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Education
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Oklahoma City, 2010
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Visit the Mayors' Task Force on Public
Schools Website
LEGISLATION
Weekly Update - August 23,
2010
August 24, 2010, the U.S. Department of Education issued a press release
announcing Phase 2 winners of the Race to the Top competition. The 10 winning Phase 2 states are: the
District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York,
North Carolina, Ohio, and Rhode Island.
Weekly Update - August 16,
2010
The House is in
recess and will return September 14, 2010.
The Senate is in
recess and will return September 13, 2010.
Weekly Update - August 9,
2010
August 10, 2010, On Tuesday, August 10th, the House passed HR
1586, containing the Murray-Harkin-Reid-Schumer Amendment, by a vote of 247-161.
The legislation will provide $10 billion
for additional support to local school districts in order to prevent imminent
layoffs and is anticipated to help keep 140,000 educators employed next year.
Weekly Update -
August 2, 2010
August 4, 2010,
The Senate passed the Murray-Harkin-Reid-Schumer Amendment to H.R. 1586 by a vote
of 61-38. The legislation will provide $10 billion for additional support
to local school districts in order to prevent imminent layoffs and is
anticipated to help keep 140,000 educators employed next year. House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi has called back the House from their August Recess for a final
vote on the Amendment next Tuesday.
August 2, 2010,
The Senate Committee on Appropriations approved the FY 2011 Appropriations bill
for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related
Agencies. Click here to access a copy of the Labor-HHS appropriations
chart. Click here to access a copy of the Labor-HHS appropriations
summary.
August 2, 2010, HR
5989 was introduced by Representative Polis (CO) to amend ESEA to enhance the
credit program for charter schools through green initiatives.
August 2, 2010, HR
6078 was introduced by Representative Woosley (CA) to amend ESEA to provide
grants to LEAs to encourage girls and underrepresented minorities to pursue
studies and careers in STEM.
Weekly
Update - July 26, 2010
July
26, 2010, HR 5843 was introduced by Representative Larson of Washington to
amend Title VIII (Impact Aid) of ESEA of 1965 to require the Secretary of
Education to complete payments under this Title to LEAs eligible for such payments
within three fiscal years.
July 26, 2010, HR
5817 was introduced by Representative Lewis of Georgia to provide children
in foster care with school stability and equal access to educational
opportunity.
Weekly
Update - July 19, 2010
The
Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation (Rockefeller, West
Virginia) introduced S 3605 (Rockefeller), the American Competes
Reauthorization Act of 2010. This bill authorizes $84 billion for
research, education, and other programs over the next five years at the
National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and the National
Institute of Standards and Technology.
S 3595 (Brown,
Ohio) introduced the Diploma Act, to strengthen student achievement and
graduation rates and prepare young people for college, careers, and citizenship
through innovative partnerships that meet the comprehensive needs of children
and youth.
HR 5753 (Carson,
Indiana) introduced to amend ESEA of 1965 to award grants to eligible entities
to establish, expand or support an existing school-based mentoring program to
assist at-risk middle school students with the transition from middle school to
high school.
Weekly
Update - July 9, 2010
HR 5671
(Sanchez, California) was introduced to amend the ESEA of 1965 to create a demonstration
project to fund additional secondary school counselors in troubled Title I
schools to reduce the number of dropouts.
Weekly
Update - July 2, 2010
The
Senate nominated Eduardo Ochoa to be the U.S. Department of Education's
Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education and Ann Stock to be Assistant
Secretary of State of Education and Cultural Affairs.
On June 28,
Congressman John Barrow (GA) introduced legislation to amend the Workforce
Investment Act of 1998 to establish a technical school training subsidy program
(HR 5594).
D.C.
Teachers' contract is approved unanimously by Washington, DC council. The DC
Council unanimously approved a contract with the Washington Teacher’s Union
that promises significantly higher wages for educators who demonstrate results
in the classroom. The deal provides for a 21.6 percent salary increase through
2012 and will raise the average salary for a D.C. teacher from $67,000 to
$81,000. In addition, educators that show substantial growth in student test
scores could be granted up to $20,000 to $30,000 more. Click here to view the full story.
Weekly
Update - April 16, 2010
Elementary
and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)
Senate HELP
Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (IA) is planning to mark up ESEA reauthorization
legislation next month in hopes of having the bill reach the Senate floor by
late June or July. The Obama administration has called for reauthorization this
year, however both Democrats and Republicans predict this would be very
difficult. House Education and Labor Chairman George Miller (CA) has indicated
that the House and Senate have a joint goal of finishing reauthorization before
the August recess.
