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--- Monday --- November 10, 1997 --- Vol. 1 --- No. 72 ---
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THE NATIONAL UPDATE ON AMERICA'S EDUCATION REFORM EFFORTS
__________ __________
UNITED WE STAND | SPOTLIGHT |
The National Education | |
Association and the American | TIME AND LEARNING |
Federation of Teachers, the | |
nation's teacher unions, | Many school officials |
announced plans to form a joint | nationwide are grappling |
council to work on three | with issues such as |
issues: school infrastructure, | extending school days/year |
school safety and discipline | or starting school later in |
and teacher quality. The | the morning to help student |
council is the first national | achievement. For example: |
collaboration between the two | |
unions. | The URBAN LEAGUE OF |
"The formation of the AFT/NEA | PITTSBURGH is pitching a |
joint council is about taking | charter school plan that |
responsibility," said Bob | includes an extension of |
Chase, president of the NEA. | the school year. An EDISON |
"It's about putting our | PROJECT charter plan also |
competition aside and combining | includes extended time in |
our energies, resources, and | school. (#2) |
expertise to improve education | |
for America's 45 million public | And Fairfax County high |
schoolchildren." | school students may no |
Sandra Feldmen, AFT | longer be forced to wake |
president: "We are trying to | at the crack of dawn to |
lead our unions down a new | attend school. School |
path, joining forces on behalf | officials are debating a |
of children, seeking | later start based on |
partnerships instead of | research that suggests |
conflict with management, and | higher achievement levels |
taking responsibility for our | for students starting |
profession." | school later in the |
The joint council is compris- | morning. (#4) |
ed of 15 elected state and | |
local leaders of each union. |_____________________________|
============== QUOTE OF THE DAY ==============
"You would have to be living on a different planet not to think
this is a very significant decision."
Ward Connerly, who led the effort to pass Proposition 209, which
made Calif. the first state to ban affirmative action. (#3)
_______________________________________________________________
| (c) by the Education Policy Network, Inc. |
| 1255 22nd Street NW; Washington, D.C. 20010; 202/724-0124 |
| EPN, Inc. hereby authorizes further reproduction and |
| distribution with proper acknowledgement. |
| Publisher: Barbara A. Pape |
|_______________________________________________________________|
============== TABLE OF CONTENTS ==============
HIGHER EDUCATION
TOO MUCH TO LOSE?: Money as an incentive. (#1)
CHARTING A NEW COURSE
CHARTER SCHOOL UPDATE: D.C., Pittsburgh and Texas. (#2)
FROM COURTHOUSE TO SCHOOLHOUSE
A SUPREME DECISION?: Some say not. (#3)
TIME AND LEARNING
MORNING BLUES: Helping H.S. students in Fairfax County. (#4)
===== HIGHER EDUCATION =====
*1 TOO MUCH TO LOSE?: MONEY AS AN INCENTIVE
Students unable to maintain a C average after two years of
college, or who take too long to earn their degree could forfeit
state financial aid in Va. under a proposal by the State Council
of Higher Education (WASH POST, 11/9).
The recommendation, submitted as part of the council's 1998-
2000 budget proposal for state colleges universities, also would
apply to community colleges. Students at four-year colleges
would be forced to limit their course work to 135 credit hours,
which the paper reports is about a semester longer than is needed
to earn most undergraduate degrees.
At the community college level, students could take 75
credit hours or an extra semester of course work to graduate
"before seeing their state financial aid cut off," writes the
paper.
It is unclear if the General Assembly would need to approve
such a proposal if it passes the council.
===== CHARTING A NEW COURSE =====
*2 CHARTER SCHOOL UPDATE: D.C., PITTSBURGH AND TEXAS
WASHINGTON, D.C.: Mary A.T. Anigbo, the principal of Marcus
Garvey Public Charter School, was suspended last week by the
school's board of trustees, after she was convicted of assaulting
a WASH TIMES reporter and two police officers at the school on 3
December 1996 (Booar, WASH POST, 11/4). Disciplinary actions
also were taken against three other employees, who were put on
probation as a result of their assault convictions, writes the
paper.
However, the board is split over whether to revoke the
school's charter status. Six school board members, including
board President Don Reeves, voted to consider revoking the
charter license, while the remaining 5 members said they
"believed the criminal convictions should be weighted against the
school's education benefits," reports the paper. The board will
schedule an additional meeting to address possible revocation of
the school's charter.
Meanwhile, 26 groups have applied for charters before D.C.'s
Public Charter School Board, a panel formed this year to review
applications, notes the POST (Bowles, 11/3). Charters can be
awarded to a total of 20 applicants this year, according to the
District's charter school law.
Among the applicants are several private firms. The Edison
Project is petitioning to open a school offering pre-K to fifth
grade classes, with a longer school day and year than other
District schools and a home computer for each student. Edison
already operates 25 public schools nationwide, reports the paper.
SABIS Educational System Inc., a firm that operates 18
schools in eight countries including the U.S., has proposed to
open a college preparatory program from pre-K to 12th grade.
District law allows applicants to send proposals to either
the Charter School Board or the Board of Education. "I think the
Board of Education's overall reputation may have something to do
with" the lower number of proposals it received, compared to the
newly created Charter School Board, said Judith Jones, acting
director of Friends of Choice for Urban Schools, a group
monitoring the application process. "There's a lot of history
with that [school] board, particularly in the way they approved
charters a year ago without a thorough vetting," she added.
