Education Program
This Week in Education
July 10- July 16, 2008
Highlighted Bills of the Week
(Powered by State Net)
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Louisiana- (SB 701)-Enacted
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Provides for integrated case management through the use of "No Wrong Door”. SB 701 relates to student achievement, truancy intervention, drop out prevention, and early childhood care. It requires the Secretaries for the Department of Health and Hospitals, the Department of Social Services, the Department of Labor, the Department of Public Safety and Corrections and the Superintendent of Education to guide the implementation of service delivery integration designed to meet the needs of disadvantaged children and families. Further, it requires the state officials to identify targeted outcome results of service integration and to attain regular measures of performance relative to the targeted outcomes of service integration. |
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Kansas -(SB 669)- Enacted
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This bill provides for requirements for virtual schools in regard to virtual school teacher training. SB 669 provides for funds for virtual schools and provides for counting of a pupil attending a virtual school and a regular school. In addition, pupils enrolled in a district but housed in a psychiatric residential treatment facility shall not be counted. |
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This Week in Education
July 10 - July 16, 2008
K-12
New Vision for Schools Proposes Broad Role
Randi Weingarten, the New Yorker who is rising to become president of the American Federation of Teachers, says she wants to replace President Bush’s focus on standardized testing with a vision of public schools as community centers that help poor students succeed by offering not only solid classroom lessons but also medical and other services.
Md. Scores In Reading, Math Show Big Strides
Maryland's march toward the goal of having all students reach grade level in reading and math gained momentum today with the release of test scores that show surprisingly strong gains in those subjects, especially among disadvantaged students.
State to make student test scores accessible online
Soon, teachers and parents may be able to more easily analyze student test scores. And it will only take the touch of a few buttons. The state has decided to award $7.5 million to DigitalBridge to create the statewide data system lawmakers called for in 2007. The system will allow teachers and parents to track online their children's test scores, the test scores of their children's classrooms and those of other classrooms and schools, said Patti Harrington, state superintendent. School transcripts also will be kept electronically so they can be transferred more easily between schools when children move.
Garrett pushes time management for educators
"Time reform in Oklahoma is about increasing the quality and eventually the quantity of instructional time," State School Superintendent Sandy Garrett said.
K-12 Governance
State schools superintendent candidates must be wooed, headhunter says
Serious candidates will have to meet a set of prerequisites. So far, the search firm has interviewed 54 people -- Gov. Ted Strickland, legislative and business leaders, education groups, teachers union representatives and others -- to help fashion a final list of those prerequisites.
Rhode Island to Allow Mayors to Charter Schools (Edweek.org)
Rhode Island has enacted legislation permitting the creation of “mayoral academies”—public charter schools overseen by a group of municipal leaders and intended to serve a diverse student population regionwide.
Panel studies role of state's school boards
Whether Georgia school board members should be paid less, or at all, was debated at a meeting in Macon on Tuesday by members of a new task force charged with studying ways to make school boards more effective.
Education Finance
Budget woes force cuts in summer - school programs
From coast to coast, tough financial conditions are forcing school districts and nonprofit groups to cut back on summer programs that are widely viewed as invaluable to both struggling and superior students.
Leadership
School chiefs in state increasingly on the move
The Oklahoma City School District has one of the higher turnover rates in the state, with the average superintendent lasting 2.2 years. Tulsa, the state's largest district, keeps superintendents about 3.1 years.
States Must Take the Lead in Improving School Leadership (Edweek.org)
Research shows that in education, leadership is second only to classroom instruction among the school-related factors that influence student achievement. States are the key actors in setting school-leadership policy. Yet few of them have offered adequate support to principals in addressing the new school challenges.
Some D.C. Principals Credit Rhee for Big Gains in Test Scores
Principals at some D.C. schools that demonstrated a dramatic increase on this year's student achievement test credit the gains to programs they implemented after a push from Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee.
School Choice
Charter school battle in L.A.
Los Angeles Unified officials are considering opening as many as five long-closed school sites in the San Fernando Valley to house hundreds of charter school students.
Districts spend more on cyber schools as enrollment grows
Some districts in Pennsylvania are seeing an increasing number of local students choosing to attend public cyber charter schools. Districts pay public charter schools the same amount it costs to educate a student in the district, but are reimbursed by the state for about 30 percent of the tuition costs. District officials say the increasing popularity of the schools means they lose thousands of dollars per student, but still have to pay the same amount of teachers and maintain the same amount of buildings and programs for other students.
Charter Schools Get the Test Scores Up
Village Academies founder Deborah Kenny is racking up remarkable successes with young black and Latino students in New York's Harlem.
Judge dismisses home-schooling credentials case
A California family court has dismissed a legal case against a home-schooling couple that sparked a controversial ruling banning most California parents from teaching their children at home. Legal experts are divided on whether the family-court ruling will affect the outcome of a still-pending appeal of the ruling on whether parents without teaching credentials can school their children at home.
STEM
Alabama Distance Learning Rolls Out Statewide for 2009-2010
Alabama is aiming for a first. All high schools in the state will have distance learning programs beginning in the 2009-2010 school year, including videoconferencing and Web-based learning tools, according to information released this week by Alabama Gov. Bob Riley and State Superintendent of Education Joe Morton.
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