Wash. declines to analyze tests for cheating signs

SEATTLE (AP) — Washington has good measures in place to prevent cheating on school tests, but it fails to conduct the types of post-test analysis that other states routinely use to detect cheating, The Seattle Times reported Sunday.

The state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction doesn't look for erasure patterns on student answer sheets that suggest someone changed wrong answers to right ones — as dozens of teachers and principals in Atlanta are accused of doing. Nor does it look for improbably high gains in a school's scores or look for other suspicious results, such as a class full of students with identical answers.

Instead, The Times wrote (http://is.gd/yi78AE ), Washington relies on whistle-blowers to report wrongdoing and on school districts to police themselves — an approach national testing experts describe as inadequate, especially as many states start using test scores to...

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Jennings offers hope for troubled school districts

JENNINGS, Mo. (AP) — It wasn't long ago that the Jennings School District in north St. Louis County was on the verge of losing accreditation, following in the footsteps of neighboring Normandy and Riverview Gardens districts. Instead, Jennings is in the midst of a turnaround.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (http://bit.ly/18l7GPV ) reports that parents are more involved, attendance is up, test scores are rising and discipline problems are on the decline in Jennings.

Many credit superintendent Tiffany Anderson, who cut underperforming teachers and principals and hired about 30 new teachers. She also reduced central office staff to free up money for classrooms and extended the school year for students in an...

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Wash. taking applications for charter schools

SEATTLE (AP) — Washington state's new Charter School Commission opened the statewide application process for...

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Fla. governor makes changes to Common Core plan

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Gov. Rick Scott — caught in a crossfire over the future of Florida's public schools — is trying to respond to critics of new education standards slated to go into effect next year.

Instead of rejecting — or wholly endorsing the standards as former Gov. Jeb Bush has — Scott on Monday called for public hearings and possible changes to the Common Core State Standards.

The Republican governor also said the state will pull out of a national test for school children to see if they are reaching...

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Scholarships open to students who overcome drugs

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Going to college has just gotten easier for high school seniors who have...

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School leaders ask Mo. lawmakers for transfer fix

COTTLEVILLE, Mo. (AP) — A roving panel of Missouri lawmakers started a three-day, statewide fact-finding trip on education policy in a suburban St. Louis school district where hundreds of students from a failing district are being bussed to better-performing schools up to 30 miles away.

The 17 members of the interim House Committee on Education who attended the Monday afternoon meeting at St. Charles Community College heard from superintendents, school choice advocates, local school board members and parent activists. The advance agenda listed eight topics, but the interconnected issues of costly school transfers and failing schools were clearly on the minds of most in the room.

The legislators were encouraged to seek a long-term fix to what those providing public testimony called a short-term solution that came to a head over the summer after a state Supreme Court ruling triggered the exodus of nearly 2,600 students from the unaccredited Normandy and Riverview Gardens districts...

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Cincinnati in-school clinic to provide dental care

CINCINNATI (AP) — An in-school dental clinic believed by local and state health officials to be the only one in Ohio officially opened Monday.

The three-chair clinic has been operating a few weeks but was officially unveiled at Oyler School in the Cincinnati Public Schools District. The city health department and the Cincinnati Dental Society's Oral Health Foundation are operating the clinic, and it will be staffed by a full-time dentist, with the foundation providing volunteer dentists to help serve children who don't have insurance.

Health and school officials say a lack of dental care...

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Ga. high court rules in favor of charter schools

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia's highest court has upheld a Fulton County court ruling that bars Atlanta Public Schools from using tax dollars to pay for its pension obligations before distributing a share of the money to local charter schools.

The unanimous ruling announced today by the Supreme Court of Georgia means the Atlanta school system can't deduct millions of dollars from its revenue to pay for its expenses before distributing the money to startup charter schools.

The justices decided that state law is clear regarding how the money is to be...

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N.M. Stipends for Teacher Transfers Stir Controversy

Some New Mexico teachers are bristling at a new state program that offers a $5,000 stipend for those who agree to transfer from top-graded...

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Nutter brings schools message to Corbett

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Inadequate funding for Pennsylvania's largest school district could damage the futures of the students and the state's economy, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter said Monday after he lobbied Gov. Tom Corbett for more aid.

Nutter, a second-term Democrat, declined to lay blame for the worst fiscal crisis in memory in Philadelphia's schools. But he said things have to change.

