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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