Gleaned from an abundance of interesting
items at Public Education Network newsweekly:
www.publiceducation.org
Schools
With Poor, Minority Students Get Less State
Funds
School
districts in Illinois and New York that have large numbers of poor students
get some $2,200 less in state and local funds per student than other schools,
according to a new report, "The Funding
Gap," from The Education Trust. Alaska did the best, providing $840 in
additional funds per student to school districts with low-income students,
followed by Delaware, which provided more than $600. School districts with large minority
populations also get short-changed, the report said. New York again has the
largest gap ($2,000 per student), followed by Kansas and Nebraska, both with
nearly $1,800. On the flip side, Massachusetts provided an extra $940 per
student to school districts with a lot of minority students and Georgia an
extra $560, reports Pamela M. Prah. All dollar figures have been adjusted to
take into account local
cost differences and the
extra cost of educating poorer students, the trust said. "In too many states, we see yet again
that the very students who need the most, get the least," Kevin Carey, senior
policy analyst and author of the report, said. "At a time when schools,
districts and states are rightly focusing on closing the achievement gap
separating low-income and minority students from other students, states can
and must do more to close these funding gaps."
http://www.stateline.org/stateline/?pa=story&sa=showStoryInfo&id=332153
No
Parent Left Behind
Educators
have recognized for some time that parent involvement plays a critical role in
student achievement. Especially in urban districts it has become increasingly
clear that failure to enlist parents as partners seriously hampers any
school-reform efforts. But it's only recently that many schools, districts,
and states have been taking concrete steps to help what's often a tense
relationship. Particularly in urban areas, school officials often complain
that parents are too busy or not sufficiently caring to get involved at their
childrens' schools. Yet at the same time many parents say they feel threatened
or unwelcome, and that what many principals mean by "parent involvement" is
really bake sales and book drives. The result:
open hostility between people who ultimately all have the same
goals. To improve
this unhappy state of affairs, the sweeping 2002 No Child Left Behind Act has
for the first time put in place laws intended to foster parent involvement.
The mandates included in the federal act range from better communication on
such things as test scores and parents' options to requirements that schools
develop a "school-parent" compact and a plan to involve parents. At this
point, most of the reforms still exist more on paper than in practice. But
just formally recognizing the importance of the issue - the need for
involvement that's truly collaborative - is a step in the right direction, say
educators. "People in the [school] community have to see that communicating
well with families is part of their professional job," says Joyce Epstein,
director of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships at Johns
Hopkins University in Baltimore. "That's explicit now. If No Child Left Behind
really were implemented as intended, it would really be quite exciting." As
Amanda Paulson reports, a number of states and districts are also trying out
their own strategies. http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1028/p12s01-legn.htm
No
Cow Left Behind
Since
testing seems to be a cornerstone to improving performance, Kenneth Remsen
doesn't understand why this principle isn't applied to other businesses that
are not performing up to expectations. In this satire, he examines the problem
of falling milk prices and wonders why testing cows wouldn't be effective in
bringing up milk prices since testing students is going to bring up test
scores. Remsen doesn't want to hear about the cows that just came to the barn
from the farm down the road that didn't provide the proper nutrition or a
proper living environment. All cows need to meet the standard. It will be
necessary for all farmers to become certified. This will mean some more
paperwork and testing of knowledge of cows but in the end this will lead to
the benefit of all. It will also be necessary to allow barn
choice for the
cows. If cows are not meeting the standard in certain farms they will be
allowed to go to the barn of their choice. Transportation may become an issue
but it is critical that cows be allowed to leave their low performing barns.
This will force low performing farms to meet the standard or else they will
simply go out of business.
http://www.storm-lake.k12.ia.us/Admin/Pages/ncowlb.htm
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