Education News: November 23, 2007

Following are some of the top headlines from the world of education for the week ending November 23, 2007.

State Owes Schools, Suit Says
(Source:  The Sacramento Bee, 11/21/07):  A group of California school districts has filed a lawsuit against the state government demanding reimbursement for approximately $1 billion worth of under-funded and unfunded state-mandated programs.  A recent change in the state constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies for state-mandated new programs and program improvements.

Denver Public Schools Board OKs Closure Plan
(Source: The Rocky Mountain News, 11/20/07):  The Denver Public Schools board made the unanimous decision last week to close eight schools and remake five others, meaning that 3000 students will have to change schools.  The district will spend its $3.5 million in annual savings on the schools that accept the displaced students and on the ten lowest-ranked schools in the area.

Obama Calls for $18-Billion Boost in Education Spending
(Source:  The Los Angeles Times, 11/20/07):  Presidential candidate Barack Obama has laid out a plan to increase federal education spending by $18 billion, much of which would be used for education programs aimed at children five years old or younger.  Obama also praised the goals of No Child Left Behind, but said that the government had not implemented it well because it did not give schools the monetary resources needed to meet the law’s stringent requirements.

Old Schools, New Approach
(Source: The Washington Post, 11/20/07):  Admissions representatives from Harvard, Princeton, and the University of Virginia visited the D.C. area last week to encourage middle- and lower-income students to apply.  The visit was part of a concerted effort on the part of these elite schools to recruit a more economically diverse student population and raise awareness about financial aid options.

For Want of a Proofreader, or at Least a Good One, a Reading Exam Is Lost
(Source: The New York Times, 11/20/07):  A standardized test designed to compare American students’ reading proficiency with that of their international peers contained errors that rendered the results invalid.  The test was administered without incident in 56 other countries, but the American version referred students to the wrong pages for reading comprehension passages—a problem that would have been caught had the tests been adequately proofread.  The contractor responsible for the flawed exams is reimbursing the government $500,000.

Increase in Teacher Resignations
(Source: The New York Times, 11/19/07):  According to the United Federation of Teachers, the teachers’ union for New York City, more teachers resigned during the last school year than at any time in recent history.  The number of resignations has steadily increased from 2,544 teachers in 2001 to 4,606 this year.

B‘No Child’ Data on Violence Skewed
(Source: The Washington Post, 11/18/07):  An audit by the US Department of Education has found that school violence is widely underreported.  The ‘No Child Left Behind’ law requires states to identify ‘persistently dangerous schools,’ but of the nation’s 94,000 schools, only 46 have received that designation.  The audit posited that states set unrealistic criteria for the designation in order to avoid the economic and political consequences of having dangerous schools.