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--- Wednesday --- July 10, 1996 --- Vol. 6 --- No. 60 ---
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THE NATIONAL UPDATE ON AMERICA'S EDUCATION REFORM EFFORTS
A service of the National Education Goals Panel
__________ __________
"BECOMING THE BEST" | SPOTLIGHT |
The Council of the Great City | |
Schools released a new report | A FAUSTIAN BARGAIN? |
that focuses on the status of | |
standards development in the | Shelby Steele, a black |
country's urban schools. | professor and author of |
"Becoming the Best -- Standards | "The Content of Our |
and Assessment Development in | Character," fretted that |
the Great City Schools" | his children would face a |
concludes that the efforts of | Faustian bargain if admit- |
urban schools "to develop | ted to college on the back |
standards are on par with state | of affirmative action. "The |
and national efforts." Thirty- | effect of preferential |
six big-city school districts | treatment ... puts blacks |
responded to the survey. The | at war with an expanded |
report contains city-by-city | realm of debilitating |
profiles of standards and | doubt, ... [which] under- |
assessment development efforts, | mines their ability to |
state profiles and other | perform. |
resources. Copies of the | |
report are available $19.95 | Well, worry no more. |
plus $1.50/shipping by calling | Affirmative action suffer- |
202/393-2427. | ed a damaging blow by the |
| U.S. Supreme Court, when it |
OFF TO JAIL | refused to hear the U of |
... are Ill. parents who | Texas case, which left |
sneak their chidlren into a | intact a lower court's |
school district they are not | order to outlaw race as a |
permitted to attend (Campbell, | factor in the admission |
Chicago SUN-TIMES, 6/24). Gov. | process. (#4) And at the |
Bob Edgar (R) signed a bill | K-12 level, busing was |
that makes the act a | abolished with no more than |
misdemeanor, "punishable by a | a whimper in Orange County, |
$500 fine or up to 30 days in | Fla. (#7) |
jail," writes the paper. |_____________________________|
============== QUOTE OF THE DAY ==============
"If we don't lead, we will be led." -- Danbury, Conn., teacher
Bob Chase, newly elected President of the National Education
Association. (#9)
_______________________________________________________________
| A service of the National Education Goals Panel |
| Published by the Education Policy Network |
| 1255 22nd Street NW; Wash, D.C.; 20037; 202/632-0952 |
| The DRC hereby authorizes further reproduction and |
| distribution with proper acknowledgement. |
| Publisher: Barbara A. Pape |
|
|_______________________________________________________________|
============== TABLE OF CONTENTS ==============
CITY HALL
ON THE ROAD TO CHANGE: Vallas' plan for failing schools. (#1)
HIGHER EDUCATION
U OF CALIFORNIA: New admissions criteria emerges. (#2)
CHARTING A NEW COURSE
DEBORAH MEIER: Opening new school in Boston. (#3)
FROM COURTHOUSE TO SCHOOLHOUSE
SUPREME COURT'S REQUIEM FOR AFFIRMATIVE ACTION?: No action.(#4)
ORDERS FROM ABOVE: Pa. Supreme Court sends edict to Smith.(#5)
SEE YOU IN COURT: Districts sue state over funding. (#6)
NO FIREWORKS: The end of busing in Orange County. (#7)
SHEFF V. O'NEILL: Conn. Supreme Court issues ruling. (#8)
UNION NEWS
NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION: New leader takes charge. (#9)
BYTES AND PIECES
CABLE GUY: Coming to a school near you. (#10)
==== CITY HALL ====
*1 ON THE ROAD TO CHANGE: VALLAS' PLAN FOR FAILING SCHOOLS
Paul Vallas, the Chicago schools chief executive officer,
criticized the city's public schools as being "too big, hav[ing]
irrelevant and unconnected curriculum, ignor[ing] the needs of
students interested in vocational education and gifted students
both." He unveiled his plan to overhaul schools he deems are
failing students (Oclander, Chicago SUN TIMES, 6/26).
Vallas intends to put more than a dozen schools on probation
by the end of this month, after a series of public hearings.
