools were optimistic, pointing to a historic win in New York.

"The New York suit was successful, and very similar, so we're hoping that case will set precedent," said Julie Woestehoff of Parents United for Responsible Education.

Past 'separate and unequal' lawsuits failed

As in Illinois, previous suits challenging New York State's school funding system had failed. But in 1993, a coalition there filed suit alleging for the first time that the system had a "disparate racial impact" based on the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

After 10 years and several appeals, New York's highest court ruled in 2003 in favor of the plaintiffs. Further appeals by New York's governor ended with the Court of Appeals upholding the ruling in 2006 and ordering the state to meet a minimum funding figure. That new funding level was finally enacted in April 2007.

Those involved in two previous lawsuits in Illinois said that without the new "disparate impact" claim, the Chicago Urban League's suit would face bleak prospects.

"The earlier ruling of the court that there really wasn't a binding right to a quality education had put a roadblock in the path of any lawsuits," said Don Moore of Designs for Change. Still, he said, this new battle "is going to be difficult."

Ricardo Meza, regional counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund here, said there is reason for optimism today, as the group spearheads a similar battle over school funding in Texas.

"These cases always have a way of staying alive in one way or another," Meza said.

Others argued that the Urban League's suit has merit beyond its civil rights claims. Illinois courts declined to hear an earlier suit, based on a lack of criteria to determine whether schools were providing a "high-quality" education.

The federal No Child Left Behind Act and Illinois Learning Standards since enacted by the State Board of Education now fill that gap.

"I think that the time might be ripe," said Cook County Assessor Jim Houlihan, a longtime champion of school funding reform.

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School funding inequity a civil rights issue
Column by Mary Mitchellon, Chicago Sun-Times, 8/21/08

You can make a lot of noise, but the battle for civil rights doesn't become real until you take it to the courtroom.

On Wednesday, a new wave of black leaders followed that model when they stepped up with Cheryle R. Jackson, CEO of the Chicago Urban League, as she announced the group has filed a lawsuit against the State of Illinois and the Illinois Board of Education.

"What concerns us is how the state school system flat out violates the civil rights of minority children," Jackson said.

"We have an educational system in Illinois that discriminates against minority children and those who should be held responsible for overseeing it have done nothing or very little about it."

Four years ago, as Gov. Blagojevich's chief of staff, Jackson would have had to defend her boss' record on education funding, but today, Jackson is among an elite group of activists who are poised to make education a 21st century civil rights crusade.

Joining Jackson was the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr., and the Rev. Leon Finney, both of whom have seen a fair share of teacher strikes and civil protests tied to education.

But Cheryle Jackson also had a younger crop of ministers who pastor huge congregations. They included the Rev. James T. Meeks, pastor of Salem Baptist Church of Chicago; the Rev. Byron Brazier, pastor of Apostolic Church of God; the Rev. Otis Moss III of Trinity United Church of Christ; the Rev. Marshall Hatch of New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church, and the Rev. Stephen Thurston II of New Covenant Missionary Baptist Church.

Although Meeks declined to link the lawsuit to his proposed boycott, the gathering offered a visual that could put pressure on Gov. Blagojevich and members of the General Assembly.

These pastors lead large congregations, and members of their congregations tend to be politically active.

Although Meeks' call for a boycott of the first day of school Sept. 2 may have put him at odds with the Chicago Board of Education and local activists who are gearing up for its "Million Father March," he has raised public awareness of school funding inequity.

Because the Chicago area is still pretty much segregated -- both racially and economically -- most Chicago Public Schools parents have no idea that their children are going to schools that are inferior compared to schools in wealthier districts.

Over the past couple of weeks, Meeks' plans to try and enroll children at New Trier High School and Sunset Ridge Middle School in Winnetka has brought both cheers and jeers.

Wednesday's press conference seemed to be an effort to focus attention on the funding inequity -- something even CPS Chief Arne Duncan could agree desperately needed fixing.

"I was proud of how black people can move together in unison and are continuing to put pressure on the same point," Meeks said of the gathering.

The lawsuit will add to that pressure.

For the first time, the public is being told that the state's current school funding formula isn't just unfair; it is the result of a scheme.

"The State's failed school funding scheme has left many school districts, particularly those who serve high concentration of low income and minority students, with a mounting educational crisis," the complaint claims.

Until now, the school funding disparity has been endured like a necessary evil.

But now Meeks and others argue that given the high drop-out rates, low college attendance rates, and high incarceration rates, those concerned about this issue can no longer sit back.

The lawsuit could create a sense of urgency that will force parents to take notice.

Jenner & Block, a firm that is known for its aggressive representation of government officials, intends to seek a temporary injunction that forces the General Assembly to tackle the problem sooner rather than later.

In other words, Meeks ain't playing.

Because time is running out for lawmakers to fix the problem, it's too late for a community consensus.

Still, this lawsuit provides an opening for every local official -- from Mayor Daley to Cook County Board President Todd Stroger -- to correct a wrong perpetrated long ago.

Contrary to what you hear, the vast majority of minority parents do care about their children's futures.

This battle is for them.

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Will judges dictate school funding?
Column by Phil Kadner, SouthtownStar, 8/22/08

Nearly 20 years ago, a fellow named Art Berman gave me a talk about the facts of life in Illinois.

Berman, a state senator, said the system of funding public schools was broken. Only a few legislators even understood the complicated school aid formula, he said.

It didn't raise enough money for education, forcing local property taxes to skyrocket. But even skyrocketing property taxes couldn't help some school districts, which eventually would have to go into debt to keep their school doors open.

There was worse news.

School districts in low-income areas, whose children faced the greatest educational challenges, didn't have the property wealth to keep pace with inflation. So thousands of schoolchildren were getting a second-rate education.

Berman was part of a panel discussion in Orland Park on the school funding crisis.

The state superintendent of education at the time, Robert Leininger, was part of the panel.

I asked him if everything Berman said was true, and he agreed.

Berman predicted at the time that state legislators never would address the problem. A tax hike would be required, and they wouldn't want to put their careers at risk by voting for such a measure.

"So how is this problem going to get solved? I asked. Berman's response seems prophetic today.

Someone is going to file a lawsuit against the state, he said, claiming it has failed in its constitutional responsibility to adequately and fairly fund the public schools.

A court then will order the state to change the way it funds public education, Berman continued.

"And that will solve the problem?" I inquired.

Berman laughed and shook his head from side to side.

"No, because the legislators will never be able to agree on a solution," he said. "They will argue a lot. But they will do nothing. And then someone will file another lawsuit claiming that the state of Illinois had failed to follow the previous court directive to change the school funding system."

Then the court would spell out exactly what the state had to do to comply with the law, and the legislators would be happy because they could go home and tell the voters that it wasn't their fault that taxes were being raised. The legislators would blame the court system.

"And then we'll get public school funding reform," Berman said. "Of course, that process could take five years."

On Wednesday, the Chicago Urban League and Quad County Urban League announced that they had filed a lawsuit against the state and the Illinois State Board of Education.

The lawsuit claims the state's school funding scheme has violated the civil rights of minority children by denying them constitutionally guaranteed educational opportunities.

The lawsuit comes on the heels of a proposed Chicago Public Schools student boycott launched by state Sen. James Meeks (D-Chicago).

Meeks wants to call attention to the funding gap between rich and poor school districts in Illinois by having Chicago students register for New Trier High School in Winnetka, which spends more than $17,000 per student per year.

He's also threatening to have students stand in the lobbies of downtown Chicago businesses to bring attention to the school funding problem.

The lawsuit, filed by the high-powered firm of Jenner and Block, cites all sorts of statistics.

Since 2003, Illinois has ranked 49th out of the 50 states in the proportion of total funds for public schools that are provided by the state.

Almost one in five of the state's 800 school districts face serious financial problems. About 40 percent of the school districts operate with budget deficits.

As of 2007, the lawsuit contends, the state paid only 27.8 percent of the cost of public education in Illinois, a contribution 20 percent lower than the national average.

A similar lawsuit resulted in a 1996 state Supreme Court ruling that the Legislature was responsible for education, not the judiciary.

Since that time, however, changes in some state laws and legislative mandates requiring school districts to achieve target scores on standardized tests have altered the legal landscape.

In addition, the members of the high court have changed.

What has not changed are the problems that faced the state more than 20 years ago.

Berman was right when he said lawmakers would argue and argue and do nothing.

It shouldn't take a court order or public demonstrations by schoolchildren to get elected officials to do their jobs.

But expecting leadership from elected leaders is apparently expecting too much in Illinois.

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Sen. Meeks' opportunity
Chicago Tribune Editorial, 8/22/08

Illinoisans who fear that state Sen. James Meeks is a dangerous threat may not know the half of it. The Chicago Democrat is a threat, all right—to timid lawmakers who really don't want to overhaul this state's school funding formula and to a public education industry that is terrified of being held accountable for its failures.

The first of Meeks' two warfronts—his plan for Chicago students to boycott their first day of class and try to enroll in North Shore schools—has received the most publicity. But his companion demand that educators be held accountable for student performance could most disrupt the comfy status quo in classrooms across this state.

Meeks acknowledges what many other advocates of a new school funding formula do not: Before Illinois taxpayers think about changing any formula, they want lawmakers to demand better outcomes in return for the $20 billion a year that this state already spends on its 2 million public school students.

That means refocusing the public education industry away from inputs (We want more money) toward its outputs (How well do our students actually perform?).

Or as Meeks bluntly told us in a conversation Thursday: "Nobody's going to put a dime into this system without demanding some reforms."

Amen to that, Reverend.

James Meeks is the summer storm front that has descended on Illinois and will not go away. He refuses to accept what many legislators long have: year upon year of dismal schooling that dooms too many students to dead-end careers and dead-end lives.

We're on record opposing Meeks' first-day-of-school stunt, which would disconnect Chicago students from their own classrooms on what's arguably the most important day of the school year.

But we concur with his belief that, for too long, Illinois politicians haven't cared enough to insist on better educations for Illinois kids.

That's in large part because many of those politicians are hostages to the politically active teachers unions. Most Springfield Democrats would rather have Dick Cheney as their party's candidate for president than risk alienating those teachers unions.

Meeks, though, evidently is in this fight on behalf of the students who right now are being cheated—not on behalf of the public employees paid to educate them. "If we're not going to evaluate educators on student performance, we're missing the boat," he said Thursday. "If we evaluate students based on their performance every week when they take a test, why shouldn't we regularly evaluate teachers on the job they're doing?"

This sort of imaginative thinking drives the public education industry berserk. Follow Meeks' line of thinking and you might get to other frightening heresies, such as paying big bonuses to the best teachers—and promptly firing the worst.

We hope Meeks expands his reform agenda to include the most exciting, most popular innovation in Chicago public schooling today: the rise of successful charter schools.

Arbitrary caps on the number of charter schools currently keep many thousands of Illinois students from transferring to charters from the lousy schools that have failed them. Ghettoizing those kids—forbidding them access to more charter schools—is a crime.

An op-ed on today's facing Commentary page makes a crucial point: In order to take students to the North Shore from his South Side district, Meeks has to drive them past many charter schools that are outperforming neighborhood public schools.

Meeks says he'd rather force all public schools to meet the higher standards that charter schools aspire to achieve.

Who could argue with that?

But there are three reasons why Meeks should reconsider and enable more charters to open:

• Uplifting all public schools takes time.

• More competition will force neighborhood schools to improve or lose more of their students to charters. Remember, charters are public schools, open to anyone. And their results—the education outcomes they actually deliver—are impressive.

• Just between us, Rev. Meeks: Your vocal support for giving more kids access to the charter schools they and their parents crave would bring more Illinois citizens into your fold. As a legislator, you know how much people like charter schools. Demonstrating that you're not just another pol demanding "More money for education!" would distinguish your call for funding reform.

Because, to borrow a phrase:

Nobody's going to put a dime into this system without demanding some reforms.

The first, probably least expensive, most liberating of those reforms should be an elimination of state government caps on charter schools. Embracing that cause, Sen. Meeks, is your opportunity to build real credibility among Illinoisans just now awakening to how great a threat—how great a force for education reform—you can be.

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When education is unequal
Opinion by Cheryle R. Jackson, president and chief executive officer of the Chicago Urban League, Chicago Tribune, 8/22/08

This week, in a lawsuit brought against the State of Illinois and the State Board of Education, the Chicago Urban League and Quad County Urban League called on the courts to end the discriminatory and unconstitutional way public school education is funded in Illinois. This is not just an educational issue, but a civil rights issue, too, for thousands of African-American and Latino students whose social and economic future is being shortchanged by a flawed state policy.

After more than a decade of legislative gridlock on education funding reform, set against a bleak backdrop of crumbling schoolhouses, moldy books and shamefully low graduation rates—the time has come to dismantle the current property-based system of school financing.

