U.S. Department of Education names new director for state ed tech grant program

Education Week reports:

After months of anticipation about who would head educational technology initiatives at the U.S. Department of Education, ed-tech advocates praised the appointment of Karen Cator yesterday, saying the former educator and Apple executive brings to the job a passion for the potential of technology to improve teaching and learning.

The long-awaited appointment comes at a time when interest in how technology can be used to improve education is growing as more K-12 schools offer online courses, use mobile technologies such as cellphones and laptops, and put in place high-tech data-analysis tools.

The debate over 3-year bachelor’s degrees

Recently, NEWSWEEK published this cover story by former US Secretary of Education (and current Republican senator) Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. Sen. Alexander argues that four-year bachelor’s degrees are outmoded and too expensive to maintain in the current economic climate. He concludes:

Expanding the three-year option or year-round schedules may be difficult, but it may be more palatable than asking Congress for additional bailout money, asking legislators for more state support, or asking students for even higher tuition payments. Campuses willing to adopt convenient schedules along with more-focused, less-expensive degrees may find that they have a competitive advantage in attracting bright, motivated students.

 

In the same issue, NEWSWEEK published this very interesting debate between five researchers and policy makers from around higher education. Both these articles are well worth reading.

Chicago’s experience suggests school turnarounds may not help students

Education Week reports:

A majority of Chicago students affected by school closings were sent to schools that were low-performing, just like those they left behind—moves that had no significant impact on performance for most students, a study released today…

“Certainly, when schools were closed for academic reasons, the idea was to try to change their educational prospects and what they might obtain. Unfortunately, we didn’t find that,” said Julia Gwynne, a senior research analyst with the consortium and the report’s co-author. “The main reason why that seems not to have occurred was because most students did not attend schools that were substantially better than the ones that were closed.”

 

US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has expressed strong support of school turnarounds – see this post from June 2009.

Fridays are no longer school days in Hawaii

The AP (via USA Today) reports:

[Hawaii] has created the nation’s shortest school year under a new union contract that closes schools on most Fridays for the remainder of the academic calendar.

The deal whacks 17 days from the school year for budget-cutting reasons and has education advocates incensed that Hawaii is drastically cutting the academic calendar at a time when it already ranks near the bottom in national educational achievement.

While many school districts have laid off or furloughed teachers, reduced pay and planning days and otherwise cut costs, Hawaii’s 171,000 public schools students now find themselves with only 163 instructional days, compared with 180 in most districts in the U.S.

The troubled economy leads to teacher layoffs

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Widespread layoffs caused by tight school budgets are forcing thousands of teachers out of the classroom, in some cases, permanently. Many are taking other jobs or considering changing careers, even as they anxiously hope to be recalled.

When school begins this month, as many as 100,000 of last year’s teachers won’t have jobs, resulting in an overall drop in education jobs in the U.S., estimates Carmen Quesada, director of field operations for the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union.

Is Teach for America costing unionized teachers their jobs?

USA Today reports:

Despite a lingering recession, state budget crises and widespread teacher hiring slowdowns, Teach For America (TFA) has grown steadily, delighting supporters and giving critics a bad case of heartburn as it expands to new cities and builds a formidable alumni base of young people willing to teach for two years in some of the USA’s toughest public schools.

Nationwide, about 7,300 young people are expected to teach under TFA’s banner, up from 6,200 last year. TFA is expanding from 29 regions to 35, including Dallas, Boston and Minneapolis-St. Paul.

But critics say the growth in many cities is coming at the expense of experienced teachers who are losing their jobs — in some cases, they say, to make room for TFA, which brings in teachers at beginners’ salary levels and underwrites training.

In Boston, TFA corps members replaced 20 pink-slipped teachers, says Boston Teachers Union President Richard Stutman. “These are people who have been trained, who are experienced and who have good evaluations, and are being replaced by brand-new employees.”

As school budgets shrink, class sizes increas

The Associated Press reports (via Yahoo! News) that the economic crisis has caused many states to reduce their public education budgets by laying off teachers, which in turn is creating larger average class sizes. Much research going back decades suggests that larger classes tend to be poorer learning environments for students.

The economic impact of community colleges

Two recent news articles look at the impact of community colleges on the economy.

This article from TIME Magazine profiles Austin Community College and discusses how community colleges in general can more rapidly meet the changing needs of industry than most four-year institutions.

This piece in the New York Times describes how some government-funded worker retraining efforts, many of which are centered on community colleges, sometimes fall short of expectations.

Public school districts must pay for private special education, Supreme Court finds

NPR reports:

In a 6-to-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled Monday that school districts could be required to reimburse students who choose special education programs at private schools even if they did not try the public school’s special education offerings first.

California schools face potentially devestating budget cuts

The AP (via USA Today) reports:

California’s historic budget crisis threatens to devastate a public education system that was once considered a national model but now ranks near the bottom in school funding and academic achievement.Deep budget cuts are forcing California school districts to lay off thousands of teachers, expand class sizes, close schools, eliminate bus service, cancel summer school programs, and possibly shorten the academic year.

The unprecedented budget cuts mark a new low for a once highly regarded public school system that began its decline in 1978, when voters approved Proposition 13, which undercut counties’ ability to raise property taxes and generate revenue. The ballot measure shifted the responsibility of funding schools to the state and made it more difficult to increase education funding.

California schools now rank at or near the bottom nationally in academic performance, student-teacher ratios in middle and high school, access to guidance counselors and the percentage of seniors who go directly to four-year colleges, according to a February report by UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education and Access.

In its annual survey this year, Education Week magazine ranked California 47th in per-pupil spending and gave the state a D in academic achievement.