While on probation, the school board could remove a principal or
teachers, dismiss the local school council or "reconstitute the
school from scratch," if problems are not fixed by the end of the
probation period, explained Vallas, writes the paper.
"The way we teach in huge, unmanageable high schools today
creates an impersonal environment, which discourages students,"
said Vallas. "Students go from [an elementary school] where a
teacher may have been responsible for them to a system where they
go from one lecture to another." He also complained of a
curriculum that is "unconnected to what students learned
earlier," writes the paper.
Under his plan, freshmen and sophomore students would be
separated from juniors and seniors in schools-within-schools.
The younger students would be able to spend more time with
teachers and their curriculum would focus on achieving basic
skills.
Vallas also proposes introducing new methods for teaching
both vocational and college-bound students. For example,
vocational students would be able to enroll in classes offered by
the City Colleges of Chicago, private technical institutions and
private firms, reports the SUN TIMES. College-bound students
could take classes at universities throughout the city.
Another aspect of Vallas' plan is to require students in
grades 3, 2 and 8 who are not at grade level to attend summer
school. "The goal is not to promote anyone who is more than one
year behind," explained Vallas.
The school board is expected to vote on Vallas' $2.9B budget
on 24 July.
In order to make his plan a reality, Vallas supports a
property tax increase for Chicago homeowners (Rossi, Chicago SUN
TIMES, 6/24). "We know this is going to be controversial," he
said. "We're trying to strike a balance between a bare-bones
budget and giving our children what they need." The school board
is expected to approve of the taxing plan.
===== HIGHER EDUCATION =====
*2 U OF CALIFORNIA: NEW ADMISSIONS CRITERIA EMERGES
New guidelines for admitting students to the U of California
are being reviewed by the Board of Regents (Lynch and Lembke,
EDUCATION BEAT, 6/28). Last year, the regents abolished
affirmative action policies in admission, hiring and contracting.
The new guidelines do not mention race or gender and the
minimal admissions criteria includes more than the three
previously used by the system -- grade point average, test scores
and classes taken. For example, students could get credit for an
academic record that improves over the years, for high level of
achievement during their senior year and for performing "well in
an academic environment that offers few opportunities," writes
the newsletter.
While race and gender are excluded as criteria, the proposed
guidelines allow campuses to include as supplemental criteria
whether the applicant is the first family member to attend
college or has a "difficult family situation." From ED BEAT:
"Each campus can pick and choose among the various admissions
criteria, determining how much weight to give to each factor
within the accepted percentages."
ED BEAT also notes a battle brewing between faculty and
administrators over who controls admission policy. U of
California President Richard Atkinson appointed the task force of
faculty, administrators and students who drafted the proposed
admission guidelines. Atkinson holds that administrators and
regents possess "all but a small sliver of control over the
admission process," writes ED BEAT. Specifically, faculty only
control the minimal academic standards while regents and
administrators control all supplemental criteria.
However, President Emeritus Clark Kerr claims that the board
of regents some time ago granted such authority to the faculty.
He counters that faculty have the authority to determine
supplemental and minimum admissions standards "because of
longstanding practice," writes ED BEAT.
Whoever in the end holds the authority, decisions will be
based on a wider array of factors than in the past," concludes ED
BEAT.
===== CHARTING A NEW COURSE =====
*3 DEBORAH MEIER: OPENING NEW SCHOOL IN BOSTON
Although Boston school Superintendent Thomas Payzant said
the idea is still in the "conversation" stage, talk of education
reformer Deborah Meier opening a charter school is electrifying
Boston educators (Avenoso, BOSTON GLOBE, 7/4). Meier earned her
reform fame as the mastermind of New York's Central Park East
Elementary school. "My roots are as a kindergarten teacher,"
said Meier. "And that's what I really want to go back to," she
said in an interview with the GLOBE.
Meier's Boston charter school proposal would open with about
100 five-year-olds, eventually extending to 6th or 8th grade.