That system is discriminatory in its impact, sustaining huge funding gaps between black and white schools.

It makes quality education nearly impossible for thousands of students of color. It confounds the best efforts of well-meaning parents, teachers and administrators. And it puts children on a pathway to lifelong poverty and social pathologies that squander their potential and exact enormous social costs.

This system must go.

According to the education reform advocacy group A+ Illinois, Illinois ranks 49th of 50 states in the nation in the state-contributed funding of its schools. The low share of funding leaves a big hole to fill: 62 percent of the average school district's income must come from local sources. The national average for state education spending is 50 percent. Of course, affluent communities can fill the gap much easier than poor ones. That gap creates very real educational impacts—in the quality of teachers, the number of computers available to students, even whether books get replaced regularly. While some affluent schools are able to spend as much as $23,000 per student each year, others can afford only about $6,000. Sadly, these differences correspond to race.

Quality education should be available to all regardless of income. There are many compelling reasons for equity in our educational system. Educational quality affects families and neighborhoods. Currently, African-American and Latino male freshmen have only about a 3 percent chance of obtaining a bachelor's degree by the time they're 25. Eliminating the property-tax based system and raising the poorest districts to higher funding levels will not only boost educational levels but will also improve the numbers of students making it through college. And that will strengthen our neighborhoods, our cities and our state.

It is a sad commentary on the state of public education in Illinois and in America that we have come to this crossroads. How did we get here? Many of us believed these battles had already been fought and won.

Five decades ago in the South, African-American children under National Guard protection walked through a mob of racists to integrate schools. Why? They just wanted an equal education.

In the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered an end to segregated public schooling. But after three decades, federal desegregation efforts began to stall. More recently they have been thrown into reverse. Conservative courts, white flight, and disinvestment in public education have left us once again a nation separate, a nation unequal.

Just look at the schools in our own region. In the 2005 study "Still Separate, Unequal" the Chicago Urban League revealed how deep that segregation has become. Here in Chicago, the study found, the average black child attended a school that is 86 percent black. Half of the city's elementary and high schools were 90 percent or more black; a third were nearly 100 percent black.

It's time to overturn Illinois' property-tax funded system in favor of a more equitable solution. Clearly, improving the education received by low-income students is more complex than simply throwing money at a few districts. To those who argue that achievement gaps exist even in well-funded schools, we say this: Critical reforms are needed throughout the system. Increased parental engagement is vital. But improving the resources at the disposal of struggling teachers and administrators is precisely where any permanent reform surely must begin.

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Radical idea: Open the doors of affluent suburban schools to Chicago students
Opinion by Richard D. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, Chicago Tribune, 8/22/08

Sen. James Meeks' (D-Chicago) proposed student boycott of Chicago public schools next month has sparked furious controversy. Should students miss their first day of class for the worthy goal of promoting equity in public school spending? Leaders such as Mayor Richard Daley and Chicago Public Schools Chief Arne Duncan are worried about the disruption involved as Meeks seeks to enroll Chicago students at New Trier High School in Winnetka.

Missing from the discussion is a bigger point: The main reason New Trier's students achieve and graduate at much higher levels isn't per-pupil expenditure; it's differences in the socioeconomic status of the student bodies in Chicago and New Trier.

Decades of research have found that the biggest determinant of academic achievement is the socioeconomic status of the family a child comes from and the second biggest determinant is the socioeconomic status of the school she attends. The main problem with Chicago schools isn't that too little is spent on students but that the school district has overwhelming concentrations of poverty.

In the 2005-06 school year, Chicago public schools spent $10,409 per pupil, much less than New Trier ($16,856), but slightly more than several high-performing suburban school districts, including ones in Naperville ($9,881) and Geneva ($9,807). The key difference is that while 84.9 percent of Chicago students come from low-income homes, New Trier has a low-income population of 1.9 percent, Naperville has 5 percent and Geneva 2.4percent.

What Chicago students need even more than higher per capita spending is what New Trier, Naperville and Geneva schools provide: middle-class environments. It's an advantage to have peers who are academically engaged and expect to go to college; parents who actively volunteer in the classroom and hold school officials accountable; and highly qualified teachers who have high expectations. On average, all these ingredients to good schools are far more likely to be found in middle-class than poor schools.

Low-income students in the 4th grade who are given a chance to attend more affluent schools are two years ahead in math of low-income students in high- poverty schools, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Indeed, low-income students in affluent schools outperform middle-class students in high-poverty schools. More important, research has long found that while black students don't do better sitting next to whites per se, low-income students of all races do better in middle-class environments.

What is to be done? To provide genuine equality of educational opportunity, Sen. Meeks shouldn't be seeking merely equal funding—a 21st Century version of "separate but equal." Instead, a reasonable number of low-income students in failing Chicago schools should be given the opportunity to attend high-performing schools in Chicago's affluent suburbs.

This may sound like a radical idea, but long-standing interdistrict public school choice programs exist in several metropolitan areas—including Boston, St. Louis, Hartford, Conn., Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Rochester, N.Y., and Indianapolis. Typically, low-income students who transfer into these programs achieve at high levels and are more likely to graduate and go on to college.

Even Chicago has experienced successful urban-suburban integration through the historic, court-ordered Gautreaux housing programs, which gave low-income minority families a chance to live in the suburbs. Gautreaux students rose to the occasion and performed significantly better when given the chance to attend good middle-class schools. Meeks would do well to push for a new school-based version of Gautreaux allowing low-income Chicago students a chance to attend good middle-class suburban schools. Overwhelming evidence suggests that equal spending just isn't enough.
 
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Lawsuit makes school funding a civil rights matter
Matt Arado, Daily Herald, 8/22/08

Illinois courts refused twice in the 1990s to enter the school-funding debate, saying the matter belonged with state lawmakers, not the judiciary.

The Chicago Urban League, which filed a new school-funding lawsuit against the state this week, believes it can make the courts rethink that position.

The lawsuit characterizes the school-funding question as a civil rights matter, alleging that the current system, which uses property taxes to fund schools, discriminates against low-income minority students, especially blacks and Hispanics.

Using civil rights law should ensure that the courts will hear the case this time around, Urban League Executive Vice President Sharon Jones said.

"Courts have been deciding racial discrimination cases for years," she said, adding that the Illinois Civil Rights Act of 2003 didn't exist during earlier school-funding cases.

The suit names the state and the Illinois State Board of Education. Matt Vanover, spokesman for the state board, declined to comment Thursday, saying the board is still reviewing the suit.

Public schools in Illinois derive the bulk of their funding from local property taxes, which gives "property-rich" districts an advantage over poorer ones. The lawsuit calls this system inherently discriminatory, because many poorer districts serve a high concentration of black and/or Hispanic students.

"There's a history of housing segregation in Illinois that has created a pattern of minorities living together in poorer areas and whites living together in wealthier areas," Jones said.

The suit also claims that the school-funding system violates the state constitution's Uniformity of Taxation provision, the right to equal protection and the right to attend "high-quality" schools. It asks the courts to declare the current funding system unconstitutional and order legislators to create a fairer one.

In the past, the courts have been reluctant to make such a ruling. In 1996, the Illinois Supreme Court upheld the dismissal of a school-funding lawsuit, saying that "the process of (school-funding) reform must be undertaken in a legislative forum rather than in the courts." The courts made a similar decision in a later case involving the schools of East St. Louis.

Dawn Clark Netsch, a Northwestern University law professor and former state senator, said that overcoming those two decisions will be tough, but not impossible.

"There are new approaches that can be taken, which is what I believe the Chicago Urban League is trying to do," she said.

Roughly two-thirds of school-funding lawsuits filed since 1989 in the U.S. have been successful, Netsch said.

"It's better, of course, for the elected representatives of the people to bring about this change, but many courts around the country have done it," she said.

The school-funding debate has raged for years in Illinois. Some have suggested that property taxes be supplemented by revenue from a statewide tax, such as an income or sales tax, in order to offset the advantage enjoyed by richer districts.

Suburban school officials would likely object to such a change, which they fear would cause them to lose resources and control.

"Property taxes are reliable, and come directly to us," said Deb Parenti, associate superintendent for finance and operations in Arlington Heights-based Northwest Suburban High School District 214. "The 'tax swap' proposals we've seen so far look like they would cause us to lose resources."

The Urban League filed its lawsuit while some leaders are calling for students in the Chicago Public Schools to skip classes on Sept. 2 - the first day of school in the city - and try to enroll at New Trier High School in Winnetka. State Sen. James Meeks of Chicago's South Side organized the protest to bring attention to disparities in school funding.

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Too Poor to Play
Recess - Breaks common at affluent schools are rare in impoverished areas - 'It's a big problem'
Rosalind Rossi, Chicago Sun-Times, 8/25/08

Recess is an age-old tradition. You can still find kids enjoying the midday break from class at the Chicago area's most-affluent schools. But good luck finding it in schools that serve Chicago's poorest and most violence-ridden communities.

And it's not just recess. Other breaks from formal academics -- like physical education or fine arts -- are also scarce commodities during the regular school day in some of Chicago's toughest neighborhoods, a Chicago Sun-Times survey found.

The survey follows a three-day Sun-Times series earlier this month, "Schooled in Fear," that chronicled how this year's spate of urban violence has left many Chicago's public school children afraid even to play outside their own homes, leave their block or go to a local park.

Experts say kids touched by violence need to play freely. Recess, physical activity and art can help them process stress and trauma. And play breaks, researchers say, help the brain absorb new material.

Still, given the test pressure caused by the federal No Child Left Behind law, "It's not a good time for kids and play," said Olga Jarrett, a Georgia State University associate professor who's president of the American Association for the Child's Right to Play. "It's a big problem.''

Jarrett recommends daily recess up to eighth grade. One of her studies found that fourth-graders were less fidgety and more focused after recess than their recess-starved peers.

At Chicago's Tonti Elementary, Principal Maria Vallejos-Howell agrees. She instituted a 10-minute recess at her Gage Park school and saw a difference in her students, 95 percent of whom come from low-income homes.

"I believe it's time very well spent,'' Vallejos-Howell said. "We are working with children, not machines.''

The Sun-Times contacted the 10 grammar schools in the six-county area serving the fewest low-income kids, and also 10 serving not only the area's most impoverished children -- at least 99.5 percent from low-income homes -- but also the 25 most-violent communities, based on Chicago Police Department data.

All 10 affluent schools offered at least 20 minutes of daily recess, usually tacked on to a lunch period of at least 20 minutes. Most of the impoverished schools offered no regular recess and a 20-minute lunch, though two of the schools did squeeze in 10 minutes of recess daily.

The typical affluent school featured far more phys ed than the one period a week usually found at the impoverished schools. And both art and music were common at advantaged schools, while impoverished ones mostly offered art and no music, though one had both and two had neither.

At far north suburban Oak Grove School -- serving Green Oaks and Libertyville and with virtually no low-income kids -- "recess is important to my parents,'' said Oak Grove District Supt. Janice Matthews. It not only gives kids a crack at much-needed "free play," Matthews said, but also at making and socializing with friends.

Oak Grove students spread over two playgrounds for daily recess. A "Peaceful Playground'' program offers organized games, using patterns painted on a blacktop. Phys ed is held daily in three gyms.

At the other end of the survey spectrum, kids at Randolph School in West Englewood get no recess and have no playground. Gym is once a week.

Twelve-year-old Fantasy Dunlap arrives 1½ hours early so she can play football with friends on the grass around the South Side school. She said she loves the chance to run because gunfire and gangs keep her out of her local park, and she can't venture more than two doors down from her own house for fear of violence.

At Randolph, by the time Fantasy winds through the cafeteria line, her 20-minute lunch is a rushed event.

"A break would be good,'' Fantasy said. "We need recess. We need time to walk around. We need more exercise.''

Like many principals, Randolph's Michelle Smith says testing demands, Chicago's 308-minute instructional day in grammar schools -- the state's 12th-shortest -- budget cuts and the cost of playground attendants conspire against recess and other extras

"I wholeheartedly believe [kids] are overloaded,'' Smith said.

"We all know what the research says. We all want to do what's right for kids. But the reality of the situation is there's a lack of time.''

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U-46 asks court to reverse class-action status
Kerry Lester, Daily Herald, 8/23/08

Elgin Area School District U-46 Friday asked a federal court of appeals to reverse the class-action ruling in the racial bias lawsuit pending against it.

Officials said in an evening news release that they believe the appellate court should review Judge Robert W. Gettleman's Aug. 8 decision to provide two groups of U-46 students future remedies if they prevail in the lawsuit.