According to the paper, the Charter School Board is
comprised of members nominated by federal officials and selected
by the city's mayor.
However, one veteran D.C. educator has decided to submit her
plan for six bilingual schools to the school board rather than
the charter board. Dorothy Goodman, founder of the elite
Washington International School, summed up her reason: "The
devil you know is better than the devil you don't know."
PITTSBURGH, Pa.: The deadline for the Pittsburgh School
Board to consider charter school applications is 15 November, and
the Urban Laegue of Pittsburgh plans to submit a proposal for
consideration (Chute, Pittsburgh POST-GAZETTE, 11/2).
The league's proposal is for a K-grade 3 school that would
be 44 days longer than the average 180-day calendar, and would
provide before- and after-school programs. Initially, 80
children would be enrolled in the school, with fourth and fifth
grade to be phased in, "reaching 120 pupils by the third year,"
writes the paper.
Vincent Lepera, Urban League chief financial officer,
reported that the school budget would be $650,000 for the first
year, increasing to $1M by the third year. Lepera said he
expects the city school system to provide about $7,000 per child,
$14,000 for each special education student and an additional $300
for each Title I student. The Urban League intends to solicit
contributions and provide its own services -- computer and
accounting -- to the school.
Other school characteristics described in the league's
proposal: school uniforms, mandatory parent involvement of at
least 30 hours a year; ban on out-of-school suspensions; emphasis
on interdisciplinary instruction and critical thinking skills;
emphasis on math and science.
"We are not teaching the subjects as much as we must find
positive and creative ways to teach the child," said Harry Clark,
former principal of the Pittsburgh High School for the Creative
and Performing Arts, and one of the charter school planners.
TEXAS: Texas Education Commissioner Mike Moses expressed
some frustration with his state's charter schools. According to
the HOUSTON CHRONICLE, the state overpaid charter schools $2.4M
last year because most of the schools over-reported their
enrollment figures." (Walt, 11/7)
Moses: "We continue to support charter schools ... but we
have some frustrations." Moses said the Texas Education Agency
will "recover the money." Education officials are meeting with
each school to devise a plan to recoup the taxpayer dollars
without forcing the school to close.
===== FROM COURTHOUSE TO SCHOOLHOUSE =====
*3 A SUPREME DECISION?: SOME SAY NOT
By deciding not to accept a court case challenging Calif.'s
statewide ban on affirmative action, the U.S. Supreme Court sent
a "powerful signal" of its intolerance for race-based government
policies, writes the WASH POST (Biskupic, 11/4).
"You would have to be living on a different planet not to
think this is a very significant decision," said Ward Connerly,
who led the effort to pass Calif.'s Proposition 209, which made
Calif. the first state to "abolish affirmative action in a
variety of state programs," including college admissions, reports
the paper.
The Supreme Court's decision to not accept the case left in
place a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that stressed
"when the government gives an advantage to individuals based on
their race, it penalizes people who belong to another race,"
writes the paper. Several civil rights groups challenged the
law, claiming it "unfairly stripped local governments in
California of their traditional authority to help minorities,"
writes the paper.
"This is a green light to all the other states that want to
copy Proposition 209," said Kathleen Sullivan, a Stanford law
professor. "At our count, there were 26 other states in some
stage of progress," added Sullivan, who assisted the American
Civil Liberties Union in its attack on Proposition 209.
Mark Rosenbaum, of the ACLU Foundation of Southern
California, said his group will continue to fight the affirmative
action ban. The POST reports that one approach left to challenge
the ban would be to find an individual who was "particularly hurt
by Proposition 209 and have that person sue to challenge the
law's constitutionality."
==== TIME AND LEARNING ====
*4 MORNING BLUES: HELPING H.S. STUDENTS IN FAIRFAX COUNTY
The Fairfax County School Board is considering a proposal
that would allow high school students to start school later than
the current 7:20 a.m. time (Barnes, Fairfax JOURNAL, 11/4). "It
should be given serious consideration in terms of giving kids a
better opportunity for learning," said Fairfax County Council of
PTAs President Shirley Nelson.
However, Nelson also pointed out the troublesome questions
of cost and transportation. According to the paper, the school
system in 1991 adopted a bus schedule that would use the same
buses to transport elementary, middle and high school students.
While the plan "saved millions in transportation costs," it also
required high school students to begin their school day at 7:20
a.m. so the buses could begin their routes to pick up the younger
children who start their day at 9:10 a.m., writes the paper.
If bus schedules are changed so all schools were open
between 8 and 9 a.m., the school district would be faced with a
transportation cost of about $37M for new buses and $10M for
additional personnel, reports the paper.
Board member Jane Strauss: "We spend about $400 in
transportation costs per student and I have not been able to find
a more efficient school transportation system. We are
underfunded in technology and parents are concerned about class
sizes and we don't want to freeze salaries ... so citizens have
to consider what's important to them."
Mychele Brickner, another board member, said: "If we can
achieve this without a great deal of cost, it would be
beneficial for high school students who have to get up at an
ungodly hour. This isn't about whether a student is a morning
person, it's about what time of the day they would perform better
academically."
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