However, her school would enroll no more than 300 students, notes
the paper. According to the GLOBE, Meier also would establish a
partnership with the Center for Collaborative Education, a Boston
education reform group, to create a network of pilot schools to
"explore good teaching, share ideas and make people more
accountable," Meier told the GLOBE.
Educators citywide expressed enthusiasm over the possible
arrival of Meier. "She definitely influences my work already,
and it would be nice to have someone who shares our vision and
doesn't give reasons why things can't happen but why they can,"
said Dawn Lewis, principal of the Young Achievers Science & Math
Pilot School in Roxbury.
Linda Nathan, co-director of the Fenway Middle College Pilot
High School: "This puts us on the cutting edge and says that
because of our great conditions in Boston, we are the Renaissance
city, the one that truly understands education."
Neil Sullivan, executive director of the Boston Private
Industry Council, lauds Meier as an educator "who has had more
influence on American education over the last 15 years." He also
said "she's not interested in teaching other people to teach, she
does it herself."
"What Debbie brings is not a pie-in-the-sky idea about how
the world should be better but a real school with real kids in a
real neighborhood," said Jerome T. Murphy, dean of Harvard U's
School of Education. However, Murphy cautioned that "the danger
would be to say, 'OK, we've got the key people here, so now
everything is going to be solved overnight.'"
Meier left Central Park East Elementary school in 1994 to
"promote national school reform with funding from the Annenberg
Foundation," reports the paper. She also was awarded the
MacArthur Foundation's "genius" grant.
===== FROM COURTHOUSE TO SCHOOLHOUSE =====
*4 SUPREME COURT'S REQUIEM FOR AFFIRMATIVE ACTION?: NO ACTION
The U.S. Supreme Court last week refused to hear the U of
Texas affirmative action case, a decision that left intact the
5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that does not allow race
to be a factor in admission decisions (Jackson, THE DALLAS
MORNING NEWS, 7/2). Interpretation of the high court's move not
to hear the case, Hopwood vs. Texas, varied among advocates and
opponents of affirmative action.
"The handwriting on the wall is becoming clearer and
clearer," said Theodore Olson, the lawyer who represented white
students denied admission to the U of Texas law school. However,
Penda Hair, director of the Washington office of the NACP Legal
Defense and Educational Fund dismisses Olson's interpretation.
"It certainly seems clear that this is a procedural denial," she
said. She claims that remarks made in a separate statement by
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter signal that the
court is "withholding judgement of the ultimate fate of college
affirmative action," reports the paper.
Ginsburg and Souter wrote that the question of whether a
college can "use race or national origin as a factor in its
admissions process is an issue of great national importance."
They also noted that the U of Texas is no longer using its
controversial admissions process that used separate panels for
judging white and blacks. They added: "Accordingly, we must
await a final judgment on a program genuinely in controversy
before addressing the important question raised in this
petition."
"At the national level, we have kind of a standoff,"
remarked Jamin Raskin, an American U law professor. "But within
the 5th Circuit, the [Texas] decision becomes law." The 5th
Circuit Court of Appeals' decision holds for Texas, La. and Miss.
However, the paper observes that "given the recent history,
analysts said affirmative action supporters cannot take comfort
from the high court's refusal to take the Texas case." Paul
Rothstein, a Georgetown U law professor, observed that the high
court's decision means the justices are willing to "let it
percolate now in the lower courts." Other analysts agree that
often the Supreme Court will wait for "conflicting opinions in
the lower courts before deciding to tackle a major issue," writes
the NEWS.
Texas Attorney General Dan Morales said his office "will
provide our state's universities with legal guidance in regard to
the effect of this decision on admissions policies."
Stephanie McDonald, the immediate past president of the
Thurgood Marshall Legal Society, an organization of black
students at the U of Texas law school, said the ruling means that
more minority students "will start going out-of-state" for higher
education opportunities (Moreno, THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS, 7/3).
And from syndicated columnist William Rasberry: "Maybe the
high court is, as Ginsburg hinted, waiting for a clearer case.