Currently, if the court rules in favor of the five Elgin families accusing the district of racial bias, all current Hispanic and black U-46 students who have been subject to racial discrimination in school programs and services would receive remedies. Areas where racial discrimination may have occurred, Gettleman said, include instability of student assignments, assignment to non-neighborhood schools, assignment to overcrowded schools and transportation burdens.

All current Hispanic U-46 students receiving bilingual services, those who have received those services in the past four years or those who should have but did not receive bilingual services would also receive remedies.

The district said it believes Gettleman's decision "is contrary to binding law." Moreover, "the case involves a taxpayer-supported, governmental body that is being forced to defend itself against unfounded allegations of both racial discrimination and 'deficient' education of English language learners."

The release called the claims in the case "utterly spurious."

The lawsuit, first filed in February 2005, already has cost the district more than $4.6 million in legal fees.

The suit claims U-46 violated the rights of black and Latino students by placing them in older, more crowded schools; forcing them to ride buses longer and more often than their white peers; and providing them with inferior educational opportunities. The Elgin families want the court to mandate and oversee a plan that ends discriminatory policies and practices.

Michael Hernandez, a lawyer for Franczek Sullivan, one of the two firms representing the district, said he believes U-46's petition "clearly satisfies the requirements of the court of appeals."

The district's petition argues that Gettleman made a number of "significant legal errors" in analyzing the motion for class-action status, including "assuming plaintiffs' allegations to be true without requiring them to present evidence to support their arguments."

Carol Ashley, a lawyer with Futterman Howard, the Chicago-based firm representing the Elgin families, said though plaintiffs were disappointed by the petition, they will continue to bring their case forward.

After plaintiffs have an opportunity to respond or accept the petition, the appellate court will determine whether or not to accept the request to review the decision, Hernandez said.

A decision by the court could take up to 60 days, he said.

School board President Ken Kaczynski said the district is "using the legal process that's available to us, and I think that's our responsibility. To make sure that we use everything that's available."
 
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Meeks justified in bid to draw attention to schools
Opinion by Ralph Martire, executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, State Journal-Register, 8/26/08
 
It’s no wonder grandstanding is a firmly entrenched political practice. According to Webster’s Dictionary, the word literally means “playing or acting so as to impress onlookers,” something many politicians do well — and often.

Interestingly, the word connotes a lack of sincerity on the part of the person grandstanding — who is merely “playing” or “acting” in an effort to impress. It’d be impossible to count the number of times a politician has delivered a fiery, grandiloquent address covering a topic near and dear to voters’ hearts, like education or jobs, only to disappear on the subject along with the broadcast cameras that covered the speech. Given this track record, most assume elected officials are grandstanding whenever they resort to high profile actions that generate significant media attention.

So it’s not surprising that everyone from pundits to concerned citizens penning letters to the editor are accusing Sen. James Meeks, D-Chicago, of grandstanding in his most recent push for comprehensive school-funding reform.

In case you missed the press conference, Meeks is calling on parents of children who attend schools in low-income, African-American areas in and around Chicago to skip the first day of school in their local communities and instead haul their kids out to an affluent suburb and try to register for class there. That’s outrageous, according to the critics, who denounce Meeks for suggesting kids miss a day of school. Others accuse Meeks of playing the race card, and thereby intentionally inflaming tensions in a media stunt — grandstanding at its worst.

The thing is, the accusers and critics are all wrong. True, Meeks is trying to draw attention, media and otherwise, to the need for school-funding reform. That said, none of his actions fit the definition of grandstanding. Recall that, to grandstand, one must be merely “playing or acting” in an effort to impress — there has to be a lack of sincerity. Anyone who has followed Sen. Meeks over the last five years would know his ongoing efforts to reform school funding are not only sincere, but core to what he stands for as a public servant.

During that time, he has introduced not just one, but three separate, comprehensive school-funding and tax-reform bills: HB 750, HB 755 and SB 2288. He worked across political lines to gain support for each piece of legislation. He reached out to the governor, and met with voters, decision makers, educators and businesses to explain both the need for the reforms and how they would work once passed. Meeks appealed to folks’ sense of fair play and presented the facts that back him up.

Yet, despite receiving repeated acknowledgements that indeed education funding in Illinois was both unfair and inadequate, and yes, tax reform was needed to fix things, as well as countless (broken) promises of support, nothing happened for five years — half a decade.

After campaigning for reform, Meeks returns to his other job, pastor of the largest Baptist church in Illinois, where he has a firsthand look at the schools his parishioners attend. Sure, he’d preach about how folks had to send their kids to school to get ahead, knowing full well the schools they attend don’t have the resources or capacity to provide a high quality education. The teachers try, but textbooks are woefully out of date, class sizes are too large, buildings are run down, course offerings too narrow — the list goes on.

The bottom line — kids going to school in his community are not getting an education anywhere near competitive with more affluent areas.

As for playing the race card, when it comes to education in Illinois, if you don’t play the race card you aren’t playing with a full deck. Illinois has the third most segregated education system in the country, with more than 80 percent of black kids attending virtually all black schools, and 90 percent of white kids in virtually all white schools. Illinois schools are not just still separate, they’re still unequal, with minority districts receiving significantly less in per pupil funding. The list of educational inequities doesn’t stop there, but word limits apply to this column.

Suffice it to say that the only folks grandstanding on this issue are the editorial boards, pundits and concerned citizens that excoriate Meeks over his suggestion that children miss a day of school. What Meeks finds outrageous is even when they attend school, low-income and minority children are missing an education.
 
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Meeks has new school pilot project
Plan ties funding to performance
By Carlos Sadovi, Chicago Tribune reporter, 8/26/08
 
A Democratic state senator and a former Republican candidate for governor on Monday proposed a three-year, $40 million pilot project aimed at proving that better funding and more resources would give low-performing schools a lift.

The proposal could lay the groundwork for the long-sought statewide overhaul of public school funding, possibly including a tax increase, once the 2010 race for governor is over.

Sen. James Meeks (D-Chicago), who outlined the proposal with GOP businessman Ron Gidwitz in a meeting with the Tribune editorial board, also tied the proposal to his call for Chicago Public Schools students to boycott the first day of classes Sept. 2.

Meeks said he will rescind his boycott plan if three fellow Chicago Democrats, Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Senate President Emil Jones and House Speaker Michael Madigan, would publicly back the pilot proposal. Meeks said he hoped to meet with them in Denver during the Democratic National Convention.

A minister at a huge South Side church, Meeks is threatening to bus Chicago students to the northern suburbs Sept. 2 to attempt to register them in New Trier Township High School District 203 and Sunset Ridge School District 29 in Northfield. He said the protest will draw attention to the disparity between rich and poor school districts.

Meeks and Gidwitz, a former chairman of the State Board of Education who lost in the 2006 Republican primary for governor, said their plan would set up four clusters of schools—two in Chicago, one in the suburbs and one Downstate—to examine curriculum, discipline, student progress and grading policies. Clusters could have several schools or districts.

Meeks, who has pushed for a school-funding plan that would raise income taxes and lower property taxes, said the plan would show business leaders and state lawmakers that putting more money into schools is a good investment.

If successful, the pilot could provide a model for lawmakers to embrace if they need political cover for voting in favor of a tax increase for a broader, statewide plan.

Gidwitz, former head of Helene Curtis Industries, said the city's 44 percent dropout rate is not much better than when he first began working on education causes more than 20 years ago. But he said the pilot project works because it offers accountability.

"He's got a plan that makes sense," Gidwitz said. "I believe it will be a plan that will be palatable to the business community."

The plan calls for Meeks and Gidwitz to oversee a committee under the auspices of the Illinois State Board of Education that would monitor student progress in the four geographic clusters.

The focus would be on districts with pre-kindergarten through high school classes, said Blondean Davis, superintendent of the Matteson School District 162 who helped develop the proposal.

Currently, districts report student progress to the state. Under the plan, which needs legislative approval, the committee would evaluate why the district is struggling and earmark money to improve it, said Laura Murray, a former Homewood- Flossmoor School District 233 superintendent.

"School districts need to be audited to find out why they are not succeeding," said Murray who helped develop the plan.

But Julie Woestehoff, executive director of Parents United for Responsible Education, questioned how it would generate more money.

"How many hoops do schools have to jump through?" Woestehoff said. "This is just another hoop."
 
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I'll call off boycott with deal: Meeks
Schools | Wants Jones, Madigan to back $120 mil. plan
Rosalind Rossi, Chicago Sun-Times, 8/26/08

State Sen. James Meeks offered Monday to drop a three-day school boycott if top Illinois Democrats -- Gov. Blagojevich, Senate President Emil Jones and House Speaker Michael Madigan -- agree to publicly back a new $120 million, three-year plan to reform the state's most seriously ailing schools.

Meeks, pastor of Salem Baptist Church, said he is flying to Denver today to meet Madigan and Jones at the Democratic convention, where he hopes Blagojevich also will join the discussions.

In 2006, Meeks dropped a threat to run for governor in exchange for assurances that Blagojevich would find more money for education. The governor's funding plan never made it out of the gate.

To make sure he doesn't wind up empty-handed again, Meeks said he is asking "two more honorable men'' -- Madigan and Jones -- to also publicly support his education plan.

In addition, Meeks said, "I want them to publicly identify . . . how the program would be paid for, and then I want them to fix a date certain by which it's going to be passed.'' That date should be before the end of the September special session on education, Meeks said. Jones plans to retire Dec. 31.

Co-authoring the "Illinois 21st Century School Reform Initiative'' with Meeks is Ronald Gidwitz, former chair of the State Board of Education.

Gidwitz said he does not endorse the boycott plan, but the Reform Initiative offers the accountability the business community wants in exchange for extra education dollars.

The plan would be executed "under the auspices'' of Meeks and Gidwitz, and led by Matteson School District 162 Supt. Blondean Davis, retired Homewood-Flossmoor District 233 Supt. Laura Murray and former Kankakee District Supt. Brian Ali, according to one draft.

It would identify 12 failing high schools -- in Chicago, the southern suburbs and Downstate -- and their feeder elementary and middle schools, for three years worth of audits and reforms, Meeks said. Reforms would include everything from reviewing grading policies and course offerings to identifying key vocabulary words by grade.

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Substance abuse intervention programs cut at 28 schools
Paul Swiech, Pantagraph, 8/26/08

BLOOMINGTON -- Substance abuse early intervention programs provided by Bloomington-based Chestnut Health Systems have been eliminated in 28 of 35 schools because of state budget cuts, Chestnut announced Monday.

“We want the state to restore the money as soon as possible,” Chestnut Chief Operating Officer Alan Sender said. “This is not a small cut.”

Gov. Rod Blagojevich last month cut $1.4 billion from the state budget for the fiscal year that began July 1.

“We agree that additional revenue is needed” but the governor needed to balance the budget, Katie Ridgway, the governor’s press secretary, said later Monday. She urged advocates to contact state legislators to push for additional revenue.

Blagojevich’s cut included $55 million — or 43 percent — from the state’s drug and alcohol abuse treatment and prevention programs provided by organizations such as Chestnut. Sender said Chestnut’s school-based services in Central and southern Illinois have been cut by $2.3 million — from $4.3 million to less than $2 million.

Chestnut responded by eliminating 13 positions, or 5 percent of its workforce. The nine full-time and four part-time employees included six full-time and one-part time employee in McLean County, said Joan Hartman, Chestnut central region manager. The remaining employees worked in Madison County.

The layoffs mean Chestnut can’t provide substance abuse early intervention services in 28 of 35 schools. In Central Illinois, Chestnut no longer will be in Tri-Valley schools in Downs, St, Mary’s Elementary School in Bloomington, Heyworth schools, Lexington schools, LeRoy schools, Lincoln College in Normal and Lincoln, and Heartland Community College in Normal, Hartman said.

Chestnut will continue to provide services — but with reduced hours — in Normal Community and Normal Community West high schools, Central Catholic High School in Bloomington, Holy Trinity School in Bloomington, Epiphany School in Normal, Stanford-based Olympia schools and Colfax-based Ridgeview schools, she said. Chestnut had not provided services in Bloomington-based District 87.

During the 2007-2008 school year, Chestnut served 1,269 youth in the 35 schools, Sender said.

If the money is not restored, further layoffs may be needed, said Sender, who called the cuts “one of the most painful chapters in Chestnut’s history.”

Early intervention programs are cost-effective, he said. Youth who abuse alcohol or drugs will cost society more money later with marital and workplace strife and jail time, he said.

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Evergreen Park students get basic training in school etiquette
Jim Hook, SouthtownStar, 8/26/08

They glanced slyly across the hallway at each other, taking great care to eye each other over.

An anxious electricity rippled through the air Monday morning as Vice Principal Trayon Sallis stepped forward to address the group of teenagers.