"We cannot continue to go year after year after year with literally hat in hand to — whether its City Council and the mayor or the General Assembly and the governor — begging for the bare minimums," Nutter told reporters following a meeting in the Capitol with the Republican governor. "This is an economic issue. It's beyond a moral issue now. It is potentially damaging the futures of children, the economy of the city and, I would suggest,...

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Charter school figures down in Kansas

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Since 2010, the number of charter schools in Kansas has declined by two-thirds, according to new figures from the state Department of Education.

Only 11 of the schools, which receive public funding but are usually managed by outside boards or private companies, remain now. Last year, there were 15, and in 2010, there were 33, The Lawrence Journal-World reported (http://bit.ly/15lSUvq ).

Supporters say the schools are intended to compete with the public school system, offering an alternative...

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Why Schools Must Talk About Trayvon Martin

I applaud the San Diego school board’s decision this summer to promote student discussion about Trayvon Martin in middle and high schools. More districts and schools should follow.

As an educator, I know that students need space to voice their opinions. Yet I also know that people often feel uneasy about such dialogues, especially ones with racial overtones. Some may wonder whether schools have the capacity to hold these kinds of tough conversations.

The questions around promoting contentious conversations are messy. We raise schools up as institutions for democracy, even when they have historically fallen short of this ideal when it comes to persistent social ills, such as segregation, student dropout rates, poverty, and school violence. Given this context, many may ask whether schools are proper forums for...

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Pa. board nixes transgender homecoming king entry

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A western Pennsylvania school board won't let a student who was born female but identifies as male run for homecoming king.

The Richland School Board didn't rule on Kasey Caron's request Monday night, but simply let stand an earlier decision by school administrators, which leaves the 17-year-old senior on the ballot for homecoming queen.

"No formal action is required due to the board agreeing with the previous decision of the administration," board Solicitor Timothy Leventry said,...

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Texas Lesson-Plan Brawl Resonates Beyond State Border

Texas state Sen. Dan Patrick speaks out against state-developed lesson plans during a policy debate before the state board of education in August. He successfully sought an audit of the state's 20 education service centers over contracting concerns. —Herb Nygren Jr/The Tyler Morning Telegraph/AP

A political brawl over state-developed lesson plans used by hundreds of Texas school districts mirrors the state’s long-standing battles over textbook content, in some ways paralleling the national debate over new content standards.

First implemented in 2006, the state’s curriculum-management system—formerly known as CSCOPE and now dubbed the TEKS Resource System—originally provided lesson plans as well as guidelines for meeting the states’ standards, and tests to accompany the lessons that are separate from state accountability exams.

The TEKS system no longer provides the lesson plans, although it offers help with content standards. The lessons themselves are now in the public domain, and continue to draw fire from political activists who say they undermine parental oversight of schools, and push anti-American, anti-Christian content. Some critics also say the material has provided backdoor access for the Common Core State Standards, which opponents criticize as an intrusion on local control...

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New Research Consortium Targets D.C. Schools

Schools in the nation's capital end up the guinea pigs for many new education programs and policies, but now they will get a stronger say in research to figure out which of...

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Schools criticized for bans on dreadlocks, Afros

"Why are you so sad?" a TV reporter asked the little girl with a bright pink bow in her hair.

"Because they didn't like my dreads," she sobbed, wiping her tears. "I think that they should let me have my dreads."

With those words, second-grader Tiana Parker of Tulsa, Okla., found herself, at age 7, at the center of decades of debate over standards of black beauty, cultural pride...

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NC school system lifts ban on "Invisible Man"

ASHEBORO, N.C. (AP) — The Randolph County Board of Education has rescinded its ban on Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man," returning it to...

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US-Louisiana school voucher dispute may be ending

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department says a court battle with Louisiana over the state's school voucher program may...

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New SAT Results Show No Change in Average Scores

SAT scores remained flat for students in the class of 2013, with just 43 percent performing well enough to be considered college-ready­—the same proportion as last year, according to new results issued Thursday.

Yet, African-American and Latino students in this year’s graduating class saw slight gains. Also, a record share of students taking the college-entrance exam (46 percent) were minorities.

Overall, 15.6 percent of African-Americans in the class of 2013 who took the exam met or exceeded the College Board’s college-ready benchmark, compared with 14.8 percent in 2012. Among Latinos, 23.5 percent reached that level, up from 22.8...