Secretary
of Education Arne Duncan created a blueprint for ESEA revisions that include
increased local flexibility and control, higher standards to guarantee that
graduates are college-ready and requirements that schools reward excellence.
The blueprint is open for comment until April 28, and several interest groups
including mayors, governors, teachers unions and education and civil rights
organizations have provided their feedback. Although the current law has
received criticism from both parties for setting unrealistic goals, there are
currently no Republicans committed to support the reform proposed by Secretary
Duncan. The last reauthorization of the legislation, known as No Child Left
Behind (NCLB) was completed in 2002.
REPORTS AND RESOURCES
·
August 25, 2010, “Education Secretary Arne Duncan wants schools to give
parents, teachers more data†Secretary Duncan insists that public schools share
information on teacher effectiveness with parents and student achievement data
with their educators. To read the full
story, click
here.
·
August 24 2010, “Race to the Top’s Round 2 Winners, And Why They
Matter†The ten Phase 2 winners of the competition and the efforts toward
education reform that distinguished them from a list of 19 finalists are
highlighted. To read more, click
here.
·
August 19, 2010, “U.S. Department of Education
Awards $28.8 Million to School Districts†98 grants were
awarded to schools across America in order to improve readiness and emergency
response plans. To read the full story, click here.
·
August 10, 2010, Communities for Excellent Public
Schools (CEPS) published a report entitled,ÃÆ’Æ’Æ’ÃÆ’‚¢ÃÆ’Æ’¢ÃÆ’¢â‚¬Å¡ÃÆ’‚¬ÃÆ’Æ’‚ÃÆ’‚ÂÂÂÂÂÂOur Communities Left Behind: an
Analysis of the Administration's School Turnaround Policies." CEP analyzes the four interventions being funded through the School
Improvement Grants program and calls for research-based educational strategies
in their proposal, "Sustainable
School Transformation." To read more, click here.
·
August 10, 2010, New - “Race to the Top" Briefing. The New
Teacher Center policy brief analyzes aspects of the nineteen Phase Two Race to
the Top finalists' applications related to new teacher induction and teaching
and learning conditions. To read the brief, click here.
·
July
28, 2010, 'Race to the Top' Finalists Named; Obama's Education Agenda
Stagnates. Senator Duncan discussed Obama’s stalled agenda for education
in Congress in his speech Tuesday at the National Press Club. He also announced
the finalists for the “Race to the Top†contest. Read the full story here.
·
July
6, 2010, Report on Rural and Low-Income School (RLIS) Program. The U.S.
Department of Education released their evaluation on the implementation of the
RLIS Program this week. The report found that districts are using federal
funds to improve instruction and education achievement by hiring teachers,
purchasing instructional materials, and providing professional development. Click here to view the full story.
·
July 5, 2010,
ESEA Committee Chair Calls For Delegate Advocacy: The chair of the National
Education Association's ESEA Advisory Committee, Christy Levings,
called on delegates to “beef up their lobbying†and become more actively
involved in bringing about a renewed law. Click here
to view the full story.
·
July
4, 2010, NEA's Delegates Vote 'No Confidence' in Race to the Top: After a
protracted debate, delegates to the National Education Association voted on
Sunday to take a position of "no confidence" in the U.S. Department
of Education's Race to the Top guidelines and in the use of competitive grants
as a basis for the reauthorization of ESEA. Click here to view the full story.
·
After Zones:
Creating a Citywide System to Support and Sustain High-Quality After-School
Programs:
Public/Private Ventures. This report presents an analysis of the implementation
of the AfterZone initiative, a citywide system-building effort in Providence,
RI, that aims to provide high-quality, accessible out-of-school-time services to
middle school youth. The report examines the implementation of the initiative's
unique features and documents its operations. It also explores the challenges
and successes of Providence's system-building efforts as well as the strategies
used to sustain them
·
More Time for
Learning: Promising Practices and Lessons Learned: Massachusetts Expanded
Learning (ELT) Initiative- This report highlights how successful expanded-time
schools are using additional time to individualize academic supports to meet
student needs; help teachers strengthen instruction; use data to make effective
decisions about how to focus teaching and learning; and add high-quality
enrichment programs and community partners to build students’ skills, interest,
and self-confidence.
UPCOMING
NATIONAL EDUCATION EVENTS, MEETINGS AND CONFERENCES
·
August 30-31 2010, Secretary Duncan will be traveling by bus through New
York, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Maine continuing his “Courage in the
Classroom: Back to School†Bus Tour.
