Education News: March 11, 2005

Following are some of the top headlines from the world of education for the week ending March 11, 2005.

Racial Test Gap Persists, New York State Figures Show
(Source: The New York Times)
Although more of New York’s high school students are taking and passing the Regents exams now required for graduation, the gap in scores between white and minority students remains large, according to new school “report cards” released this week. While 81% of white students who started high school in 2000 graduated on time in 2004, only 45.4 percent of black students and 42% of Hispanic students did the same. And while 88.8% of white students who graduated scored at least a 55 out of 100 on the English Regents exam, only 64.2% of black students and 59.3% of Hispanic students did the same. Richard P. Mills, the state education commissioner, called the minority four-year graduation rates “unacceptably low.”

California Educators See Grim Humor in U.S. Order to Flunk Districts
(Source: The Sacramento Bee)
California educators have been very open in their criticism of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, but frustration turned to sad laughter on Wednesday as the state Board of Education debated whether to comply with the federal demand to classify 184 of California’s 1,000 school districts as “failures.” The state risks losing millions of dollars in federal funding if it does not do as the federal government wishes, but is hesitant to comply as many of the supposedly failing school districts receive high marks based on the state’s criteria. For example, the Western Placer Unified School District just won the Academic Decathlon, but is nonetheless classified as a failure because an inadequate number of special education students demonstrated proficiency at math and reading. This district, like all failing districts, will have to notify parents of its students and develop plans to improve student achievement. Districts that do not improve could be taken over by the state or face other severe penalties. The state Board of Education decided this week to comply, though the number of school districts it singled out (184) still falls drastically short of the 310 the federal government would like to see on the list of failures. The most tangible result of being placed on the list is that schools must contract with outside companies to provide tutoring rather than provide it themselves.

Kansas to Hold Six Days of Hearings Over Evolution
(Source: USA Today)
The Kansas State Board of Education has announced plans to hear arguments over whether to add information on Intelligent Design, a form of creationism, to Kansas’ science standards. The board’s subcommittee on science standards, which is considering changes in state-mandated curricula, will listen to six days’ worth of scientists’ testimony in May. The scientists called on to testify will include both experts on evolution and proponents of alternative theories as to the origin of life. The board members are exploring this issue because of a portion of the NCLB law that states that science classes should be open to alternative theories where there are controversies.

How Do the New Teachers Measure Up?
(Source: The Christian Science Monitor)
The teaching profession, in the past several decades, has undergone a marked demographic shift. The typical teacher is still female, but unlike her counterpart a generation ago is a bit older and probably more educated. Chances are, however, that she is not a “high-aptitude” woman, i.e. one from a top college and with an exceptional SAT score. A new study conducted by Caroline Hoxby of Harvard University and Andrew Leigh of Australian National University has shown that the number of “high-aptitude” women entering the teaching profession has dropped off noticeably. Hoxby noted that while teachers in this category never constituted a large percentage of educators, they were present in significant numbers and were important to schools in their roles as leaders and mentors. This demographic shift points to the larger problem of the need for as many as 2.2 million new teachers between 2000 and 2010 to fill vacancies as an enormous crop of baby-boomer teachers approaches retirement. In Hoxby and Leigh’s upcoming article, “Wage Distortion,” the researchers identify pay as a main problem deterring “high-aptitude” women from entering the profession, and make particular note of the fact that in public schools there tends to be little or no wage gap between the best teachers and the worst. This is an unconventional explanation as other education experts point to the ever-widening array of career options open to women as the primary reason why “high-aptitude” women pursue careers in other fields.

200 Detroit Teachers to Go in April
(Source: The Detroit News)
Approximately 6,000 students in Detroit public schools will likely lose their teachers before the end of the school year as a result of an early-retirement deal the district negotiated with the teachers’ union. About 200 teachers will retire at the end of March to help the school district defray its $200 million deficit; they would have retired at the semester break in January had the district and the union been able to reach an agreement sooner. Certified teachers will replace the retirees, but some parents are still frustrated that their kids will lose their teachers at such an awkward time—a mere two months before the end of the school year. District officials agree that the timing isn’t ideal, but stated that the several million dollars saved by allowing the teachers to retire now is worth the inconvenience.