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APNewsbreak: Miss. picks Wright to lead schools

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi's state Board of Education has chosen former Washington., D.C., schools administrator Carey Wright as superintendent of education.

A person with direct knowledge of her selection told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the appointment had not...

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At Minn. Catholic schools, gay rights debate stir

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Recent remarks about inclusiveness by the new president of the University of St. Thomas have heartened gay and lesbian advocacy groups on...

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Educators get look at new school grading system

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — The Wyoming Department of Education has given educators in the state a sneak preview of how state schools will...

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Many Iowa schools not meeting federal standards

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — More than half of Iowa's schools did not meet educational targets set by the No Child Left Behind Law during the latest academic year, according to a report released Tuesday.

But State Education Department Director Brad Buck said the results make clear that the federal program is a bad fit for states and needs to be revised.

Buck says the current system doesn't acknowledge different needs in different schools. He also says schools making progress with disadvantaged...

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Alabama AG says blocking law won't help students

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama's attorney general is telling a federal judge that blocking the new Alabama Accountability Act won't help students...

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A Pathway for the Future of Education

When Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, completes his purchase of The Washington Post in October for $250 million in cash, it will represent something larger than a business transaction. It will defy convention. Amazon did not exist 20 years ago, but its success allowed Bezos to buy the venerable Post , a product of 19th-century innovation struggling to cater to the changing needs and desires of a 21st-century public.

There is a parallel in education. Over the next decade, our education system will experience the kind of deep disruption and reconfiguration that Amazon, iTunes, and Zipcar brought to their respective industries. The concept of “school” will take many forms where learning is no longer defined by time and place. Radical personalization will become the norm as learners and families create individualized learning “playlists” and educators embrace new roles defined by growing relationships with the community and changing credentials.

This future can appear daunting, but the path to success is apparent, thanks to hundreds of districts in 39 states that have begun the transformation to “competency education,” also known as “proficiency-based learning.” This new approach to education is centered on student mastery of knowledge and skills, instead of the amount of time a student spends...

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Business Groups Crank Up Defense of Common Core

Members of the business community are being urged to take up the fight to defend the Common Core State Standards in statehouses and in local communities, as the ambitious academic guidelines come under attack from an unlikely set of detractors on both the political left and the right.

That message was delivered most directly at a recent forum for business leaders held by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce , which backs the standards. The group has sought to combat what it sees as myths about the common core—such that they are being directed by the federal government, or that they attempt to set detailed prescriptions for daily classroom lessons.

Leaders from Intel Corp., Cisco Systems, and the ExxonMobil Foundation, at a Sept. 17 event held at the chamber's headquarters, described their efforts to promote the standards through different strategies, including coast-to-coast advertising campaigns and outreach to company employees and parents in the overall community. That salesmanship will continue in coming months, according to...

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Agreement reached for students at Polk County jail

BARTOW, Fla. (AP) — The Southern Poverty Law Center and a central Florida school district have agreed to ensure that children held at a county jail receive five hours of daily classroom instruction...

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What Are We Doing to Support Great Teachers?

You can tell that Mrs. Obstgarten is a great teacher when you step into her classroom.

Walk in on the last day of school, a half-day when you’d expect kids to be bouncing off the walls, and you see every kid bright-eyed, eager to play a math game. Yes. On the last day. She is the kind of teacher that every parent wants, that every kid will remember. She is calm. She is in control. She is curious. She has this light in her eyes, this eagerness to learn, nothing you can measure or package, but there it is radiating from her, igniting the curiosity and creativity of her students.

In the past 12 years, as a children’s book author, I have seen more than 2,000 teachers at work. I have been in small and large, rural and inner-city, public and private classrooms from tiny Dover, N.H., to sprawling Phoenix. Schools bring me in for classroom workshops and all-school assemblies in which I share my passion and my process for...

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R.I. Redoubles Efforts for Intellectually Disabled

Student Amanda Masusu attends an art class at Mount Pleasant High School in Providence, R.I. A federal probe prompted integration of students with intellectual disabilities at the school. —Gretchen Ertl for Education Week

For the first time in years, students with intellectual disabilities in the 23,000-student Providence, R.I., school district started school in August attending some classes alongside their typically developing peers—the result of an agreement between the district and the federal government that the U.S. Department of Justice calls a "landmark."

