Education News: September 24, 2009

Following are some of the top headlines from the world of education for the week ending September 24, 2009.

New Federal Initiative Seeks to Boost Early Learning Programs
(New York Times, September 19, 2009)  The house recently passed a broad federal initiative aimed at improving the quality of early learning and care programs that serve children from birth through age five.  The initiative is called the Early Learning Challenge Fund, and was tucked into an $87 billion higher education bill that was passed last week.  It would channel $8 billion over eight years to states that develop plans to improve standards, training and oversight of programs that serve infants, toddlers and preschoolers.  To qualify for the grant money, states will have to demonstrate that they have established or improved “governance structures” for their networks of child care centers and pre-K programs.  The “structures” will include quality standards, a curriculum of sorts, a mechanism for reviewing programs and assigning ratings, minimum training requirements for providers, plans for parent outreach, and a data collection system.  The Senate is expected to pass similar legislation this fall, clearing the way for President Obama, who originally proposed the Challenge Fund during his campaign, to sign the bill in December.  According to experts, the current system is too unfocused, with little coordination or coherence.  Because most states lack any early childhood structure analogous to the state and local boards of education, quality is uneven and many poorer students arrive for kindergarten unprepared.  The fund will be jointly administered by the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services.  Some remain concerned that the Obama Administration has not done enough to integrate Pre-K.

Advisory Panel Unveils Proposal for US Education Standards
(Boston Globe, September 22, 2009)  On Monday, an advisory panel unveiled its proposal detailing what it feels to be the math and English skills that every student ought to have by the end of high school.  The panel is made up of specialists affiliated with organizations that oversee the SAT and ACT college admissions tests, and Achieve Inc., a nonprofit standards advocacy group based in Washington.  It was convened by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, which enlisted 48 states and the District of Columbia this year to attempt to create national standards for education.  The two remaining holdouts are Alaska and Texas.  Advocates hope that this is the first step towards common standards throughout the nation, which they hope will help the US regain world academic leadership.  In math, for example, students should be able to solve systems of equations, and find and interpret rates of change upon completion of high school.  In English language arts, students should be able to develop a style and tone of writing appropriate to a task, purpose and audience.  The panel is seeking public comment on the proposal over the next month.
Check out the proposal, posted at www.corestandards.org.

In Recent Speech, Duncan Reiterates Need to Push School Reform
(USA Today, September 23, 2009)  U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan delivered a speech in Washington, DC on Thursday to 162 education, business, civil rights, charitable and social services groups.  These groups are known as the “stakeholders’ forum,” and represent an array of interests ranging from the USA's two biggest teachers unions, the American Federation of Teachers and National Education Association, to the NAACP and the United Way of America.  In the speech, Duncan challenged his listeners to put aside “tired arguments” on education reform.  Instead, he hopes they help him to craft a viable bill by 2010, which will completely reauthorize federal education legislation.  He also urged them to focus on getting the best teachers into underperforming schools and to create data systems that are able to "accurately and fairly measure student growth and use data to drive instruction and teacher evaluation."  While Duncan has received support for his efforts to reenergize reform of No Child Left Behind, there are still concerns that he is trying to push reform too fast. 
programs into the nation’s broader public education system.  The $4.3 billion Race to the Top fund, for example, largely ignores early childhood education.

Audit Finds Federal Agencies are Slow to Alert Schools About Tainted Foods
(USA Today, September 22, 2009)  According to a federal audit, federal agencies that supply food to over 31 million school children fail to ensure that tainted food products are pulled from cafeterias in a timely manner.  The audit was performed by Congress' Government Accountability Office, and focuses on the Food and Nutrition Service, or FNS, which is an arm of the Department of Agriculture.  The FNS provides states and school systems with federally purchased commodities for school lunch and breakfast programs.  According to the audit, alerts regarding suspect food products provided by the federal commodities program sometimes took over a week to reach schools.  Such delays raise the risk of students getting sick from contaminated food.  The identified cause of the problem is that the FNS doesn’t have a system in place to notify them when the Food and Drug Administration begins a food-safety investigation that may lead to a recall.  The process to determine whether a suspect product was sent to schools should be started before a recall is announced.  Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack issued a written response saying that ensuring the safety of school meals is of “utmost importance,” and that a formal system is being developed to give them advance notice of when the FDA is investigating food-safety concerns that could lead to recalls.

NYC Charter Students Excel on State Exams
(New York Times, September 22, 2009)  A recent study shows that students who entered lotteries and won spots in New York City charter schools performed better on state exams than students who entered the lotteries but did not secure seats.  By third grade, students who were admitted to the charters outperformed those who were not by 5.3 points on state English exams and by 5.8 points in math.  Most tests are scored on a scale of roughly 475 to 800.  The longer a student spent in the charter schools, the wider the gap became.  The report also found that students who attended a charter school from kindergarten to eighth grade almost matched the level of achievement in affluent NYC suburbs on math, and closed 66% of the difference in English.  That charter schools have been doing well on standardized tests is not new information, but this study seeks to refute the claim that charters have been “creaming” the best students because only the most motivate students and engaged parents apply for the spots.  The report is part of a multiyear study on the performance of NYC charter schools, presented by Caroline M. Hoxby, a Stanford economist.

Denver Public Schools Receive $4.6 Million Performance-Management Grant
(Denver Post, September 22, 2009)  On Monday, Denver Public Schools received a $4.6 million dollars grant from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation.  The funding will go towards the second phase of the district’s performance-management and accountability work, which aims to boost student achievement.  Janet Mountain, executive director of the foundation, lauded DPS for its development of a school-performance framework, merit-based pay, data systems and central office performance-management programs.  Phase one of the project began in February of 2008, when the Dell Foundation and the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation gave the school system $4.75 million to improve data collection on individual school performance and transportation.  The second phase will be focused on the Digital Doors project.  The project will allow teachers and principals access to a clearinghouse of information that will help improve instruction.  Digital Doors also satisfies two of the four key requirements to receive the Race to the Top funding: better use of data systems, and teacher effectiveness.

L.A. School District Union Agrees to Furloughs to Help Budget Crisis
(Los Angeles Times, September 23, 2009)  Bus drivers for the Los Angeles School district have agreed to take six unpaid days off this fiscal year.  Officials hope this is the first of several concessions by labor unions, as the district struggles to find ways to cut costs to offset a budget crisis.  Currently, the Los Angeles Unified School District is facing an almost $200 million shortfall.  According to leaders of the Service Employees International Union Local 99, which represents about 1,100 bus drivers, their membership agreed to the furloughs in order to maintain their hours and retirement benefits.  Union leaders said the drivers will try to take their days off during school vacations so that service is not interrupted.  It remains unclear if other unions in the district will follow suit.  United Teachers Los Angeles officials have opposed furloughs in the past, but have discussed other cost cutting measures with district officials.