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US Education UpdateIssue 8, April 2001 Contents
Assessing Readiness for Kindergarten One of Maryland's
school improvement initiatives is to train its kindergarten teachers to
assess student readiness for school. Maryland is the first state to use
the Work Sampling System to assess students' readiness in each school
district. From the next school year, all kindergarten teachers will use
it to observe, evaluate and record students in the classroom. The aim
is to target where help is needed offsetting the costs of remedial help
in later years. A pilot of the project showed that 40% of children assessed
were fully ready for kindergarten with 50% approaching readiness - girls
performed better than boys. Further information:
Source: Education Week
Minority Students in Special Education The Civil Rights Project
at Harvard University has released four reports that suggest discrimination
of minority students in special education. Black children (in particular
boys) are almost three times more likely to be diagnosed as mentally retarded,
twice as likely to be labelled with emotional problems, and 1.3 times
more likely to be diagnosed with a specific learning disability. Once
placed in special education classes minority children are less likely
to be returned to mainstream education. Notably, black children in wealthier
areas have a greater probability of being put in special education classes
than their peers in low income neighbourhoods. Although schools in wealthier
suburbs may have more money to support services such as special education
the reports suggest that it does not fully explain the higher number of
minority students using them. About 11% of all students nationwide receive
special education. In 1998 1.5 million minority children were diagnosed
with problems requiring special education placement. At a time of increased
emphasis on testing for grade promotion and eventual graduation, researchers
are concerned about misdiagnosed students being taken out of mainstream
education. Sources: Education Week, New York Times
The school board of the Chester-Upland school district in Pennsylvania has taken the novel decision to appoint three companies to manage 11 low-performing schools serving some 7,500 students. The companies chosen are Edison Schools Inc, LearnNow and Mosaica Education. The companies will cooperate on issues such as teachers contracts and the transfer of student records but will compete for students within the district. The school district hopes that healthy competition will quickly lead to more stimulating learning environments for the students. The experiment will be monitored closely, particularly by other small school districts with "failing" schools. Edison Schools Inc, the largest private manager of charter and traditional public schools (it has 113 schools serving some 57,000 students) is in the news across the nation. The school board of the San Francisco Unified School District has taken the first step towards revoking Edison's contract to manage Edison Charter Academy. Claims of high teacher turnover and special education students being encouraged to leave the Academy have been refuted by Edison. The school board acknowledges that there is high parental satisfaction with the school. In New York City, parents voted against a proposal to allow Edison to manage five of its lowest performing schools. Although voter turnout was low and the local teachers' union was strongly opposed to Edison, the result is viewed as a setback for any future privatisation schemes for New York City's 1.1 million students. For more information:
Sources: Education Week, New York Times
Housing Incentives
An existing federal programme, known as Teacher Next Door1, allows teachers to purchase Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) homes at half of their listed price. The homes, which have usually been repossessed, are often in low-income neighbourhoods and in need of repair. Teachers who have bought homes in this way say it allows them to buy a house they could not normally afford (even allowing for costly repairs) and be part of the community in which they teach. An additional incentive, the proposed Homeownership Opportunities for Uniformed Services and Educators Act, would build on previous programmes by granting teachers, police officers and fire fighters Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgages with a 1% down payment rather than the usual 3%. Some school districts are going into partnership with businesses to offer housing incentives. Santa Clara, California, and Intel Corp, a computer technology firm, offer teachers $500 per month towards their mortgage payments for five years. Teachers pay back the money through the equity accrued on their house over the five year period. Intel Corp feels it is in their interest to recruit and retain good teachers to schools which in turn attracts high quality employees to the area. Similarly, Bank of America now offers mortgages to teachers with no down payment necessary. It is too early to report the effect of these incentives on teacher recruitment. Interest and participation in the various programmes is growing, although representatives from teachers unions, and others, feel that the incentives do not solve the major problem of low salaries in areas of high living costs. Sources: Education Week, New York Times, Hartford Courant Using a Private
Agency Source: The Atlanta-Journal Constitution
Increasing Support for Character Education Reacting to recent incidents of school violence, Secretary of Education Rod Paige suggested increased teaching of character education in schools as a possible route to solve the problem. President Bush, a vocal supporter of character education from early in his presidential campaign, advocates tripling the current federal budget to $25 million for schools to spend on character education programmes. For an overview of where the USA stands at present on character education and service learning (volunteering linked to academic credit), please read the accompanying word document (Character Education.doc).
Corporate executives from such companies as Sears Roebuck, Verizon Communications and Bank of America, have sent a letter to 700 colleges and universities calling for less importance to be placed on SAT scores in college admission. This follows closely the proposal by Richard C Atkinson, president of the University of California system, to abolish the use of the SAT, a standardised test, in admissions (see Education Update 7, item 6). The letter was released at a press conference of the National Urban League, a community-based organisation that is "devoted to empowering African Americans to enter the economic and social mainstream". In general, African American students score lower in the SAT than their white peers. This, along with decreasing use of affirmative action2 in admissions to public universities has caused concern within the NUL. The NUL also released results from a survey of 200 executives from Fortune 100 companies that showed that they value character, leadership abilities and effective communication above grades, SAT scores and advanced degrees in determining an employee's potential. For more information:
International Leadership
Association Annual Conference 1-3 "The goals of the ILA annual conference are to generate and disseminate cutting- edge work in leadership practice and theory; to strengthen the ties between those who practice, study, and teach leadership; and to serve as a forum where those with an interest in leadership can share resources, ideas, research and information." For additional information, go to: www.academy.umd.edu/ila/2001meeting/cfp.html
Previous issues of the Education Update are available on the British Council's USA website.
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