Education News: September 1, 2006

Following are some of the top headlines from the world of education for the week ending September 1, 2006.

Education Dept. Shared Student Data with F. B. I.
(Source: The New York Times, 09/01/06) In the wake of September 11, 2001, and in the five years following, the F. B. I. requested data about students from the Department of Education and the Department of Education shared it. In an investigative report issued by Laura McGann at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, McGann showed that the F. B. I. had requested information that students had submitted in conjunction with federal aid applications. The F. B. I. claims that it used the information only for ongoing terrorism investigations and that their searches were public knowledge. The F. B. I. also acknowledged that this search program had recently ended.

Spellings Says No Child Law Near Perfect
(Source: The New York Times, 08/31/06) ''I talk about No Child Left Behind like Ivory soap: It's 99.9 percent pure or something. There's not much needed in the way of change.'' This recent commentary is Spellings’ insight into how the law is currently working. Margaret Spellings, as the head of the Department of Education under the Bush administration, was instrumental in helping the administration craft the law as it is today. Her feelings are not taken as gospel truth across the spectrum of people affected by the law, however. Some teachers, and the National Education Association in particular, feel that the law needs further inspection and tweaking to reach a place where it does not need to change anymore.

Autistic Child’s Parents Prevail
(Source: The Richmond Times-Dispatch, 08/30/06) An autistic child’s parents have won a suit against his public school district, winning money to cover the suit and reimbursement for tuition to attend the private school. James Peterson’s parents claim that he was not receiving proper/adequate instruction in school, and they documented the reverse progress that he made when he switched from private school to the public school. When they challenged the school district’s manner of handling the case, the case went to court. Initially they lost the case, but when it went to District Court Judge Robert E. Payne of Richmond ruled in favor of the family. "We think it's a landmark decision that will benefit disabled children and their families across the commonwealth," said Philip C. Strother, a Richmond lawyer who handled the Petersons' case. "

Scores for Expanded SAT Show Largest Dip Since 1975
(Source: USA Today, 08/29/06) Average overall scores for the SAT dropped seven points for the class of 2006. Speculation as to the cause of this dramatic change (the largest drop in 31 years) hovers around the impact of the new SAT. Some surmise that students are less likely to take the SAT a second time and raise their scores since it is longer. Test fatigue is also being blamed. Another statistic released shows that girls narrowed the point gap between girls and boys.

Detroit Teachers Strike
(Source: The Detroit News, 08/29/06) Members of the Detroit Federation of Teachers walked out of their classrooms today, striking against a 5.5 percent pay cut. School starts for the students on September 5th, and district employees are planning to teach classes missing teachers. 10,000 district students a year leave for charter schools, and administrators worry that the school district will lose even more students if the strike does not end quickly. Facing an extremely tight budget, school administrators and teachers are scheduled to go back to the bargaining table Monday.

Georgia’s First Public School Opens
(Source: Kansas City, 08/28/06) Unidos Dual Language Charter School is opening this fall with a crop of students who will be educated in both Spanish and English. The students will receive 70% of their schooling in Spanish and the other 30% in English. Immigrant parents are sending their children to this school to retain the language heritage, while English-speaking people are trying to give their children a competitive edge by schooling them in multiple languages. Currently over 300 such programs exist in American schools.