You're in the 8th grade now

"When you walk to school, stay on the sidewalks, never walk in the street, and if you ride your bike or skateboard, walk them once you get on school property," Sallis told the Central Junior High School eighth-graders during their first day of school Monday. "And when the whistle blows in the morning, line up at the doors nearest your lockers.

"When you enter the building there is no gum chewing, and cell phones must be turned off," he said.

Sallis was simply re-enforcing the same school rules and etiquette the students have known for years.

This year, however, the kids were getting a kind of "basic training" from staff dressed in camouflage T-shirts who put their young charges through a program that stressed positive behavior.

The program seemed to stress the importance of respecting themselves and each other.

"The idea is to show them what's expected, not just tell them," Sallis said. "We also want them to know that positive behavior will be recognized and applauded."

Students who display positive behavior (like simply being nice to each other) can receive Panther Bucks, which can be entered into raffle drawings for prizes such as MP3 players, digital cameras and personal DVD players.

School officials are hosting a "block party" during the school day Sept. 23 for students who exhibit positive behavior.

"We want kids to know that we appreciate their good behavior," said Donna Cochonour, a social studies teacher. "We've got some great kids here, and we want them to know that."

During a brief discussion about hallway etiquette, social worker Daniel Ballard got the teens to snap to attention by slamming a locker closed.

"We don't slam lockers closed. We shut them with our hands, not our feet," Ballard said. "We walk through the halls on the right side with our eyes looking straight ahead."

And he reminded the students that they were in Evergreen Park, not Beijing.

"We use the railings going up and down the stairs, and our feet touch every stair," he said. "We don't hurdle four stairs on our way up or down."

Students seemed to like the added attention to detail.

"I like that they are taking time to talk to us about the rules they want us to obey," said Daqua Gatewood. "I like that they are focusing more on respect and safety."

Omar Alvarez said having students who "respect each other and their teachers gives a school a really good reputation."

"We've got great students here, and everyone seems to really get along," he said.

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NATIONAL

Back to school: Shaky economy hits kids
By Libby Quaid, Associated Press, 8/18/08

Washington -- Hard times and higher fuel prices will follow kids back to school this fall.

Children will walk farther to the bus stop, pay more for lunch, study from old textbooks and wear last year's clothes. Field trips? Forget about it. This year, it could cost nearly twice as much to fuel the yellow buses that rumble to school each morning. If you think it's expensive to fill up a sport utility vehicle, try topping off a tank that is two or even three times as big.

At the same time, costs for air conditioning and heating, cafeteria food and classroom supplies are mounting, all because of the shaky economy. And parents have their own tanks to fill.

The extra costs present a tricky math problem: Where can schools subtract to keep costs under control?

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In rural Minnesota, one district is skipping classes every Monday to save fuel. On the other days, classes will be about 10 minutes longer.

"I think it's a great opportunity," said Candice Jaenisch, whose two sons and daughter will be making the switch. "You're cutting expenses that really don't affect school."

The other option for the district - Maccray, an acronym for Maynard, Clara City and Raymond - was to start cutting electives. A shorter week will save at least $65,000 in fuel, superintendent Greg Schmidt said.

There is still a cost. Kids will have to stay awake and alert later in the day, and some parents will need to find day care on Mondays. But it's a small district, with 700 kids, and many parents are self-employed with jobs in farming or construction.

"I really don't know that there are that many people with set hours Monday through Friday," Jaenisch said.

Nationwide, at least 14 other districts are switching to four-day weeks, and dozens more are considering it, according to a recent survey by the American Association of School Administrators.

About 100 districts made the switch years ago, in many cases because of the 1970s oil crisis.

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Parents have been cutting back all summer. For back-to-school clothes, Heidi McLean shopped at outlets and the Marshalls discount chain for her son and daughter, high school students in Eureka, Calif.

"But this year, I'm forcing the kids to reuse their backpacks," McLean said. "They each cost $50. They like the special cool ones, and they're still holding up."

Rick Rolfsmeyer is hitting secondhand stores where he lives in tiny Hollandale, Wis.  "I've got two teenage boys and they like the brand names," he said. "They shan't expect that this year.
We're a cheap bunch here at this house, anyway." Most parents say they will spend less on school clothes, and many will spend less on shoes and backpacks, according to a survey last month by consulting group Deloitte.

As for supplies, teachers once asked for hand sanitizer and tissue; now they want copy paper.
Lenelle Cruse, the state PTA president in Florida, said last year's budget was so tight, Jacksonville schools actually had a toilet paper drive.

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Yet parents are being asked to do more even as they try to cut back.

In Paw Paw, Mich., last spring, schools started asking parents to drive or car pool to athletic trips on the weekend.

In Waterford, Conn., parents might have to pay for annual trips to New York or Boston. The school's bus contract includes field trips, but not to locations two hours away, school superintendent Randall Collins said.

Now, instead of visiting Revolutionary War landmarks in each city, students will probably visit nearby Hartford to see the Connecticut Capitol or the Mark Twain house.

Nearly half of the schools in the school administrators' survey said they are curtailing field trips.

Montgomery County, Md., is cutting funds for its award-winning mathematics team. The district will still pay the coach's stipend, but parents will have to step in.

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In Jacksonville, school lunch prices will rise from $1.30 to $2. "It's a huge jump," said LaTasha Green-Cobb, whose sons are in the seventh and eighth grade.

As fuel prices have rocketed higher, the cost of food has zoomed, especially for lunch-tray staples like milk. As a result, most schools will charge more for lunch, the School Nutrition Association said.

Schools will still not break even. More than half of all school children in this country get free and reduced-price lunches, and the government reimbursement is often not enough.

As the cost goes up, nutritional quality goes down.  It is not cheap to follow federal guidelines for healthy eating; fresh fruits and veggies and whole grains can cost several pennies more per meal.

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Districts are trying hard to squeeze every drop of savings from buses and through energy conservation to avoid more drastic cuts in sports, activities or even classes. Schools are also cutting staff, in most cases eliminating positions that are vacant.

In Montgomery County and elsewhere, they are holding off on ordering new textbooks.

In places where the district charges for bus service, such as San Jose, Calif., parents will have to pay more. Hundreds of districts are cutting or consolidating bus routes, expanding the distance kids have to walk.

In Oxford, Ala., the bus has always made stops at every house. But this year, kids in fifth grade through 12th grade will have to walk to neighborhood bus stops.

South Carolina expects to spend nearly $11 million meant for new buses on fuel instead - in a state where the average school bus is 12 years old and some are 22.

In California's Folsom Cordova district, there will be no high school buses this year.

Smaller, more rural districts require smaller measures: Paw Paw, Mich., is moving to all-day kindergarten, eliminating eight bus runs in the middle of the day.

Schools are also getting creative with computerized bus routes and heating and cooling systems.
Montgomery County, the sprawling district that serves the suburbs of Washington, D.C., has a master control room straight out of NASA that lets one person regulate the temperature in every single classroom.

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All these cutbacks may seem tough, but to economist Brian Bethune at the private forecasting firm Global Insight, it's about time.

Only about half of all school kids ride the bus to school. Some walk or pedal bikes, but plenty ride to school in a car with their parents. In an era of high gas prices with no end in sight, Bethune says people need to change.

"I think if parents are going to drive their kids to school and not use bus service that's already available, that creates problems," Bethune said.  "Those choices have to be revisited, just like everywhere else."
 
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More kids walking to school as fuel costs rise
Ray Henry and Jessie L. Bonner, Associated Press, 8/19/08

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Faced with soaring diesel fuel costs, school districts are forcing students to use the old-fashioned way to get to class: on their own two feet.

Many schools are eliminating or reducing bus service because fuel had jumped to $4.50 per gallon, 36 percent more than a year ago, and is busting budgets.

In California, districts are eliminating busing for thousands of students. Districts in Washington state, Idaho and Maryland and elsewhere are consolidating bus stops, canceling field trips and forcing students to walk longer distances to school to control costs.

Worried parents in Massachusetts have called WalkBoston, a nonprofit group that promotes walking, asking for help after their communities cut back on busing.

Health advocates long have encouraged students to walk, stressing the fitness benefits. But school and transportation officials say they fear that abruptly reducing bus service could lower attendance rates, increase traffic congestion or endanger students if they cannot walk on sidewalks and crosswalks.

"If you remove a school bus from the road, you're adding 40 to 50 cars in the morning and in the afternoon," said Bob Riley, spokesman for the American School Bus Council, which represents school transportation officials.

Major cuts loom in California, where schools are not required to provide transportation to campus. As a result, districts squeezed by fuel prices and fewer state dollars are trimming millions from transportation budgets.

The Capistrano Unified School District in Orange County, for example, has eliminated 44 of its 62 bus routes to save an estimated $3.5 million, district spokeswoman Julie Hatchel said. The cuts will affect an estimated 5,000 students from kindergarten to high school.

Leaders in three communities served by the district have threatened lawsuits, saying school officials are ignoring traffic and pollution implications. While cutting bus service is unpopular, Hatchel said it is better than firing teachers and increasing class sizes.

"Our goal was to keep those cuts as far away from the classroom as possible," she said.

Increased fuel costs are especially punishing on large, spread-out districts. The school board in Montgomery County, Md., covers the sprawling Washington beltway. It buses 96,000 children daily and burns about 3.3 million gallons of diesel annually. Each penny per gallon increase in the diesel price means an additional $33,000 in spending.

Seeking ways to contain fuel costs, the school board has authorized its superintendent to force students to walk farther to school. The current limits now stand at one mile for elementary school students and up to two miles for high schoolers.

"What if fuel should go up by a quarter in a period of a month or two?" district spokeswoman Kate Harrison said. "We might have to have some emergency response to that."

Small towns are feeling the pinch, too. Short on cash, school officials in Shirley, Mass., a small town about 40 miles northwest of Boston, are going from eight buses to four starting this school year. Students who live within two miles of school must walk, bike or get a ride.

Parents in Shirley are worried about safety and seeking help from WalkBoston. Mary Day said her two sons will have to cross train tracks on their routes to school. To compound the problem, the town recently got rid of its crossing guards to save money.

As a single, working mother, Day said she can drop her children off at school in the morning but cannot pick them up. Her street runs parallel to train tracks and she fears her 9-year-old and 12-year-old sons will be tempted to take shortcuts by darting across the tracks outside the official crossings.

"I remember being a kid," Day said. "Are you going to walk a half-mile down the street to cross in the appropriate way when you see a clear way right there?"

Her youngest son, Quincee, isn't thrilled with the idea of walking, especially when the weather gets cold.

"I don't really like it because it takes like 20 minutes to do it," he said.

Since 2005, the federal government has spent millions of dollars on the Safe Routes to School program. While the program is designed to improve student health, school officials sometimes sign on with the secondary goal of saving money.

WalkBoston executive director Wendy Landman said school officials need to consider the consequences before reducing bus service to save money. Communities such as Shirley may need to pay for sidewalks, crosswalks or bike racks to make walking and biking safe and practical.

"When it's a panic call, they're not thinking it through in that way," she said.

When done right, schools and parents can save money.

Helen Siewers' two daughters began walking a mile to their elementary school in Bowling Green City, Ky., because their mother wanted them exercising, socializing with friends and learning to navigate their own community like she did as a child.

But she's noticed an added benefit: Her family has not spent more on gas even as fuel prices soar. It helps that Siewers and her husband also walk to work, bike to their errands and try to keep one of their two cars idle.

"We are not spending more on fuel this year because we're driving less," she said.

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D.C. Debates Pay-for-Tenure Swap for Teachers
By Stephen Sawchuk, Education Week, 8/19/08
 
Washington - The District of Columbia’s 4,000 teachers will be asked to vote next month on a tentative contract that would offer those willing to forgo tenure protections the opportunity to earn up to $131,000 by next school year if their students post significant learning gains.

Along with the performance-based pay and tenure changes, the contract would formally dismantle the seniority system.

While other districts have put performance-pay systems in place and others still have relaxed seniority rules, the initiative coming out of the nation’s capital would, in one stroke, swap job protection for salaries that outpace what most teachers would ever realize.

Both D.C. schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and George Parker, the president of the Washington Teachers Union, say the higher salaries would improve the district’s ability to attract high-quality teachers to the school system.

Washington’s negotiations are taking place in an unusual context—a district with a strong chancellor under the direct supervision of the mayor, notoriously underperforming schools, and a student enrollment that has increasingly fled to charter schools. But observers suggested that the plan could offer other districts a model for instituting similar changes.

“The biggest challenge to these reforms is political, and this [plan] could ease the political challenge through an opt-in approach,” said Bryan Hassel, a co-director of Public Impact, a Chapel Hill, N.C.-based organization that consults on human-capital issues in education.

A contract sent back to the bargaining table, however, would come as a significant setback for Ms. Rhee’s plans to reform the district. And it could result in the loss of the millions of private-foundation funds she hopes to secure to support the higher salaries.