The 84 students, who represent most of the students with intellectual disabilities in the system, are taking art and physical education classes with other students at Mount Pleasant High School, which has an enrollment of about 1,100. Educators are helping them explore opportunities that may be available to them when they leave school. And teachers are expected to educate them to a higher academic standard than they had experienced before.

Those changes, prompted by a Justice Department probe launched in January, are a huge shift from earlier practice. These students, who mostly have Down syndrome and autism, previously were housed in a separate wing of Mount Pleasant High School, in a program called the Harold...

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Wis. unions file contempt motion over restrictions

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A group of unions asked a judge Tuesday to hold Wisconsin labor relations officials in contempt for continuing to enforce parts of Gov. Scott Walker's collective bargaining restrictions despite a ruling the provisions are unconstitutional.

Dane County Circuit Judge Juan Colas decided last year the restrictions were unconstitutional as applied to two unions, one representing Madison teachers and the other Milwaukee city workers. It's unclear whether the ruling applies to all municipal workers in the state, though.

The state Supreme Court has agreed to take the case, but it could be months before it rules. Meanwhile the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission has continued to prepare for certification elections for more than 400 teacher and school district employee unions in November,...

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Conn. panel orders release of Newtown 911 tapes

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — The state's Freedom of Information Commission on Wednesday ordered the release of the 911 tapes from last year's shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, ruling in favor of an appeal by The Associated Press for access to records withheld by investigators.

The recordings will not be made available immediately. The prosecutor leading the investigation of the massacre, Danbury State's Attorney Stephen Sedensky III, said the commission's decision will be appealed in Connecticut's courts.

The recordings could shed light on the law enforcement response to one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history. Twenty-six people, including 20 first-graders, were killed inside the school on Dec. 14 by the gunman, Adam Lanza, who committed...

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Marshfield schools say union law is saving money

MARSHFIELD, Wis. (AP) — Gov. Scott Walker's legislation that eliminated most public employees' union rights has helped at least one school district significantly reduce its salary...

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Charters Adopt Common Application Systems

In most school districts with charter school options, parents must navigate a complex web of charter school applications, deadlines, and lotteries specific to each individual school—but that is changing in a handful of cities across the country.

To combat the confusion and make applying to charters easier and more transparent, a small but growing number of school districts, as well as charter school organizations, have rolled out new programs such as universal enrollment systems and common applications to centralize and streamline the process.

...

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RI town OKs breathalyzer tests for students

PORTSMOUTH, R.I. (AP) — The school committee in one Rhode Island town has approved a policy permitting officials to administer blood-alcohol tests to random students at school dances...

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How to Improve Common Core: A Critic's View

As a sometime warrior in the war of words over the Common Core State Standards , I have been neutral about the need for national standards, but highly critical of their current composition, seeing it as deeply flawed and ineffectual for its stated purposes. Nevertheless, I have come to realize that nothing I or anyone else may say will make the standards go away. They are firmly entrenched in all but four states, and even teachers who endured the No Child Left Behind Act are resigned to this new swing of the pendulum and changing their classroom practices.

I believe the best thing that standards critics can do right now is work to make them better. It is not too late to advocate for changes that would bring them closer to the expectations of college and the workplace and the personal needs, interests, and real lives of students. To stimulate others to take action, I am using this forum to identify the key problems I see in the English/language arts standards and suggest some ways to resolve them.

Problem #1: In specifying the knowledge and skills needed for “college and career readiness,” the standards authors went overboard, including everything from the most obvious items, such as integrating multimedia tools into spoken presentations, to the least useful, such as naming...

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Districts Invest in New Measures to Boost Security

Brian Reale picks up his daughter Catherine at Huckleberry Hill Elementary School in Brookfield, Conn., last week. Mr. Reale waited in a double-entryway, which is part of a security measure put in place by the Brookfield public schools. The district is just 11 miles from Newtown, where 26 people were shot and killed last December. —Christopher Capozziello for Education Week

Schools across the United States have invested millions of dollars in heightened security measures for this school year, prompted in part by the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings that took the lives of 20 children and six adults last December.

A flurry of back-to-school media reports indicate that districts are making significant security system purchases—from adding high-tech "visitor management" systems that use Web-based screening to check identification cards for registered sex offenders and custody issues, to the latest video surveillance and communication systems. They are fortifying entrances with bullet-resistant film on glass, and adding panic buttons, door locks, and keyless entry systems. Plus, they are budgeting money to hire personnel—from specially trained school police officers to security guards—to try to keep staff members and students safe.

