Fast Report
FCC seeks e-rate recommendations
• The Federal Communications Commission is seeking public comments on several proposed changes to the e-rate program and also wants to hear recommendations on how to improve the program.
Since the e-rate was established four years ago, the program has provided nearly $5.96 billion in telecommunications discounts and Internet access fees to schools and libraries.
The proposed changes deal with the application process, the disbursement of funds, the appeals process, program integrity, and unclaimed funds.
Ohio will take up 'intelligent design'
• The Ohio state board of education will discuss a proposal in March to insert "intelligent design" alongside evolution in the state's new teaching standards.
If the full board adopts the proposal, Ohio would be the first state to recognize intelligent design.
The issue could garner as much attention as the Kansas board's decision in 1999 to eliminate evolution from the state's recommended science curriculum and standardized tests. Board members who supported that measure were later voted out of office and evolution was restored.
New science standards must be approved by the end of the year, says Ohio board President Jennifer Sheets. Noting that two or three of the eight members of the standards committee want the board to consider intelligent design, Sheets says, "All board members should keep an open mind on this."
A group called Science Excellence for All Ohioans, a project of the American Family Association of Ohio, is leading the effort to push the intelligent design proposal. According to the group, intelligent design "holds that design is empirically detectable in nature and particularly in living systems."
Intelligent design differs from creationism in that it doesn't explicitly state who or what might be behind the design.
Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education in Oakland, Calif., says "intelligent design is a repackaging of the anti-evolution movement to try to withstand court challenges by avoiding the C-word."
Impact of class size reduction unclear
• There is no relation between student achievement in California and school district participation in the state's class size reduction program, reports a Feb. 4 study by the CSR (Class Size Reduction) Research Consortium.
Although test scores are increasing statewide, the consortium says, "the increase cannot be attributed specifically to CSR." That's because the state implemented several other new reforms along with CSR. "It also is difficult to say how much of the gain in achievement test scores is real and how much reflects inflation in scores brought about by teachers learning to 'teach to' a new test."
The class size reduction initiative was enacted in 1996 to improve student achievement in the primary grades. Schools can receive $800 per student, with yearly incremental increases, for every K-3 student in a class with 20 or fewer students. So far, the initiative has cost the state $6 billion.
The study also found that California districts continue to push for smaller classes, despite a teacher shortage and budget constraints. Roughly two-thirds of participating districts have to take money from other programs–including libraries, after-school programs, and professional development–to cover the cost of class size reduction.
The consortium is headed by the American Institute for Research and RAND and includes Policy Analysis for California Education, WestEd, and EdSource.
Consolidation on the table in Illinois
• A task force convened by Illinois Gov. George H. Ryan is expected to recommend the consolidation of many of the state's 891 school districts.
The Education Funding Advisory Board is looking at large-scale consolidation as a way to deal with shrinking budgets in some districts, declining enrollment in others, and growing pressure for a more equitable system of allocating state education money.
The last time a consolidation law was proposed in Illinois, in 1985, there was such a huge outcry against it, the law was virtually gutted.
Illinois school districts range in size from the Otter Creek-Hyatt School District in LaSalle County with only 26 students to Chicago with 435,000. In some cases, four or five elementary school districts feed into one high school district, notes Ben Schwarm, director of government relations at the Illinois Association of School Boards.
IASB "opposes forced consolidation based solely on enrollment or geography," Schwarm says. "If districts choose to consolidate, we will support them."