Or maybe the justices would simply rather postpone
reconsideration of what may be the most racially divisive issue
in American politics: To what extent (if at all) should race be
a factor in decisions of equity?" (WASH POST, 7/5)
*5 ORDERS FROM ABOVE: PA. SUPREME COURT SENDS EDICT TO SMITH
The Pa. Supreme Court last week issued a directive to
Commonwealth Court Judge Doris Smith to both limit her fact-
finding to the issue of desegregation and to complete her work
and send her opinion to the Supreme Court within 90 days
(Daughen, Philadelphia DAILY NEWS, 7/5).
The paper reviews the history of the case: Smith is hearing
testimony on whether the state, city, or both should pay for the
education reforms she ordered the schools to make. Currently,
the state pays about 60% of the school district's $1.4M budget.
State officials claim they are not responsible for providing any
more funds. Smith's reform agenda is estimated to cost about $1B
over the next five years.
Edward Mannino, a lawyer representing the state, declared
victory after the Supreme Court's order. He claims Smith has
turned the desegregation case into a funding issue, writes the
paper. Mannino had asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the case
against the state; the high court decided to reserve a final
decision on that matter.
However, Michael Churchill, an attorney for a group of
intervenors who want the state to pay for court-ordered reforms,
said Mannino is "whistling in the dark." "He didn't get what he
wanted, which was to stop the trial," he added. According to
Churchill, the case already is limited to desegregation.
Churchill also noted that the case was on its way to the Supreme
Court anyway and the high court's ruling simply "shortens the
process."
The paper reports that the legislature already has provided
some additional money to enable the district to include a handful
of court-ordered programs that Philadelphia school Superintendent
David Hornbeck had cut during the budget process.
*6 SEE YOU IN COURT: DISTRICTS SUE STATE OVER FUNDING
Seven Ark. school districts sued the state DoEd, claiming
the department violated state law by refusing to provide
additional funds based on enrollment growth (Reinolds, Arkansas
DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE, 6/29). Cabot Superintendent Larry Rodgers said
the suit "was the result of a lot of frustration and attempts to
get the Department of Education to change a decision they made in
December 1995." The DoEd never sent the district additional
money it needed when enrollment rose after the first nine weeks
of school, writes the paper.
Rogers estimated that money lost in those seven districts
for the 1995-1996 school year amount to about $353,800. The
paper reports that Cabot's student population increased by about
400, to 6,557 last year. A new funding formula, passed during
the 1995 legislative session, appears to be more favorable for
Cabot, reports the paper. Cabot is located in a disadvantaged
community.
*7 NO FIREWORKS: THE END OF BUSING IN ORANGE COUNTY
U.S District Judge Anne C. Conway ordered the end of 24
years of busing for Orange COunty schools after Norris Woolfork,
an attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, notified the court
that he would no longer would pursue the case (Wertheimer,
ORLANDO SENTINEL, 7/2).
From Woolfork's statement to the court: "The alternative --
a hotly contested hearing -- would undoubtedly be disruptive and
push the races apart at a time when cooperation and harmony must
be promoted. And litigation would consume resources that could
be better spent on educating our children." However, he
cautioned that "although much has been done, much remains to be
done. Racial bias is far from dead in America."
NAACP lawyers agreed with school officials that changing
neighborhood demographics had made busing for desegregation
impossible. For example, one white parent said she moved from an
integrated neighborhood to one in which her child would not have
to be bused to school. "A lot of white families moved out
because they didn't want their children bused," said Kathy
Carpenter. "By forcing the [busing] issue, they segregated the
neighborhoods."
Four schools will become more segregated, reports the paper.
All are 60% black now, and will become 100% black this fall.
Orange County officials promised to send extra financial aid and
resources to the four schools to ensure they do not become
inferior to more integrated ones, according to the SENTINEL.
Tom Alston, president of the Orange County branch of the
NAACP, which was not part of the NAACP Legal Defense Funds'
original lawsuit against Orange County, is not as sanguine about
the end of busing. "It just starts us back on the road to
segregating schools," he said. "As we know, there has been a
change in the local and national political climate on
desegregation. A lot of people don't have the fight or desire
there once was."
