Education News: March 4, 2005

Following are some of the top headlines from the world of education for the week ending March 4, 2005.

Governors of 13 States Plan to Raise Standards in High Schools
(Source: The New York Times)
Acting in response to concerns that the U.S. will lose its economic edge in the world economy if domestic education does not improve, the governors of 13 states have announced that they are forming a coalition to raise standards in public high schools by making courses and examinations more difficult. The thirteen states are Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Texas. Other states are expected to join the coalition in the coming weeks. Six foundations have designated a total of $23 million in funds to help the states improve high schools, including, most notably, a $15 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The announcement of this renewed push for better high schools came at the end of an “education summit,” that included governors, business executives, and officials in the Bush administration.

District Teachers Refuse to Give Homework
(Source: CNN.com)
In Berkeley, California, public school teachers aren’t giving any written homework assignments because they refuse to grade them on their own time after two years with no pay raise. The Berkeley Federation of Teachers organized the action as a call for a cost-of-living raise next year, but District Superintendent Michele Lawrence said the district can’t afford any raises as a result of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s failure to provide as much funding for education as promised. A spokesperson for the governor said that the bulk of next year’s new funding would go to schools, but a schools spokesperson countered that the governor would also shift some major costs from state to district and that health care costs would rise as well. The schools spokesperson noted that teachers are willing to start paying some health care costs, but not without a raise as this would essentially constitute a pay cut.

Long Commutes Seen Influencing Teacher Job Choices
(Source: Education Week)
A new study brings to light a major reason that urban schools struggle to retain teachers: the commutes are too long. The study, conducted by researchers at Stanford University and SUNY-Albany, collected data on people who began teaching careers in New York City public schools between the 1995-96 and 2001-02 school years. As with previous studies, the researchers noted high teacher-turnover rates in central city schools, resulting from teachers leaving to work for higher-achieving schools or from white and Hispanic teachers leaving to work at schools with higher percentages of white students. But unlike previous studies, this one took distance from home into account and found that long commutes may be key in understanding why inner city schools struggle to retain teachers. The study found, for example, that teachers who did not live in New York City were five times more likely than residents to transfer to other teaching jobs outside the city. Among teachers who did live in the city proper, the ones living farthest from the schools of their employment were most likely to leave their jobs. Susanna Loeb, one of the study’s four authors, said the study’s results suggest that public schools with high teacher-attrition rates may experience improvement if they recruit teachers from their own communities.

Survey: High School Students Not Taught Basic Finance
(Source: USA Today)
Though more states are requiring students to study money management, personal finance remains an oft-overlooked topic in most high schools curriculums, according to a new study conducted by the National Council on Economic Education. Only seven states (Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, New York, and Utah) require training in this area, and only 52% of students nationwide were able to answer correctly questions about personal finance. Robert Duvall, president of the national council, said the No Child Left Behind Act hinders educators from devoting valuable class time to financial literacy. He and others in his field are calling for a renewed drive to address this vital subject in high school.

Dips in Enrollment Posing Challenges for Urban Districts
(Source: Education Week)
Having lost 35,000 students over the past ten years, Detroit will close 34 schools and reassign 10,000 students during the 2005-06 school year. Though Detroit’s floundering school system has attracted national attention, the city is by no means alone in its plight. Urban school districts are seeing enrollments drop and schools close in cities across the nation, including Akron, Baltimore, Buffalo, Cleveland, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Oakland, Pittsburgh, Portland, St. Louis, and Seattle. While middle-class families have long sought alternatives to public schools in urban districts, a new trend shows low-income families seeking alternatives as well. Michael D. Casserly, the executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, said the trend shows that urban districts have to work hard to improve and, ultimately, must sell themselves to parents and students.

Audit Describes 8 Years of Looting by Long Island School Officials
(Source: The New York Times)
For the last eight years, top officials in New York’s affluent Long Island school district have systematically embezzled a total of at least $11.2 million in taxpayer funds, according to a new state audit. Officials from the National School Board Association say this is the most extreme case of school fraud in the nation. The audit, released this week, shows that the long-term theft was even worse than was originally believed when the scandal first broke last spring. School funds were used to cover $1.1 million in withdrawals on personal credit cards and to buy everything from expensive artwork to pet food and coffee. While several top officials were involved, Frank A. Tassone, the district’s superintendent at the time, was the chief embezzler and now faces charges of grand larceny and may face additional charges after prosecutors finish reviewing the audit.

Sobriety Tests Becoming Part of School Day
(Source: The New York Times)
Breath analyzers have now been commonplace for years at school proms, athletic contests, and other extracurricular events, but now a few districts around the country are quietly beginning to test students for sobriety during the regular school day. Schools defend the action by claiming it is necessary to prevent students from being intoxicated in the classroom, but civil rights activists worry that such actions are violations of students’ privacy.