Education News: February 25, 2005

Following are some of the top headlines from the world of education for the week ending February 25, 2005.

New U.S. Secretary Showing Flexibility on ‘No Child’ Act
(Source: The New York Times)
New Education Secretary Margaret Spellings has demonstrated a willingness to work with state and local officials on the most contested requirements of Bush’s No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. In her first days on the job, Spellings ended two of the most rancorous disputes between educators and the Education Department. In one case, she gave school districts permission not to allow students in low-performing schools to transfer to better ones if the shift is apt to cause over-crowding. In another case, she approved the qualifications of 4,000 North Dakota teachers who believed federal officials had declared their credentials inadequate. While Spellings cautions she will not be a pushover, she already seems more conciliatory than her predecessor Rod Paige. Spellings still has a large number of complaints to address, several of which involve the yearly standardized testing requirement in grades 3-8. Spellings has said, however, that the testing schedule is not open to change.

Board Allows Bible Classes to Continue
(Source: CNN.com)
The local school board in Staunton, Virginia, has tentatively denied parents’ request to eliminate or change the program that involves shuttling children in grades 1-3 from public schools to churches to participate in voluntary half-hour Christian lessons and activities. Objecting parents said this violates the separation of church and state and complained that children who choose not to participate in the weekly Bible classes are stigmatized and left with little to do. But the program did have its proponents, many of whom showed up at the 400-strong school board meeting in December to voice their opinions. The six-member school board voted 5-1 this week to allow Bible classes to continue while the board conducts a one-year review to determine if the program’s criticisms are valid.

Inner-city Teachers’ Turnover Is Charted
(Source: Chicago Tribune)
A Chicago activist group, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), has released new study results that highlight the abysmal situation for teachers in inner-city Chicago schools. The three-year research effort, which focused on 64 neighborhood schools, demonstrated a pronounced problem in teacher retention. According to the study, 39% of first-year teachers did not return for a second year, and 35% of teachers who have taught for five years or less left their positions each year. While some amount of teacher turnover is a healthy indication that ineffective teachers are leaving, high turnover rates such as those found in Chicago’s inner-city schools make it difficult to transform schools with poor performance.

Expirations Keep Documentaries Out of Schools
(Source: Education Week)
Documentary films that have long been staples in classrooms are fading into the past as their rights expire. Among the most noteworthy of the fleeting documentaries are “Eyes on the Prize,” a 14-part series about the civil rights movement made in 1987 by the Public Broadcasting Service, and “The China Trilogy,” a 1997 film on 20th-century China made by Ambrica Productions, Inc. As rights expire on films such as these, copies become increasingly scarce and libraries frequently either refuse to lend them or require them to be viewed on their premises. The main factor making it illegal to manufacture new copies of the documentaries is that permissions for the rights to use music and archival newsreel footage in the films no longer apply. Recently a set of the “Eyes on the Prize” videotapes sold on eBay for $600.

U.S. May Force California to Call More School Districts Failures
(Source: The Los Angeles Times)
The Bush administration has asked California to devise more stringent requirements for identifying failing school districts, a change that may result in 310 school systems being added to a watch list. Eventually, members of school boards and superintendents across the state could lose their jobs as a result. The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act lies at the center of this request, and the U.S. Department of Education has warned that California could lose funding if it doesn’t make the change. NCLB requires that districts be placed on a watch list if the number of students doing well on standardized tests doesn’t adequately increase two years in a row. Currently, California allows districts to avoid the list if students from impoverished backgrounds perform adequately on a separate measure of achievement. State education officials have expressed frustration with NCLB, claiming that the requirements are counter-productive and that the state lacks the financial means to meet the federal mandate. The U.S. Education Department, however, has shown no signs of easing demands.