Contract negotiations have illuminated deep divisions among the teaching force and the WTU, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers.

They are also a test of sorts for the AFT, which is closely watching the process, and according to WTU sources, has even commissioned a legal opinion on the proposals.

“I think the AFT is very concerned about this contract,” said Kate Walsh, the president of the Washington-based National Council on Teacher Quality, a nonprofit that advocates changes to the teaching profession. “It’s a reinvention of teacher governance, and anything that the national [union] sees as a threat to the current set of rules and conditions ... would be reason for it to get involved and protect what it fought so hard to earn.”

A Sticking Point

In its current form, the plan hinges on a two-tiered system for compensating teachers. Teachers electing the “red” tier would receive pay boosts based years of experience and education attained.

Those teachers’ salaries would increase by 28 percent over five years­—a significant increase in a sluggish economy.

Teachers electing to join the “green” tier would give up tenure protections for one year and would have to win their principals’ approval to regain permanent status.

New teachers would automatically enter the green tier and have a four-year probationary period, rather than the two years stipulated in the current contract.

In addition to regular raises, green-tier teachers could earn up to $20,000 annually in bonuses based on student academic growth. Mr. Parker said union and district officials would set the criteria for growth after a contract has been finalized. But the criteria are likely to include some consideration of student test scores, a priority for Ms. Rhee.

The bonuses could push teachers with as few as six years of experience past the $100,000 mark. The current top salary, for a teacher with a Ph.D. and 21 years of experience, is $87,500.

If the contract is completed this summer, it would take effect in the 2008-09 school year and green-tier bonuses would be awarded for the first time in 2009-2010. The current contract, though expired, remains in effect until officials have inked a new one. Mr. Parker said he hopes to present members with the tentative contract by mid-September.

But the tenure-for-pay element has emerged as a crucial sticking point in negotiations between Ms. Rhee and Mr. Parker, who says that the green-tier pathway would inadequately protect teachers from arbitrary dismissal by their principals.

Such dismissals happen “all the time,” he told reporters at a recent meeting at the union’s headquarters. “Anytime you have the human element in decisionmaking, there’s human frailty.”

The WTU is investigating the dismissal of 78 nontenured teachers this year, Mr. Parker said.

He wants district officials to agree to institute an expedient, neutral appeals system for green-tier teachers who are not granted tenure at the end of their one-year transitional period.

Ms. Rhee would not comment about that proposal while contract negotiations are under way.

A Union Divided?

Though the tenure element has garnered most of the national interest in the plan, its seniority provisions have raised the ire of other WTU members.

The contract proposes doing away with seniority for the hiring, transfer, and “excessing” of teachers—a contract term for the process of removing a teacher from a building for budgetary or program-reduction reasons and reassigning him or her. It would extend to teachers under both tiers.

A principal would need to agree to take on an excessed teacher. Those in the red tier who voluntarily chose to leave teaching would receive a buyout, while green-tier teachers could be dismissed at any time after being excessed.

WTU General Vice President Nathan Saunders and Candi Peterson, a member of the local union’s board of trustees, say the proposal would lead to a mass dismissal of teachers.

Mr. Saunders contends that Ms. Rhee would seek to replace veteran teachers with novices entering the profession through exclusive teacher-recruiting programs such as Teach For America and the New Teacher Project.

“We [will] see a gentrification of public schools that has nothing to do with student achievement,” Mr. Saunders said.

But Mr. Parker said the proposals are meant to bring contract language up to date with current district practice and give veterans extra protection. Since the late 1990s, he said, the district has been able to bypass seniority and the excessing process through rules and laws permitting it to consider factors beyond length of service when it reduces the teaching force.

Until now, “no [WTU] union president’s had the courage to say that seniority’s pretty much been gone since 1999,” Mr. Parker said.

Where Teachers Stand

Mr. Parker did acknowledge, however, that the interests of new teachers and those of veterans do not always match. The sentiment hints at a divide that could emerge in the vote between younger teachers eager for big bonuses against veterans who want to retain existing protections.

Heather Migdon, 27, is one of a handful of teachers who went to WTU headquarters last week to press for a vote.

“I trust my principal,” said the 5th grade teacher, who would pursue the green tier if the contract were finalized. “If you don’t, I suggest you go with the red tier.”

But Jeff Canady, a 16-year veteran who now teaches 3rd grade, argued that the proposal “basically eliminates the rights of teachers.”

Ms. Rhee has publicly denied a generational divide. In a previous interview, she said teachers across the gamut of age and experience had voiced support for the plan. Indeed, under the green tier, the highest salary of $131,000 in 2009-2010 would go to effective educators with 14 or more years of experience.

A poll commissioned by the AFT to gauge WTU members’ feelings about the proposals could offer the clearest picture of how teachers might vote, but Mr. Parker said the WTU was still deciding whether to release the results.

In the meantime, both supporters and detractors have taken to message boards and blogs to voice their opinions and frustrations, and to share tidbits of information gained from personal communications with Ms. Rhee and Mr. Parker.

Elena Silva, a senior policy analyst at the Washington-based think tank Education Sector, said such communications reflect the difficulty for leadership to complete a contract both swiftly and with a maximum of teacher input.

“Pushing [the contract] through quickly is going to lead to consternation on the part of people who probably should be full participants in the process,” Ms. Silva said. “[But] slowing it down to the point where all teachers feel comfortable could stall or stop this process.”

Other officials are seeking to influence the dialogue more directly. Both Mr. Saunders and Ms. Peterson said the AFT has secured a legal opinion on the contract, and they are pressing the union to release it to WTU members before the vote.

An AFT spokesman said he did not know about the opinion.

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New U.S. Research Center to Study Education Technology
By Alyson Klein, Education Week, 8/19/08
 
Congress has authorized a new federal research center that will be charged with helping to develop innovative ways to use digital technology at schools and in universities.

The National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies was included as part of the latest reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, approved last month. President Bush signed the law on Aug. 14.

The center will be charged with supporting research and development of new education technologies, including internet-based technologies. It will also help adapt techniques already widely used in other sectors, such as advertising and the military, to classroom instruction.

For instance, the center could work on developing educational programs that use personalization, a technique used by Web sites such as Amazon.com, to help hone consumers’ individual preferences, and simulation, which the military has used to help teach budding pilots how to fly planes.

“Despite the multitude of new technologies that are available to us, we have yet to scratch the surface of what we can do in the classroom to ensure that America’s children stay ahead of the curve,” said U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., one of the program’s main proponents. “This measure creates a system that will not only implement the technology we have, but also a framework to keep pace as new technologies are developed.”

Private Donations Accepted

Although most students use technology frequently in their everyday lives, classrooms have not kept pace with changes, said Henry Kelly, the president of the Federation of American Scientists, which consulted with lawmakers and congressional staff members in crafting the legislative language for the program.

The center could help educators and researchers keep track of changes in educational technology, said Margaret D. Roblyer, a professor of education at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

“It’s actually pretty exciting that our federal government recognizes the potential in this area and is willing to dedicate funding to try to harness it,” said Ms. Roblyer, who wrote Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching, a textbook originally published in 1997. “It strikes me that one of the best things that could come out of this initiative is articulating a legitimate research agenda for studying technology’s impact on learning.”

Educators can “see technology is having an impact on learning,” she said. “We just haven’t been able to capture it very well with research,” in part because the field changes so rapidly, she added. “The time may be just right for looking at this topic again, not only in light of new technologies but also the new ways they are shaping communication and community in our society.”

The center will be established under the U.S. Department of Education and will be managed as a nonprofit organization, overseen by a board of directors, including educators, scientists, and business representatives.

The program’s initial funding will come from Education Department, but it will be able to receive funds from any federal agency, as well as from private donors, such as corporations and foundations.

That structure will give the center “just enough independence so that it’s accountable to the department, but it will be able to build a research operation that looks more like the National Institutes of Health” in that it will be able to tackle significant, sustained projects, said Mr. Kelly of the Federation of American Scientists.

The public-private partnership structure may help recruit top education researchers, as well as experts from the computer and video gaming industries, he said.

The federal funding for the program is authorized at $50 million for its first year. Congress has not yet completed the appropriations bills for fiscal year 2009, which begins Oct. 1, and it is possible that the program could receive some funding as early as that fiscal year.
 
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Groups: Ban corporal punishment in school
Greg Toppo, USA Today, 8/20/08

Saying corporal punishment disproportionately targets minority students and creates a "violent and degrading school environment," two groups want federal and state lawmakers to ban it.

In a report being issued today, Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union cite U.S. Education Department statistics that find school personnel in the 2006-07 school year reported disciplining 223,190 students by hitting, spanking or similar means. In interviews, Alice Farmer, the report's author, found that children in Texas and Mississippi are routinely paddled for "minor infractions" such as chewing gum or violating school dress codes.

"It's just fundamentally ineffective in terms of improving school discipline," she says. "It doesn't teach kids why what they did was wrong; it doesn't show them better behavior. What it does is teach them to be violent."

David Sanders of the Twiggs County, Ga., school board, which voted last month to reaffirm a policy allowing spanking, calls that "simplistic." Many in his community support the practice, he says: After a story ran in the local paper, readers submitted dozens of comments, "and they were 95% positive."

The Education Department says 17% of students nationwide are black, but they made up 35.6% of students paddled in 2006-07. In Texas, 10.7% of students are disabled, but they made up 17.4% of paddled students.

More than 200,000 children were spanked or paddled in U.S. schools during the past school year, human rights groups reported Wednesday.

Schools in 21 states can use corporal punishment.

 "Every public school needs effective methods of discipline, but beating kids teaches violence, and it doesn't stop bad behavior," wrote Alice Farmer, the author of a joint report from Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union. "Corporal punishment discourages learning, fails to deter future misbehavior and at times even provokes it."

Corporal punishment in schools remains legal in 21 U.S. states and is used frequently in 13: Missouri, Kentucky, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and Florida, according to data received from the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education and cited in the report.

The highest percentage of students receiving corporal punishment was in Mississippi, with 7.5 percent of students. The highest number was in Texas, with 48,197 students.

"When you talk to local school officials, they point to the fact that it's quick and it's effective -- and that's true," Farmer said. "It doesn't take much time to administer corporal punishment, and you don't have to hire someone to run a detention or an after-school program."

But she said, "We need forms of discipline that makes children understand why what they did was wrong."

In addition, corporal punishment can be linked to poverty and lack of resources. For instance, the report said, "Teachers may have overcrowded classrooms and lack resources such as counselors to assist with particularly disruptive students or classroom dynamics."

Overall, 223,190 students received corporal punishment in 2006-07, according to the Department of Education statistics. That number is down from 342,038 students in 2000-01 as more and more districts abolished corporal punishment.  Watch how one Texas family feels about corporal punishment »

The punishment is disproportionately applied to black students, according to the organizations. During the 2006-07 school year, for instance, black students made up 17.1 percent of the nationwide student population but 35.6 percent of those paddled at schools.

Black girls were paddled at twice the rate of their white counterparts in the 13 states using corporal punishment most frequently. And although boys are punished more often than girls, the report found that African-American students in general are 1.4 times more likely to receive corporal punishment.

In addition, special education students with mental or physical disabilities were more likely to receive corporal punishment, according to the ACLU and Human Rights Watch.

Evangelical leader James Dobson's influential Focus on the Family group is among those stopping short of calling for a full ban on paddling in schools.

"Corporal punishment is not effective at the junior and senior high school levels, and I do not recommend its application," Dobson said on the organization's Web site.

"It can be useful for elementary students, especially with amateur clowns (as opposed to hard-core troublemakers). For this reason, I am opposed to abolishing spanking in elementary schools because we have systematically eliminated the tools with which teachers have traditionally backed up their word. We're now down to a precious few. Let's not go any further in that direction."

Andrea Cancellare said her then-13-year-old son was paddled -- or "swatted" -- three years ago for flicking rubber bands in class, despite the fact she had written a letter directing school officials in Alpine, Texas, not to use corporal punishment against him. School officials told her they could not find the letter when she complained.

When she approached the principal and superintendent, Cancellare said, they told her that "most parents like this because it takes care of the punishment. It gets the kids back in class. It doesn't disrupt instruction. It's like the quick and dirty way of dealing with discipline problems."

Alpine Independent School District Superintendent Jose Cervantes said that both the principal and superintendent have taken other jobs, but for the past several years, the district has had a clear policy allowing parents to sign a waiver form and opt out of corporal punishment.

"It works on some, and it doesn't work on others," Cervantes said. "If you're one of the individuals that it does work on, yes, it will become a deterrent."

Cancellare disagrees. "I don't think it's the school's place to make decisions like that," she said. "I'm not necessarily in favor of that kind of punishment in the house either, but I feel like if somebody makes that decision, it should be the parent."