·
August 31, 2010, the Department of Education will be hosting a webinar
entitled, "ED's OCFO Recaps: Cash Management Requirements for Recipients
of Grants and Cooperative Agreements" at 2:00 p.m. EST. For more
information, click here. ·
September 14, 2010, President Barack Obama will
deliver his second annual Back to School speech. The speech will be broadcast
online and in schools nationwide. ·
September 21, 2010, Washington Monthly magazine will
release its annual College Guide, covering a range of important issues in
higher education and focusing on one of the year’s most pressing issues: college dropouts.
·
September
27, 2010, NBC News launches its first annual "Education Nation," a
nationally broadcast in-depth conversation about improving education in
America. A two-day summit will take place at Rockefeller Plaza and
include more than 300 big thinkers in government, politics, business and
technology, as well as school administrators, teachers, parents and students
from across the country. Click here for more information.
·
September
27, 2010, The Reading Recovery Council of North America hosts "Leadership
for Accelerating Growth and Eliminating the Achievement Gap: The Power of a K-3
Comprehensive Literacy Plan" at the Capital Hill Hotel in Washington,
D.C. To sign up for this event, click here.
·
September 29, 2010, CEF
Legislative Conference and GALA will be held at the Capitol’s Visitor Center
from 8:30am -12pm. Secretary Duncan will be speaking and CEF Awards will be
presented at this event. To attend, click here.
GRANTS AND
OTHER FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
·
August 25, 2010,
applications for the new Education Jobs Fund Program have been released to
governors across the country and are now available on the Education
Department’s website. This $10 billion federal program will assist schools in
creating or saving education jobs for the upcoming 2010-2011 school year. The
application period closes September 9, 2010.
To find out more, click here.
·
August
19, 2010, The Mind Trust announced a new rolling application process for its
Education Entrepreneur Fellowship. Candidates may now submit applications to
transform K-12 public education at any time during the year. The Fellowship
provides education entrepreneurs with the support they need to help underserved
or disadvantaged children. The Mind
Trust expects to award up to three Fellowships in 2010. To learn more, click here.
·
July
19, 2010, The Foundation Registry i3, a new online application, was launched to
simplify the private funding application process for potential grantees and
increase access and visibility for new, especially smaller, applicants. It also
aims to improve the ability for foundations to examine investment opportunities
and better coordinate efforts with the U.S. Department of Education around the
i3 Fund. Click here for more information.
MORE LINKS
TO EDUCATON NEWS AND RESEARCH
The
Federal Resources for Educational Excellence (FREE) web site makes it easy to
find learning resources from some 50 federal organizations. Whether you are
looking for teaching ideas and learning activities or primary documents like
audio recordings, maps, paintings, and photos, FREE offers one-stop access to
items created by the Library of Congress, NASA, and the Smithsonian
Institution, to name a few. And, every weekday, a new resource is
featured. http://www.ed.gov/free/.
Also:
The Gateway to Educational Materials (GEM) web site, http://thegateway.org/, is a database of more than
24,000 high quality lesson plans, curriculum units, and other resources across
more than 400 web sites
Community
Involvement: A win-win approach to school facility planning: -- Current
literature has offered answers to the what and the why of community involvement
in school facility planning. But the "how to" of involving community
members in planning a school facility has not been practically explored. This
is the first attempt to provide a conceptual framework of how to involve the
community by initiating a win-win approach to school facility planning.
http://asbointl.org/WhatsNew/SchoolBusinessAffairs/index.asp
Tools for school improvement planning can be found on a new website from the
Annenberg Institute. It contains observation protocols, focus group samples and
questions, surveys, questionnaires, and other techniques to help you examine
your specific school-improvement concerns. In addition, this site features two
other essentials for school improvement, including a school-improvement guide
with a step-by-step process for successful school improvement, including sample
worksheets and rubrics. In the "Using Data" section, you'll find
resources on using data -- a key to sustained improvement: types and uses of
data, selecting and analyzing data, and using results to drive your planning
efforts.
http://www.annenberginstitute.org/tools/
Over the last four decades college graduation rates have remained remarkably
stable despite steady increases in the number of high school seniors pursuing
postsecondary education. On its face, this would appear to be a good thing-as
more kids are entering college (4 out of 5 students who graduate high school in
four years enroll in some kind of postsecondary education), more are earning a
college degree. According to a study by the Education Trust, however, the completion
rates of yesterday are no longer acceptable today. (For more on the graduation
rate crisis, see our review of Double the Numbers.) As the earnings gap between
college grads and high school grads widens, "the consequences of not
graduating have not stayed the same" and with global market competition,
"low graduation rates are something our economy can no longer
afford." The study, which used data recently released by the U.S.
