Education Program
This Week in Education
June 19 - June 25, 2008
Highlighted Bills of the Week
(Powered by State Net)
|
Rhode Island- (SB 2806) Passed Senate |
This bill would require local school committees to pay and provide for the education of children with disabilities placed in private schools. |
|
Florida-(HB 623)- Enacted
|
This bill requires each district school board, beginning with the 2010-2011 school year, to expand the School Breakfast Program (currently required in elementary schools) to all middle and high schools. The bill directs each school district, beginning with the 2009-2010 school year, to annually set prices for breakfast meals which cover the costs of the breakfast meals. Each school district is also required to annually provide students and parents with information about the district’s School Breakfast Program. By the 2009-2010 school year, a school must make a breakfast available for a student who arrives at school on the school bus less than 15 minutes before the first bell rings. In addition, the school must allow the student at least 15 minutes to eat the breakfast. The Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability (OPPAGA) is directed, by January 15, 2009, to issue a report that estimates the implementation costs of universal-free school breakfast. |
|
This Week in Education
June 19 - June 25, 2008
K-12
Experts Urge Longer Day to Raise Scores
To improve middle schools, a Maryland education panel proposed yesterday giving students more class time, ensuring they are ready to complete algebra by eighth grade and enrolling them in a foreign language course by sixth grade.
To Avoid Student Turnover, Parents Get Rent Help
In some of Flint’s elementary schools, half or more of the students change in the course of a school year — in one school it reached 75 percent in 2003. The moves are usually linked to low, unstable incomes, inadequate housing and chaotic lives, and the recent rash of foreclosures on landlords is adding to the problem, forcing renters from their homes. The resulting classroom turmoil led the State Department of Human Services to start an unusual experiment, paying some parents $100 a month in rent subsidies to help them stay put — a rare effort to address the damaging turnover directly.
House proposal aims to help students meet tough standards
Legislation introduced Wednesday in the state House would provide more flexibility for struggling students to take a less-stringent course toward meeting the state's tough new graduation requirements. Rep. Hoon-Yung Hopgood, D-Taylor, who chairs a House subcommittee that is looking into growing concerns about students struggling with rigorous math mandates, described the legislation as a "work in progress." But he said it could evolve to include changes in the kind of math classes students must take to graduate.
Kids who need preschool the most aren't enrolled
Low income and minority children could benefit most from quality preschool, but a new report finds that they're least likely to be enrolled in good early development programs. In a report released Wednesday by the RAND California Preschool Study, researchers estimate that only 15 percent of those who could benefit most are in high-quality programs that prepare them for success in K-12.
Leadership
Schools 'timebomb' as 55% of heads near retirement
Up to 55% of British head-teachers could retire within four years, according to the government's chief adviser on school leadership who says schools are facing a "demographic time bomb" in the staff room.
Advice to a New Principal
Kim, an educator in the rural Southeast, recently accepted a principal’s job at a small K-3 school. Her first impulse was to turn to her virtual colleagues in the Teacher Leaders Network Forum for teacherly advice. What, Kim asked, would teacher leaders like to say to a first-time principal coming to their school? “What do y’all wish I would know, do, think about, or act upon as a new principal? Pick any verb you like.” The common themes that emerged won’t surprise teachers, but perhaps they’ll inspire some current and future principals.
School Choice
Bill Would Give District Control of Charter Board
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton has introduced a bill that would give the District of Columbia full oversight over the D.C. Charter School Board.
Charter school freeze to end
A moratorium on opening new charter schools is expected to quietly expire next week, clearing the way for more of the alternative public schools to open in coming years. There are several charter school proposals before the state Department of Education, but no new schools will open this fall because of a lack of state financing.
In defense of home schooling
Advocates urged a state appellate court Monday to overturn a decision that severely restricted the ability of California parents to educate their children at home, saying family-based schooling works for hundreds of thousands of children. A Feb. 28 ruling by the 2nd District Court of Appeal barred parents from home schooling their children unless they have teaching credentials. Supporters of home schooling say the decision, if upheld, would make California the most restrictive of the 50 states on the issue and turn thousands of parents into outlaws.
Governance
Troubles? CPS finalists had 'em
Both finalists to become the next Cincinnati schools superintendent are hoping to flee long-running political fights that climaxed just days before they announced their resignations. Donnie Evans is leaving Providence, R.I. after calls from City Council for him to resign and a no-confidence vote from the district’s teachers union.
Dallas mayor's focus on schools seen as plus
Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert acknowledges that his public education projects won't by themselves slash the city's dropout rate or dramatically boost literacy.
New kind of school passes first test
Experimental concepts like longer school days and 10-month academic years may be coming to Rhode Island with the advent of “mayoral academies” a new class of public schools free from union structures.
STEM
Continued Growth for 2 Distance Ed Models
Two unique models of providing distance education to mainly nontraditional students are coming into their own, each showing a healthy expansion of enrollments and growth in available course offerings. One, the Online Consortium of Independent Colleges & Universities, has been enlarging since its inception, while the other, Western Governors University, faced years of skepticism from critics who said its ambitious goals would never be met.
Visitor counts for this page.
 Education Home Page
|
