Education News: January 5, 2007

Following are some of the top headlines from the world of education for the week ending January 5, 2007.

Daley, Meeks Team Up On Schools
(Source: The Chicago Sun-Times, 1/5/07): Chicago Mayor Daley and State Senator Meeks, former critics of each other, spoke together Friday to promote their vision for Illinois schools. Mayor Daley has promised to reach out to other mayors to effect education reform and Senator Meeks is promoting his recommendation of lowering property taxes and raising income or sales taxes. This would in effect distribute education costs more evenly around the state.

Online Database Opens a Window For Parents to Compare Schools
(Source: USA Today, 1/4/07) http://www.nctq.org/cb/ is a new website designed by the Center for Teaching Quality, which promises to provide a look at “the intricacies of collective bargaining agreements, board policies, and teacher handbooks from the nation’s 50 largest school districts…employing nearly 500,000 teachers.” The website, which is being unveiled today, offers a detailed and personalized look at specific policies that apply to teachers in various districts. Offering a whole new level of information, some caution against using this site as one’s only source of information, noting that state mandates can influence contract provisions.

A Surprising Secret to a Long Life: Stay in School
(Source: The New York Times, 1/3/07): A study conducted by Adriana Lleras-Muney at Columbia University produced an interesting correlation between lifespan and education, stirring debate about the influence of various life factors over general trends in lifespan. Social scientists have long studied age span for different sectors of society, including categories based on wealth, gender, sex, and race. Lleras-Muney’s work compared groups of people with close ages who were required to go to school for varying lengths of time, and found that longer school requirements produced people who lived longer.

Teachers Want Utah to Learn Their Value
(Source: The Salt Lake Tribune, 1/2/07): Receiving roughly 15,000 new students a year, public school classrooms across Utah are facing a looming teacher shortage as fewer teaching degrees are being awarded in the state. Teachers in Utah complain about lack of pay, support, and respect for their profession, and some teachers are moving to other states to find more fulfillment teaching. The legislature is brainstorming ways (in addition to more funding) to combat this shortage. Outspoken teachers have invited legislators to visit their classrooms to experience firsthand issues such as overcrowding.

Schools Turn to Outsourcing
(Source: The Hartford Courant, 1/2/07): It is a little-known fact that most students spend the equivalent of roughly one year being taught by substitutes by the time they graduate from high school. Finding adequate substitute teachers is an afterthought for many districts; however, East Hartford District in Connecticut is changing the way they handle substitutes by hiring Kelley Educational Staffing to provide substitutes as needed. The rate per substitute teacher will be $30 higher than the previous one, but the district’s main concern is the lack of available substitutes that has been plaguing them recently.