Fast Report
02/03/04 -- Bush offers high school proposals
• President Bush's proposed Jobs for the 21st Century initiative, announced during his State of the Union Address, would improve high school education, as well as strengthen postsecondary education and job training.
According to the White House, "High school graduates are not entering college and the work force with the skills they need to compete in a changing economy."
The $500 million initiative includes $100 million for a Striving Readers Initiative that would make competitive grants to 50 to 100 school districts to assist middle and high school students reading significantly below grade level.
The President also is proposing more funding for programs that support professional development of math and science secondary school teachers and encourage students to take advanced courses.
Eliminate state board, governor proposes
• Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has proposed that the state board of education be abolished and a new state education department be created under the governor's direct control.
"The lack of leadership and accountability at the Illinois state board of education shortchanges our children," Blagojevich said Jan. 21. "While the state board constantly interferes with local districts and crushes them with paperwork, they only spend 46 cents of every dollar in the classroom."
Under the governor's proposals, the new department would work with local districts to streamline state regulations, create a state center where school districts can purchase products at state-negotiated rates, and create a "statewide educator benefits purchasing center" to decrease the cost of health care coverage for districts and employees. Blagojevich says his plan could save the state $1 billion over four years.
The Illinois Association of School Boards (IASB) has not taken an official position on the governor's proposals, says Associate Executive Director Ben Schwarm. IASB would prefer that members of the state board be elected, but under Blagojevich's plan, they would continue to be appointed by the governor.
Schools are becoming more segregated
• In the past decade, U.S. schools have become more segregated, especially for Latino and African-American students, and particularly in the South, reports a new study issued Jan. 18 by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University.
Fifty years after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, King's Dream or Plessy's Nightmare? says desegregation has succeeded in many places but is being abandoned.
Among the key findings in the report:
• There has been a substantial slippage toward segregation in most of the states that were highly desegregated in 1991, and there is great variation among states.
• Asians are the most integrated and most successful group of students and, by far, the most likely to attend multiracial schools with a significant presence of three or more racial groups.
• Although American public schools are now only 60 percent white nationwide, most white students have little contact with minority students except in the South and Southwest.
• Latinos confront serious levels of segregation by race and poverty. Non-English-speaking Latinos tend to be segregated in schools with one another.
Arkansas court to oversee schools
• After lawmakers failed to meet a court-imposed deadline, the Arkansas Supreme Court announced Jan. 23 it will appoint a master to bring the state's school system to constitutional standards.
A November 2002 ruling on a lawsuit filed in 1992 by the Lake View school district found the state failed to spend enough money on education and failed to distribute its funds equitably.
The court ordered the state to change its $1.8 billion system by Jan. 1, 2004. After failing to find a solution in 2003, the legislature convened a special session in December but still failed to make progress.
Much of lawmakers' attention had been taken up with Gov. Mike Huckabee's proposal to save money by consolidating school districts and merging about 100 high schools. The House approved a plan Jan. 23 to consolidate 59 small districts.
In appointing the master, the state Supreme Court recalled its mandate to the legislature and reopened the case. The court could now find the state in contempt, order specific reforms, redirect money from other state agencies to education, or give legislators a new deadline.
Study finds Direct Instruction ineffective
• A three-year study of methods of teaching reading shows that highly scripted, teacher-directed methods were not as effective as traditional methods that allow a more flexible approach.
The study, headed by Randall Ryder, professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of WisconsinMilwaukee's School of Education, found that students who received Direct Instruction (DI) in first, second, and third grade scored significantly lower on overall reading achievement than students receiving more traditional forms of instruction.
DI breaks reading skills down into specific components and teaches them in a tightly controlled, structured, and scripted sequence.