Department of Education's Graduation Rate Survey (GRS), observes significant gaps
between the college graduation rates of low- and high-income students and
between white and minority students. To wit, only 54 percent of low income
students graduate in six years compared with 77 percent of high income
students. Further, less than half of all minority students graduate while 67
percent of white students earn a postsecondary degree. Interestingly, the study
also showed marked differences in graduation rates between schools with very
similar student bodies. According to author Kevin Carey, colleges need to start
taking responsibility for improving their own completion rates and can do so by
studying the successful practices of similar schools with better track records.
Carey's findings and argument for institutional reform are worth the read.
Check it out at here.
Study indicates
positive effects of preschool and kindergarten on learning Children who attend
preschool for two years are twice as likely as children with no preschool
experience to have the language, literacy and math skills needed to be ready
for kindergarten, concludes a new study. The study makes several
recommendations on how to narrow the achievement gap between poor and non-poor
students and reach other goals. Some of the recommendations include ensuring
full access to preschool programs in poor school districts, providing two years
of preschool rather than one, ensuring health care access for poor families and
maximizing federal funding of health care for the poor.
Click here for more information.
A direct link to
the U.S. Department of Education for quick, concise, and targeted responses to
questions about No Child Left Behind: 1-888-NCLB-SUP (1-888-625-2787). The
resource line will be staffed Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
ET. During off-hours, or when the lines are busy during the week,
superintendents will be able to leave messages. Also, for the technology-savvy
may send email inquiries to a dedicated Inbox: NCLBSUP@ed.gov. Staff will ensure that all issues are addressed as
efficiently as possible. For more information: http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2003/12/12182003.html.
"After-School
Programs: Expanding Access and Ensuring Quality" (link below), by
education consultant Chrisanne Gayl, examines the history of and rationale for
after-school programs, evaluates federal after-school investments to date, and
highlights promising state and local initiatives. Gayl also offers
recommendations for how policymakers can expand and improve quality in
after-school programs to ensure they can help all children meet their
potential.
Click here for more information.
The Colorado
Supreme Court has ruled that the state's voucher program unconstitutionally
strips school boards of local control. The Denver Post reports that the 4-3
decision upholds a district court finding that locally raised tax money can't
be used to pay for private education.
Investment in
Education Best Route to Fairer Economy: As state and local governments face
tight budgets, a new Economic Policy Institute report shows adequate and
effective funding of education is thebest way to achieve faster growth, more
jobs, greater productivity, and more widely shared prosperity. "Smart
Money: Education and Economic Development," by economic development expert
William Schweke, shows how more investment in education, from preschool to
college, spurs economic development through increases in productivity, learned
skills, technology and workers' average earnings. At a time when our
knowledge-based economy demands increasingly higher skills to stay competitive,
support for well-resourced schooling and training is key, Schweke says. This
strategy is also an important tool for advancing economic equality. As more
public school students are poor, minority, or new immigrants, they need good education
as a foundation to avoid many social problems stemming from poverty and
inequality, and to eventually become productive, highly-skilled workers.
Click here for more information.
Tapping
Potential: Retaining and Developing High Quality New Teachers: American schools
spend more than $2.6 billion annually replacing teachers who have dropped out
of the teaching profession. Alliance for Excellent Education has released a new
report that cites comprehensive induction, especially in a teacher's first two
years on the job, as the single effective strategy to stem the rapidly
increasing teacher attrition rate. The report includes federal policy
recommendations, in-depth analysis of new teacher induction practices, and four
case studies. According to the report, one out of every two new teachers will
quit within five years. About 207,000 teachers, nearly 6 per cent of the
teaching workforce, will not return to teaching next fall. Research shows that
comprehensive induction cuts attrition rates in half and develops new teachers
more rapidly into highly skilled, experienced professionals. Induction has been
shown to create a payoff of $1.37 for every one dollar invested; however, only
one percent of beginning teachers currently receives the ongoing training and
support that constitutes comprehensive induction when they enter the teaching
profession. Comprehensive induction is defined as including high-quality
mentoring, common planning time, ongoing professional development, an external
network, and standards-based evaluation. Tapping the Potential makes the
following recommendations: states and school districts should use funds from
Title II of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (now the No Child Left
Behind Act) to fund comprehensive induction programs; Title II of the Higher
Education Act should be amended to require partnership grantees to provide
comprehensive induction; and new funding should be appropriated by Congress to
ensure that every new teacher in our nation's high-need schools receives
comprehensive induction.
http://www.all4ed.org/press/pr_062304.html
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