And recently, new entrants into the "school safety" market are selling bulletproof whiteboards, ranging in size from 18-inch-by-20-inch handheld versions to panels large enough that they could be...

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US heritage language programs on the rise

MIAMI (AP) — Dorothy Villarreal grew up dreaming in Spanish, first in Mexico and later in Texas, where her family moved when she was six. She excelled in school — in English. But at home life was in Spanish, from the long afternoon chats with her grandparents to the Spanish-language version of Barbie magazines she eagerly awaited each month. She figured she was fluent in both languages.

Then the Harvard University junior spent last summer studying in Mexico and realized just how big the gaps in her Spanish were.

"We were talking about the presidential election, and there was so much I wanted to explain," Villarreal said. "We'd end up playing a guessing game where I'd speak in English, and my friends, they'd speak back in Spanish to guess...

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US teenager found guilty in school shooting plot

BARTLESVILLE, Oklahoma (AP) — A teenager who authorities say tried to recruit classmates for a mass shooting and bomb attack at his U.S. school has been convicted in a plot to kill students, teachers and police officers.

A jury found 19-year-old Sammie Eaglebear Chavez guilty of planning to cause bodily harm and recommended a 30-month prison term and $5,000 fine. The jury found him not guilty of conspiring to perform an act of violence.

Chavez was arrested in December, hours before a gunman opened fire at a Connecticut elementary school and killed 20 children and six adults before killing himself. A string of mass shootings in recent years have fueled a divisive debate over...

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Philadelphia Seeks Salvation in Lessons from Model School

In little more than two years, the Philadelphia school district has stripped $400 million out of its annual budget, closed 30 schools, eliminated nearly 7,000 jobs, and lost more than 20,000 students.

The teetering city system, said Superintendent William R. Hite Jr., desperately needs "to show a win."

So Mr. Hite is placing a controversial bet: Although scores of schools opened here this month without regular guidance counselors, nurses, or basic supplies, the superintendent is pouring millions of dollars into expanding what he considers to be three of the city's most innovative schools. They include Science Leadership Academy, an acclaimed magnet high school at the forefront of the national effort to marry educational technology...

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Former teacher in Nashville facing sex charges

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- Police in Metro Nashville say a former teacher facing sex charges has been arrested.

A statement from police says 57-year-old David G. Turner was arrested Monday night after a grand jury returned a 14-count indictment charging him with aggravated sexual battery against two juveniles. Both were under the age of 10.

The children were students at Donelson Christian Academy, where Turner taught until police began investigating the allegations earlier this year. He was suspended after the investigation began in February. The students accused Turner of inappropriate touching.

It was unclear whether Turner had an attorney.

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St. Elmo selected as a Best Neighborhood by ‘This Old House’

Jim Drexler cuts the grass in the front yard of his St. Elmo home in this file photo.

“This Old House” magazine has selected St. Elmo as one of its Best Old House Neighborhoods for 2013.

The neighborhood, sitting at the base of Lookout Mountain, is one of 16 neighborhoods chosen in the South by the magazine. A total of 61 neighborhoods were chosen in the South, Northeast, Midwest, West and Canada.

In a news release, the magazine said St. Elmo “offers something for everybody.”

“Though its homes and buildings suffered from neglect when many residents left for the suburbs in the 1960s and 1970s, the neighborhood has been on an upswing,” the release said. “Today, owners of all ages and walks of life are restoring historic houses to their original splendor, and small businesses have been emerging in the commercial district built around the intersection of St. Elmo and Tennessee Avenues.”

Along with praising St. Elmo’s home styles, which include Folk Victorians, Carpenter Gothic, Queen Anne and Italianate, the magazine also touted the nearby hiking trails on Lookout Mountain and the proposed extension of the Tennessee Riverwalk into St. Elmo.

Other Southern neighborhoods selected by “This Old House” include Old Fourth Ward in Atlanta, Norwood in Birmingham, Belhaven in Jackson, Miss., New Iberia, La. and York, S.C.

For a complete list of all the neighbhorhoods, go to http://tinyurl.com/lrhbzvr.

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In a city full of special neighborhoods, St. Elmo stands out. In many ways, the small community serves as a ...

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