Most states typically leave it up to individual districts whether to use corporal punishment, and some of the nation's largest school districts -- among them Houston and Dallas, Texas; Memphis, Tennessee; Atlanta, Georgia; and Mobile County, Alabama -- have banned the practice, according to the report. 

Minority students already face several barriers to success, said Alice Farmer, the report's author.

"By exposing these children to disproportionate rates of corporal punishment, schools create a hostile environment in which these students may struggle even more," Farmer said.

Some U.S. conservatives view moves to ban corporal punishment in school and spanking at home as "liberal permissiveness" which can lead to bad behavior and wider social problems such as juvenile delinquency.

Many liberal groups regard corporal punishment as a barbaric relic of an unenlightened past that harms self-esteem and promotes violence.

"Every public school needs effective methods of discipline but beating kids teaches violence and it doesn't stop bad behavior," Farmer said.

The report documented several cases in which children were seriously injured and said students with physical and mental disabilities were subjected to disproportionate rates of physical punishment.

The report includes witness accounts including one from the mother of a 3-year-old in Texas who was bruised after being struck at school.

"What made me so angry: he's 3 years old, he was petrified. He didn't want to go back to school and he didn't want to start his new school," the mother, referred to as Rose T, was quoted as saying.

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NYC cash-for-tests program shows mixed results
Associated Press, 8/21/08

NEW YORK - A privately funded initiative that pays students in some New York City high schools up to $1,000 for passing Advanced Placement tests is not making the grade, critics say.

Students at the 31 schools participating in the program called Rewarding Achievement, or REACH, took 345 more tests this year than last year. But the passing rate dropped slightly, from 35 percent in 2007 to 32 percent this year, according to results released Wednesday.

A total of 1,161 students passed 1,476 Advanced Placement exams, earning $500 each time they scored a 3, the lowest passing mark. They received $750 for each score of 4, and $1,000 for each top score, 5. Nearly $1 million was given to the students and another $500,000 to the participating schools.

Advanced Placement tests are offered in various subjects; students who pass them earn college credits.

The program, launched last fall, is similar to others around the country that aim to boost student achievement through cash incentives.

There are limited studies on the programs' effects, but research by an independent think tank at Stanford University indicated they can raise scores. A separate study examining schools in Ohio also showed score gains after the start of a program that paid students for passing state tests.

Edward Rodriguez, executive director of REACH, called New York's cash-for-scores program a success.

''We are delighted to congratulate the REACH Scholars who earned high marks on rigorous college-level exams,'' he said.

But Pedro Noguera, a professor at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development, said he was surprised the test scores didn't jump a bit.

''I would have thought, for kids who were on the borderline, that they would have seen an improvement,'' he said.

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein said the program had several successes. More students earned 5's on the tests this year than last, though the number of 4's and 3's dropped, he said.

The program is funded by the Pershing Square Foundation, a charity affiliated with hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management LP. The initiative is intended to increase the number of poor and minority students who are prepared for college.

''I'd invest in tutoring before I'd invest in incentives,'' he said.

David Sanford, who graduated from Benjamin Banneker High School in Brooklyn and received a 3 on the A.P. physics test, said the incentive program was a good idea.

''It helped motivate students to study more and try harder,'' he said.

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Schools' later start is saving big bucks
Since mandate, energy bills have fallen by millions
By Jennifer Radcliffe, 8/20/08
 
Texas public school leaders may still be fuming about the legislative mandate that delayed the start of the school year until the last week of August, but advocates point to lower utility bills as a sign that lawmakers made the right choice.

In the first year, schools statewide appear to have saved millions of dollars in August utility bills. The Houston Independent School District's monthly payment to Reliant Energy, for example, dropped almost $200,000 between August 2006 and August 2007. Officials attribute about $66,000 of the savings to lower electricity costs.

HISD spends about $57 million a year on electricity, meaning $66,000 is a slight savings, officials said. And they said some of the savings probably were erased by extra days in May and June, but they couldn't provide the figures.

Some districts reported using half as much energy in August 2007 as in past Augusts, according to records provided by some of Texas' largest school systems.

And the later start date has been popular among parents, who remember an era when the school year started after Labor Day.

"I'm happy to see Texas schools saving money," said Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., D-Brownsville. "The fourth Monday in August is really, in my opinion, family-friendly, and it's putting money in our classrooms."

Districts used waivers

Before the law took effect last year, most Texas school districts got waivers to start the year in early or mid-August. School districts adamantly opposed the later start date, saying it didn't allow enough time to prepare students for the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills or to administer final exams before Christmas break.

They're even discounting the apparent savings on utility bills.

"I can't say the delayed start date didn't have an effect, but there's obviously other variables," HISD controller Ken Huewitt said.

San Antonio parent Tina Bruno, head of the Coalition for a Traditional School Calendar, said she's not surprised that school officials are dismissing the savings.

"The school districts were so against having a uniform start date that they're not ever going to admit there's any benefit," Bruno said. "When you look at August-to-August utility bills, there were savings, even though electricity rates went up. This was a smart move."

Indeed, the Texas Association of School Boards is discussing lobbying the Legislature to reverse the law when it convenes in January. Each school district should have a say in setting its calendar, officials said.

"The tourism industry pushed very hard — and successfully — to move the school start date later in the year to no sooner than the last Monday of August," said TASB spokesman Dax Gonzalez. "The argument was that cities would benefit from increased sales taxes. ... Meanwhile, districts have less time to prepare for TAKS, and midyear holidays must be truncated or eliminated altogether."

School calendars should be driven by academics, not finances, said John Brooks, head of the University of North Texas' principal certification program.

"I really think the Legislature would be well-advised to give local boards the opportunity to set their start times," he said.

75 degrees for students

But the new law also keeps children at home during one of the hottest times of the year. With electric rates climbing quickly, Pasadena school district spokeswoman Candace Ahlfinger said she's sure that bills would have been higher under the old calendar.

The district keeps thermostats at 75 degrees when students are in the building and 80 degrees when they are not.

Like most suburban Houston districts, Pasadena has added new schools and is experiencing higher rates — other factors that would have further inflated August utility bills.

State Rep. Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, said he's not surprised that districts, even those that are financially strapped, aren't celebrating the savings. They don't like being told what to do, he said.

"I understand why they're not happy. I do. But in the Legislature, you have to look at the bigger picture," he said. "If you can subtract some August days from your air conditioning bill, you can't help but to save money."

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Back to School: Schools separate ninth-graders
Elizabeth White, Associated Press, 8/23/08

SAN ANTONIO — Ninth grade, often the first year of high school, is a critical time when many students sink or swim while coping with new academic responsibilities and learning the oh-so-important social hierarchy.

Some educators are turning to ninth-grade-only schools to separate 14- and 15-year-olds from older kids and make the transition easier.

"People just really value having our ninth-graders have a chance to develop intellectually, emotionally and socially outside of the context of a large comprehensive high school setting," said Kenneth Graham, superintendent of Rush-Henrietta Central School District near Rochester, N.Y. "They don't have upperclassmen in the halls picking on them and teasing them."

There were 127 ninth-grade-only public schools in the 1999-2000 school year. By the 2005-06 school year, that number had jumped to 185, according to the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics.

In San Antonio, the Southside Independent School District is opening a ninth-grade school this month. Another district plans to open one next year.

"I think that most of us in the state have always been looking for ways of addressing the dropout issue and ... keeping our students engaged," said Juan Antonio Jasso, superintendent of Southside. "It didn't take a great deal of convincing that this was a most positive approach to take with the student population."

The ninth-grade year is crucial to success in high school. If students don't get the credits needed to move on to 10th grade, they can fall insurmountably behind. In Texas in the 2005-06 school year, 16.5 percent of ninth-graders — the highest rate of any grade — didn't complete requirements to advance, according to a Texas Education Agency report.

Ninth grade is also when most problems start to appear, said James Kemple of MDRC, a New York-based social policy research organization.

"It's the point where you can very clearly predict who's eventually going to drop out," said Kemple, director of the group's K-12 education policy area.

There are more ninth-graders in U.S. high schools than any other class. That's because many students either aren't promoted to 10th grade or drop out before they get there.

In 2003-04, there were nearly 4.2 million ninth-graders nationwide. But by the next year, just 3.75 million were in the 10th grade, according to the Washington, D.C.-based National High School Center.

Ninth-grade-only schools make some sense, said Joseph Harris, director of the center. But simply moving students to another campus, building or wing isn't enough.

"It isn't replicating the practices of a large comprehensive high school in a stand-alone ninth grade," Harris said. "The key there is making sure that you're facilitating the communication between teachers and administrators in ninth grade who are preparing students for eventual promotion."

Some districts, like Madison County Schools in Huntsville, Ala., and West Fargo Public Schools in North Dakota, opened ninth-grade centers to relieve overcrowding in high schools. Rush-Henrietta started its ninth-grade school, with an enrollment of 500, for the same reason in 2000 and has kept it ever since.

"From all quarters it was a resounding success," Graham said. "We're delighted with it, it's worked out really well."

Aldine Independent School District in the Houston area has four ninth-grade centers with enrollments of about 900 each.

"The whole philosophy behind it was to separate the younger kids from the older kids. To give an opportunity to work with them one more year ... as opposed to cutting them loose in high school," said superintendent Wanda Bamberg.

Tasnim Mohamed graduated from Aldine's Eisenhower Ninth Grade School in the spring. She said it provided her the personal attention she wanted. At the same time, extracurricular activities helped her become familiar with Eisenhower Senior High School, where she'll start 10th grade this month.

"You get a sense of knowing everybody that you're going to school with" in the ninth-grade school, she said. "But it's not like you're secluded from everybody else. You still get to interact and see how it will be next year (in high school) when you go there."

Educators acknowledge there are some drawbacks.

For many students, it means attending three schools in as many years as they progress from the eighth grade to high school.

"This is now another step in there in terms of kids transitioning from one school to the next and all that that implies," said Sandra Spivey, director of secondary education for Madison County Schools in Alabama.

West Fargo superintendent Dana Diesel Wallace wonders if exposure to older students is a part of the maturation process that ninth-graders don't get. "They can be a little more silly without that older peer influence," she said.

Still, she noticed significant GPA improvements among students attending her district's Sheyenne Ninth Grade Center.

Kemple, the K-12 education policy researcher, said it's important to not lose focus on older students.

"Giving special attention to ninth grade is the first order of business," Kemple said. "But then apply the same general principles to grades 10 through 12 so students aren't faced with the same problems, but just a year later."

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Education officials predict more district consolidation
Associated Press, 8/25/08

MILLERSBURG, Iowa - State and school leaders say there is a new wave of school district consolidation that could alter the landscape of education in Iowa.

The consolidation is happening in school districts that are facing budget crunches because of shrinking enrollment, skyrocketing expenses and troubles cutting back. And the cash-strapped schools aren't getting the same type of help they used to from the state.

"They're in a real balancing act," said Judy Jeffrey, director of the Iowa Department of Education. "I think there's going to be another wave of consolidation."

Just how many Iowa school districts will consolidate depends on whether some can dig themselves out of a financial hole.

State officials say enrollment has dropped in two-thirds of Iowa's 362 school districts. Those districts lose more than $5,000 in state aid for each student who leaves.

District leaders were warned last spring that 60 school districts were on track to operate in the red in 2008 and 2009.

"I see right now more districts in potential financial difficulty than I've seen in the almost nine years I've been doing this," said Larry Sigel, school finance director for the Iowa Association of School Boards. He helps train school leaders on how to manage their budgets.

Experts say Iowa's tradition of local control had enabled even the smallest school district to survive, but that's changing.

In 2004, lawmakers started to phase out a state budget guarantee that bailed out schools struggling with declining enrollment. And last year, the Legislature gave the Iowa Board of Education power to shut down school districts that run in the red for two years in a row.

The new practice has been put to use. Last spring, the board's members shut down the Russell school district, where leaders blamed financial troubles on declining enrollment and mismanagement.

Jeffrey said that sent a message to other districts.

"We certainly didn't go into Russell thinking, 'We're going to make an example,"' she said. "But it really did send an alarm through the system."

Some schools had made major efforts to avoid Russell's fate. For example, residents in the West Bend-Mallard district in northwest Iowa raised $850,000 to save their school district.

But voters in some districts have opted not to keep their school districts open. Voters in Taylor County decided not to bail New Market out of its financial hole.

"We didn't really want the state coming in telling us what to do," said Russell Hilker, New Market's former superintendent. "We would rather have control over our own destiny."

Education officials say Iowa has experienced three consolidation movements since 1900, with the last round in the 1980s.

That's when the economy soured and state officials raised education standards. At that time, lawmakers offered financial incentives for districts to merge.