*8 SHEFF V. O'NEILL: CONN. SUPREME COURT ISSUES RULING
Segregated Hartford-area public schools are in violation of
the Connecticut Constitution, according to a recent 4-3 state
Supreme Court decision (WASH POST, 7/10). However, the justices
did not issue order of how to improve the education system.
Instead, the court said it would give the governor and
legislature to develop a plan to abolish "racial isolation" in
the state capital, writes the paper.
Sheff vs. O'Neill was filed in 1989. Plaintiffs sought a
court order to link Hartford schools with the "overwhelmingly
white suburban schools," notes the paper.
===== UNION NEWS =====
*9 NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION: NEW LEADER TAKES CHARGE
Delegates to the National Education Association's 1996
Representative Assembly elected Bob Chase, a Danbury, Conn.,
junior high school social studies teacher, president of their
union (NEA press release, 6/3). Chase replaces Keith Geiger, who
is stepping down in September after more than three decades of
leading the NEA.
"I am deeply honored to have been chosen president of this
wonderful and vitally important organization," said Chase. "I'm
looking forward to fulfilling my vision of the Association where
creative thinking, bold action, and risk-taking are the norm --
not the exception. A vision where we break out of the cocoon of
things as they are." Chase added: "If we don't lead, we will be
led."
Chase plans to introduce a "new federalism" for the NEA.
For example, he has proposed creating a new advisory committee to
"provide new opportunities for true exchanges of ideas between
the national association and the grassroots levels," writes the
press release. "NEA has ten years' worth of experience and
research in education reform, and we have to use it," he said.
"To fail to do so would be to allow the enemies of pubic
education to set the agenda. In order to fight the threats to
public education, including vouchers and corporate takeovers, we
must remain on the cutting edge of education reform, and increase
our activities in providing community leadership."
NEA foes, specifically an ad hoc group of "leading education
policy specialists," claim the NEA is the "leading opponent of
efforts to reform our nation's failing public schools," writes
the Center for Education Reform press release (6/27). The
Coalition to Educate America held a press conference on 1 July
that featured the following individuals: Clint Bolick, vice
president and director of litigation, Institute for Justice; John
Berthoud, vice president, Alexis de Tocqueville Institution and
Charlene Harr, president, Education Policy Institute, and former
NEA affiliate officer.
The NEA countered the Coalition's accusations. In a press
release, the NEA writes: "One thing many of the proposals we
oppose have in common is that there is no empirical evidence they
improve education: private school tuition vouchers, tuition tax
credits, watering down licensure requirements or due process
protection, etc. By contrast, most of the proposals we have
supported have been tested -- with proven results: reducing
class size, expanding access to professional development, raising
standards for entry into the teaching profession and providing
additional help to disadvantaged and special needs students,
especially in the early years."
During the meeting, the American Federation of Teachers and
the NEA issued a "no-raid" agreement, where both unions "will
respect the established representative status of the other party
and its affiliates." Delegates also supported a "strong and
expanded program of teacher recruitment, mentor programs, teacher
preparation programs and discipline, order and safety training,"
writes the release.
==== BYTES AND PIECES ====
*10 CABLE GUY: COMING TO A SCHOOL NEAR YOU
Cable television executives announced today their plans to
offer almost all elementary and secondary schools nationwide
free, high-speed equipment for linking to the Internet (Farhi and
Corcoran, WASH POST, 7/10). However, the cable companies are
"latecomers" to the race of wiring schools, writes the paper.
"This is where we race the phone companies against the cable
guys," explained John Gage, chief scientist at Sun Microsystems
Inc., a computer maker.
The POST reports that last fall AT&T committed $150M over
five years to help schools gain Internet access. From the paper:
"The competition may represent a loss-leader strategy for
Internet providers," in which company leaders hope teachers and
students use the same service to hook up at home.
For more information, see the NetDay 96 site on the Web:
www.netday96.com. NetDay, the brainchild of Gage, is scheduled
for Oct. and will feature volunteer engineers and technical
people who will donate their labor to wire the schools.
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