Some education officials are predicting a similar scenario now, but without any handouts from the state.

"I think it will happen faster than the last wave," said Superintendent Jeff Kruse, who divides his time between the IKM and Rockwell City-Lytton school districts in western Iowa.

"The last set of consolidations was 20 years ago, and before that was 40 to 50 years ago," he said. "I think it's doubling in time. We're into another set and I think that set will be good for about 10 to 15 years, and we'll be looking at another set."

In Millersburg, the town's only school will be empty this time next year if voters agree to merge the Deep River-Millersburg and English Valleys school districts, which have about 600 students between them.

"I think people have accepted the inevitable," said Twila Gerard, 67, a town historian who was part of Deep River-Millersburg's first graduating class, in 1958. "There's not enough children."

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Texas truant students to be tracked by GPS anklets
Associated Press, 8/23/08

Court authorities here will be able to track students with a history of skipping school under a new program requiring them to wear ankle bracelets with Global Positioning System monitoring.

But at least one group is worried the ankle bracelets will infringe on students' privacy.

Linda Penn, a Bexar County justice of the peace, said she anticipates that about 50 students from four San Antonio-area school districts -- likely to be mostly high schoolers -- will wear the anklets during the six-month pilot program announced Friday. She said the time the students wear the anklets will be decided on a case-by-case basis.

''We are at a critical point in our time where we can either educate or incarcerate,'' Penn said, linking truancy with juvenile delinquency and later criminal activity. ''We can teach them now or run the risk of possible incarceration later on in life. I don't want to see the latter.''

Penn said students in the program will wear the ankle bracelets full-time and will not be able to remove them. They'll be selected as they come through her court, and Penn will target truant students with gang affiliations, those with a history of running away and skipping school and those who have been through her court multiple times.

''Students and parents must understand that attending school is not optional,'' Penn said. ''When they fail to attend school, they are breaking the law.''

Penn said the electronic monitoring is part of a comprehensive program she started four years ago to reduce truancy. She cited programs in Midland and Dallas as having success with similar electronic monitoring measures.

But Terri Burke, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, said requiring students to wear the GPS bracelets full-time raises privacy concerns.

''We're all for keeping kids in school, and we applaud any efforts to make that happen,'' Burke said. ''But the privacy issue: What happens with the bracelet or anklet after school is out? Is that appropriate for the school or courts to know where and what this person is doing outside of school?''

Asked why the students have to wear the ankle bracelet all the time instead of just the school day, Penn cited problems with runaways.

''Sometimes, as I said, students are runaways. Parents don't know where they are,'' Penn said. ''So it's for the safety of the child, as well as the safety of the community.''

Burke said truant students and runaway kids are different issues.

Asked specifically about privacy concerns, Penn said she didn't have a comment. But, she added, her priority is ''looking for the good of making these children accountable ... it's for the concern of these children getting an education.''
 
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Hard Times Hit Schools
States’ Budget Shortfalls Darken Start of New Year
Michele McNeil, Education Week, 8/25/08

Just two months ago, states had already racked up $40 billion in budget shortfalls so far this fiscal year—or the equivalent of the K-12 education budget for the entire state of Texas, with a couple billion left over in change.

The number only keeps rising, along with the pressure on educators at every level, as they start the 2008-09 school year.

Florida’s budget gap has risen to $1.5 billion, South Carolina’s is up by $222 million, and Washington state is looking at a $61 million increase in its shortfall—all of them having learned in the last few weeks that the tax revenue they depend on to fund everything from schools to prisons is continuing to shrink.

These hard-to-grasp dollar amounts are forcing real cuts in K-12 education at a time when the cost of fueling buses and providing school lunches is increasing and the demands of the federal No Child Left Behind Act still loom large over states and districts.

“One of the real challenges is to continue progress in light of the economy,” said Gale Gaines, the vice president for state services for the Atlanta-based Southern Regional Education Board, a nonpartisan consortium with 16 member states. “We can’t be complacent.”

But that may be a difficult task in the dozen states—including Alabama, Kentucky, Rhode Island, and Nevada—that have made targeted cuts to certain education programs, according to a June report by the Denver-based National Conference of State Legislatures. The NCSL found that 31 states reported budget gaps, ranging from $10 million in Hawaii to $2 billion in Arizona—nearly 20 percent of that state’s general-fund budget. The report also predicted that state budget situations would get worse, and those predictions are proving to be correct.

Just this month, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, warned that education funding may be cut if the economy doesn’t turn around rapidly and help close an anticipated $1 billion deficit. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican, is hoping to avoid more cuts to education by using rainy-day funds to deal with a nearly $1.5 billion deficit, which grew earlier this month as state economists ratcheted down their revenue expectations. And Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, a Republican, is recommending a 2 percent cut in K-12 funding to help close a $1.6 billion budget gap.

California, meanwhile, was in meltdown mode as of last week, with a $15.2 billion budget deficit and lawmakers at an impasse as Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger sought a new budget plan.

Economic Cycle

Many education officials who have been in the business for decades point out that the economy is cyclical, and enduring rough fiscal times is part of the job. The recession earlier this decade prompted 34 states to cut K-12 education between 2002 and 2004, according to the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Though states may have rebounded, a report by the SREB shows that, at least in southern states, growth in funding has been minimal. Adjusted for inflation and student growth, per-pupil funding in the region has only grown by 1 percent from 2000 to 2005, according to the SREB.

The early 1990s downturn, which is similar to today’s in that it was sparked by a credit crisis and drop in real estate values, prompted states such as Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, and North Carolina to cut school funding by as much as 6.5 percent, according to the SREB.

And the energy crisis in the early 1970s prompted schools in New Mexico to try something school districts are discussing now, some 30 years later—a four-day school week.

This time, however, officials point out that there are big disparities in the fiscal health of the states. While states such as Florida and California have been hit particularly hard by the housing market slump, energy-rich states such as Alaska and Wyoming are profiting from high fuel prices and socking away billions of dollars in reserves.

This downturn may also be different because no single revenue source appears to be the culprit, as many tax categories—from personal and corporate income, to gas taxes, to sales tax—are slumping, according to Corina Eckl, a fiscal expert with the Denver-based NCSL.

Also, the problem isn’t just with revenue, but with inflation, too, as the price of everything from fuel and clothing to food and textbooks is increasing, according to the most recent update of the Consumer Price Index. At the same time, teacher wages—which are driven by factors governed by contract negotiations—have not spiked as much as prices have.

Still, revenue remains the biggest problem, according to Herb Garrett, the executive director of the Georgia School Superintendents Association.

“You can always go back and raise lunch prices. You can severely curtail field trips and sub-varsity sports,” Mr. Garrett said. “The problem with this downturn is the timing—this downturn seemed to come on much faster. School districts have already set their budgets and their local revenue.”

As a result, many Georgia school districts sent out layoff notices to teachers in case the districts need to reduce their teaching staff as they scrambled to figure out how to cut about 2 percent from their budgets, as Gov. Perdue is proposing. And, Mr. Garrett added, state officials are warning that an additional 1 percent cut could come later this school year.

Ms. Gaines, of the SREB, pointed out that unlike in the early 1990s, when many states raised taxes to help with the economic downturn, legislatures seem far more reluctant to do so now.

Maryland was one of the few states to raise sales and corporate taxes last year to help deal with the budget deficit, which helped spare K-12 education from budget cuts. Approving tax increases is politically difficult at any time, but especially in a pivotal election year like this one.

“There’s no possible way we can raise another tax,” said Maryland State Sen. Nancy J. King, a Democrat, at a July meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures, which featured a more than hourlong session on how to fund education in tough budget times. Instead, she said, “we will just be cutting services.”

No Longer Immune

Public schools are a sacred spending category in state budgets and typically are one of the last programs to be cut. But even states that have tried to spare school districts from cuts warn that their immunity is running out.

“We have held public education harmless from the effects of the slowing economy, and as a result, school divisions are about to begin a new school year with significant increases in state funding over the prior year,” Virginia’s Gov. Kaine told legislative fiscal committees last week, referring to two previous rounds of budget cuts. “The need to engage in a third major round of budget reductions will mean, by necessity, that all programs—including those previously held harmless—and all available strategies will be on the table for review.”

Across the country, one of the education programs that’s grown exponentially in dollars and enrollment since the last economic downturn is prekindergarten, especially for at-risk students, which is thought to save states money down the road in terms of remediation and even prison costs. For this fiscal year, 34 states increased their pre-K funding levels over fiscal 2008—and seven states were well on their way to phasing in pre-K for all students, according to the Washington-based advocacy group Pre-K Now.

With tighter budgets, pre-K funding could be a target for cuts or could see slower growth. In Tennessee, for example, Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, wanted to spend an additional $22 million this fiscal year to add prekindergarten classes, but had to back away in the face of a mounting deficit that was $468 million in June, or nearly 5 percent of the overall state budget.

As pre-K advocates see it, sometimes the best-case scenario is to maintain a program’s funding level.

“Even though state budgets are no doubt tighter this year ... the vast majority of political leadership sees pre-K as a smart investment strategy,” said Stephanie Rubin, the state program director for Pre-K Now.

Top-Down Pain

With talk of education cuts, most attention falls to their impact on school districts, but state education departments are taking a hit, too. New York, Rhode Island, and South Carolina, among others, have seen cuts in their education agency budgets over the last school year, which has translated into fewer personnel providing assistance to school districts.

Jim Rex, South Carolina’s superintendent of education, froze hiring and cut travel in light of the budget situation. And now he has to figure out how to cut 3 percent from K-12 school funding, as ordered by the state’s Budget and Control Board.

Mr. Rex, in a conference call to reporters earlier this month, said he’s hashing out those plans now, along with a proposal to revamp how the state funds schools overall. Regardless, he said, this year is “going to be a real struggle for our schools.”
 
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While parents pack lunches and students pack bookbags, teachers in Texas town pack heat
Angela K. Brown, Associated Press, 8/26/08

HARROLD, Texas - Along with normal first-day jitters and excitement, students in this tiny district started school Monday wondering which teachers might be toting firearms.

"It was kind of awkward knowing that some teachers were carrying guns," said Adam Lira, 17, a senior. "I don't feel like they should be, 'cause we already have locked doors and cameras. But I didn't feel threatened by it."

Several parents said they had no idea that employees of the K-12 school were allowed to carry concealed guns on campus until recent publicity about the school board's policy, approved quietly last fall. They said they were upset that the rural community near the Oklahoma border had not been able to give input.

While some parents said they felt their children were safer, others opposed the plan, which appears to be the first of its kind nationwide.

"As far as I'm concerned, teachers were trained to educate my children — not carry a gun. Even police officers need years of training in hostage situations," said Traci McKay, whose three children are among the 110 students in the red-brick Harrold school. "I don't want my child looking over her shoulder wondering who's carrying a gun."

But Harrold Superintendent David Thweatt said the board approved the policy in an October open meeting that had been publicized. He said the decision was made after nearly two years of researching the best school security options at the school, which is just off a busy highway and 30 minutes away from the sheriff's office.

"When you outlaw guns in a certain area, the only people who follow that are law-abiding citizens, and everybody else ignores it," Thweatt said.

The superintendent said some of the school's 50 employees are carrying weapons, but he wouldn't say how many. When pressed further, he first said that revealing that number might jeopardize school security. He then added that he considered it to be personnel information and not a matter of public record.

Each employee who wants to carry a weapon first must be approved by the board based on his or her personality and reaction to a crisis, Thweatt said. In addition to training required for a state concealed weapons license, they also must be trained to handle crisis intervention and hostage situations.

State education officials said they did not know of any other Texas schools allowing teachers to carry guns. National security experts and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence said they did not know of other U.S. schools with such a policy.

School districts in some states, including Florida and Arizona, have closed loopholes that allowed guns on K-12 campuses. Utah allows concealed weapons at public universities but not at primary or secondary schools.

Thweatt said the board took extra precautions, such as requiring employees to use bullets that will minimize the risk of ricochet, similar to those used by air marshals on planes.

"I can lead them from a fire, tornado and toxic spill; we have plans in place for that. I cannot lead them from an active shooter," Thweatt said. "There are people who are going to think this is extreme, but it's easy to defend."

Judy Priz, who has a third-grade daughter, said that "everyone I've talked to thinks it's great." She said she trusts the teachers with her child's life.

"Look how long it takes the police or anybody else to get here," she told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram for a story in its Monday online edition. "If someone wants to come here and harm someone, at least we would have sort of defense."

Gov. Rick Perry has said he supports the policy because "there's a lot of incidents where that would have saved a number of lives."

The Brady Center has spoken out against the plan, saying it may not comply with Texas law, which bans firearms at schools unless carriers have given written permission. If the school board authorizes an employee to carry a gun, then that person must be a peace officer, according to the center.

"It's unfair of us to ask teachers to take on the additional job of being police officers," said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign.

Cheryl Mehl, an attorney for the Harrold school district, said the statute the Brady Center cites applies only to security guards, not teachers and other employees. The district has no security guards.
 
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===========================================================================

NATIONAL - NCLB

Revamp No Child Left Behind, but keep accountability
Great Falls Tribune Editorial, 8/20/08
 
It's clear that reform of the federal No Child Left Behind program is high on many agendas in this election year.

Both presumptive presidential nominees advocate changes, for example, though their specific proposals differ.

Nowhere are the calls for reform louder than from the education community itself.

Little wonder.

The program aimed at increasing schools' performance by annually testing the students is inadequately funded, too narrowly focused, unfair to entire schools and districts that are labeled as "failures" because of performance of small groups of students, and sets teacher credentialing standards that are impossible for many districts to meet. Oh, and did we mention that it's underfunded?

And at the end of the failure road are requirements for alternatives that, for a rural state such as Montana, would be funny if they weren't right there in black and white in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

"Alternatives" aren't practical when the closest alternative school is an hour's drive away. And worst of all is the ultimate NCLB goal of 100 percent student proficiency in math and reading by 2014. It's a worthy as a goal, but no one thinks reaching it is possible.

All the same, with that end in mind Montana has done a good job of raising the bar incrementally so that schools at least have a chance of making "adequate yearly progress" in the interim.

State Superintendent Linda McCulloch makes no bones about her opposition to many of NCLB's particulars.

While her office administers the program statewide, it also is at the center of an effort to reform the act — even to the point of issuing a letter to the congressional delegation listing what she called the seven deadly sins of NCLB.

Signed by her and the heads of seven other education organizations, the letter lists seven "common sense guidelines" that the new education act should include, and it concludes:

"As education entities, we often disagree among ourselves on important matters because of our different perspectives.

"However, we are unanimous in our view of how NCLB is detrimental to Montana education, and on the general guidelines that congress should use to reauthorize ESEA next year to be helpful to public education in Montana and the country."

We're not sure we'd go so far as to call the entire NCLB "detrimental to Montana education," but aspects are harmful, and there's ample of room for improving it.

NCLB was a centerpiece of the Bush agenda shortly after he took office, so it seems likely that a new president and Congress will attempt to put their stamps on it. The upcoming reauthorization of the education act is an opportunity to make NCLB helpfulto Montana education — and students.

Many educators criticize the act as an intrusion on local control of education, and to the extent that it fails to consider the needs of rural states and focuses on punishment rather than incentives, we'd agree.

But some level of accountability for the nation's schools — so that all children have an equal opportunity for a high quality education — is not too much to ask.
 
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The real master: Utah kids are top priority, not NCLB
Salt Lake Tribune Editorial, 8/20/08

Did Utah public schools make the grade last school year? If the standard for "making the grade" is the federal No Child Left Behind law, nobody knows.
   
That's because the State Office of Education won't publicize the results of last year's testing, and whether the scores meet NCLB standards, until Sept. 30, after schools have had 30 days to appeal the results.
   
That defeats the purpose of NCLB. But then, that purpose is more about undermining public schools than about helping them. NCLB requires that schools receiving federal funds that don't fulfill annual yearly progress criteria for two years must offer to bus children to another school, at no cost to families. That drains funds from struggling schools.
   
Parents aren't likely to switch schools after their children have started the year and are beginning to settle in with a teacher and schedule. But even in a state where reports come out months earlier, very few parents switch. Only about 2 percent of eligible students nationwide chose to be bused in the 2006-07 school year.
   
Utah education officials are not apologizing. They explain that as long as students are tested in the final weeks of the school year, results will be released to the public after the following school year has started.
   
Utah's tests are designed to assess what children have learned over the course of the year, and analyzing such a huge amount of data takes time. We understand that. And, frankly, we're not too concerned that being tardy violates the intent of NCLB: to get children out of schools that are "failing" by NCLB's definition.
   
"Failure" is relative. Under NCLB's draconian rules, schools can be categorized as failing if only one student has a sub-standard test score in any one of 40 categories. Few of the 225 "failing" Utah schools missed the mark across the board. Most only failed in one category, and 665 schools reached the federal standard in all 40 categories.
   
We agree with the Legislature when it voted a few years ago that Utah should follow its own standards and policies when they conflict with NCLB.
   
Testing - how, when and how often to do it, and whether it takes too much time away from teaching - is a hot topic. Utah education officials should decide what's best for Utah children and stick to it, regardless of NCLB.
 
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Bush education law: shift ahead?
No Child Left Behind Act could be overhauled by a new president and Congress next year.
By Stacy Teicher Khadaroo, Christian Science Monitor Staff Writer, 8/21/08
 
This could be the last back-to-school season for No Child Left Behind.

President Bush's signature domestic law took effect in 2002 with bipartisan support. It was a watershed in American education: Suddenly the goal line had moved from all children attending school to all students achieving "proficiency." And by requiring that English and math scores be reported by categories such as income and race, it spotlighted achievement gaps.

But the debates over how best to measure proficiency and close the gaps have been fierce – to the point that they've delayed the act's reauthorization, which was due last year. Changes to the law – and perhaps even its name – are now expected to wait until after a new president and Congress settle in next year.

Still, dozens of proposals for changes to NCLB have already surfaced on Capitol Hill. Some would tweak individual parts of the massive law, others would incorporate feedback put out by educational organizations, and still others would remove the law's teeth by allowing states to opt out.

One thing educators and policymakers can agree on: It's important to find ways to help students and schools that have fallen behind. "Because of NCLB, we are able now to identify those schools that are low-performing ... and it's going to be time to really roll up our sleeves and turn around those low-performing schools," says Joan Wodiska, who directs the committee overseeing education issues for the National Governors Association. "We've learned a lot over the past few years about what works and where there are hiccups in the law, and what we need … to meet the mission of the law."

Public opinion about the law is split, with about one-third of Americans seeing NCLB favorably, one-third unfavorably, and the remainder not knowing enough to weigh in, according to an annual poll released Thursday by Gallup and Phi Delta Kappa International (PDK), an education association in Bloomington, Ind.

Educational accountability is popular, says Paul Peterson, director of the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. "The public is very supportive of accountability in principle … but in the NCLB practice [of it], their support is sliding." About 50 percent of Americans favor renewing NCLB with minimal changes or as it is, down from 57 percent last year, his organization found in a survey conducted with Education Next, a journal published by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in California. (The wording of questions in this poll was different from that in the poll by Gallup and PDK.)

NCLB requires yearly gains in test scores for each subgroup of students in schools and districts, with the goal of 100 percent proficiency in math and reading by 2014. If schools fail to make "adequate yearly progress" over time, they must offer tutoring and allow students to transfer to better-performing schools. Eventually such schools become slated for corrective action, such as replacing some of the staff or restructuring the entire school.

Many groups have called for the law's accountability system to be refined or overhauled.

One possible change gaining popularity is the use of "growth models." These offer a way to track the progress of individual students over the course of a school year, which advocates say is fairer to schools and more useful for teachers and students.

The National Education Association (NEA), the largest teachers' union in the United States, has called for states to be allowed to use such growth models for federal accountability. It also wants multiple measures of student achievement, not just standardized tests.

Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has allowed 10 states to test growth models. This is just one of the efforts she's made in recent years to respond to criticisms of NCLB and infuse it with more flexibility.

Because the current system places so much weight on whether students score at the proficient level as defined by each state, some states have tended to lower proficiency standards at least slightly, Professor Peterson says. That practice would fade if the law had a better measuring stick of student progress, he says, "and pressures would build to hold teachers accountable as well."

The federal government should give incentives for states to work together to develop common standards, say groups such as the Alliance for Excellent Education in Washington. The alliance, which advocates the improvement of high schools, has also called for a revised law to place more weight on boosting graduation rates.

For civil rights organizations, NCLB's key role has been the push to narrow achievement gaps. "Efforts are now being made to upgrade teaching in the poorest schools in the country, and that's critical to improving the status and the opportunities for children of color," says William Taylor, vice chair of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, a Washington-based coalition of about 180 groups.

New York City is one district that's been making progress. Proficiency rates in math rose from 57 percent last year to 74 percent this year, and the gap between the math scores of fourth-grade African-American and white students narrowed by 16 percentage points, according to testimony by schools Chancellor Joel Klein at a hearing on Capitol Hill this summer.

Still, accomplishing the wide range of goals embodied in NCLB will require significantly more federal funding, say some members of Congress and groups such as the NEA. Early on, Mr. Bush increased education funding significantly. It's gone up about 78 percent since 2001, according to the US Department of Education. But that hasn't kept up with what the law has called for, says Rachel Racusen, a spokeswoman for Rep. George Miller (D) of California, who chairs the House Education and Labor Committee. The cumulative shortfall since 2002 is $85.6 billion, she says.

For public-school officials, one big question is whether a revised law will shift the balance of power back toward them. NCLB "really put the federal government in the driver's seat regarding daily operations of schools in a way it had never been," says Bruce Hunter, chief lobbyist for the American Association of School Administrators in Arlington, Va.

"Some people [in Washington] … have no understanding of how unhappy teachers, principals, superintendents, and school board members are," Mr. Hunter says. He attributes the unhappiness partly to parents' and teachers' growing resentment of the testing culture and the way it has narrowed curriculum. "People do not want to throw out the idea of universal proficiency," he says, but "that steam is building up and is going to get released when we finally begin the reauthorization."

Although presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama have begun to talk about their views on education, neither has yet released a detailed proposal for revising NCLB.

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Take Your Spirit to School
Column by Timothy Shriver, Washington Post, 8/25/08

For millions of Americans, it's back-to-school time--that confusing mix of excitement and anxiety. Anticipation, fear, uncertainty, opportunity--they're all wrapped up in the first days back.

It's time for schools to pay serious attention to these emotional pressures, on display particularly during back-to-school, but also part of daily life all year round. We're living in times of enormous stress and complexity, and our kids are just as vulnerable to being stressed out as the rest of us. That stress can in turn produce some of the most difficult behavior problems--bullying, alcohol and drug abuse, depression, and more.

In the national debate on education, very little attention has been given to issues such as the social, emotional, and even spiritual development of children. We've been fixated on the academic issues, on standards and testing. The era of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the signature legislation of the Bush administration, has been all about high expectations in reading and math.

I'm not one to criticize the importance of academic learning. The problem isn't that NCLB has emphasized academics; it's that it has created a climate that devalues everything else. And no matter how important test scores may be, they're not as important as the child.

To teach the whole child is to engage not just the mind but the heart. The latest brain research suggests that emotions drive attention and attention drives learning. Children under too much stress may therefore be biologically unable to pay attention in class--their emotions may hijack their capacity to absorb information. A child whose heart is not in class is unlikely to have a mind there either.

In the past, educators have been wary of that kind of talk, thinking it would lead to church/state problems or untested "feel-good" curricula. But today's educators have new tools at their disposal--highly sophisticated curricula that engage the social and emotional pathways of development while also advancing academic learning.

In many cases, social and emotional learning programs can engage the spirit as well. If we're looking for a word that could allow educators to nurture the spiritual life and not cross the line to religion, "compassion" might be a good place to start. According to Dr. Mark Greenberg of Penn State, compassion includes sensitivity, responsiveness, openmindedness, and empathy. Compassion leads to a recognition of our common humanity.

Can compassion be taught? Increasingly, yes. Scholars have applied the most rigorous scientific standards to studying programming in this area and found many efforts that lead to safer, happier kids. Some devote lessons to active, deep listening, the art of listening without judgment so that a person feels fully understood. Other programs teach empathy, forgiveness and silence. Values such as truth-telling and responsibility are brought to life through literature. Service to others and to community can be a living laboratory for compassionate action.

And new programs are coming along all the time. Greenberg, for example, is developing a curriculum devoted to the study of role models of compassion--profiles of Nobel Peace Prize winners. When kids see leaders who have been honored for their work in healing and unity, they learn not only the history of peaceful action but also the possibility of finding their own pathway to a purposeful life.

These types of efforts should give us hope for a future where our children can go back to school and feel not only challenged but also supported and valued; not only taught but listened to; not only able to function in society but also able to live full and meaningful lives. This is not about displaying the Ten Commandments or reciting prayers. It's about making schools places that allow the spiritual gifts of each child to flourish. Nothing is more true to the heart of what it means to educate a child.

In a time of spiritual awakening, our kids shouldn't be the last ones to learn that it's okay to express spiritual hunger and to develop the gift of compassion. The next great era of education reform may well be centered on these very issues, and if it is, the improvements in schools that have so far proved elusive, particularly for the most vulnerable children, may finally emerge.
 
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