Fast Report

06/01/04 -- Guidance on unsafe schools issued

• The U.S. Education Department issued a policy guidance document in May on the "unsafe school choice option" in the No Child Left Behind Act. The act requires states to implement policies stating that all students who attend a "persistently dangerous school" or are victims of a violent crime be allowed to transfer to a safe public school.

The document recommends that states define persistently dangerous schools based on the number of incidents during a school year.

Districts with such a school must notify parents of their right to transfer and also should consider developing a corrective action plan, the guide states.

GAO says NCLB not an unfunded mandate

• The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) does not fit the federal government's definition of an unfunded mandate, the U.S. General Accounting Office reports, because states can opt out if they are willing to forego federal education funding.

The report, Analysis of Reform Act Coverage, examines whether recently enacted federal laws meet the definition of unfunded mandates under the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995. It says that while NCLB requires states to implement testing systems and bring students up to proficiency levels, those requirements "were a condition of federal financial assistance."

Poll finds a two-tiered education system

• A survey of teachers by the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future finds there are two educational systems in this country -- "one for the more affluent, who enjoy the privileges of a relatively healthy educational environment, and the other for the least privileged, who suffer an educational environment that, in many cases, virtually forecloses their chance of learning."

Fifty Years After Brown v. Board of Education: A Two-Tiered Education System analyzes the responses of more than 3,300 teachers in California, Wisconsin, and New York to a survey by Lou Harris and the Peter Harris Research Group.

According to the report, low-income students and children of color are often taught by unqualified teachers in schools with insufficient instructional materials and inadequate technology. They go to school in "overcrowded and crumbling buildings -- with vermin and broken bathrooms."

The report says the high teacher turnover in these schools "makes it difficult to establish program rigor and frustrates efforts to involve parents and build strong learning communities necessary to sustain the best teaching and learning opportunities."

NCLB fails to address roots of inequality

• A new report by the Century Foundation argues that the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) fails to address "the central obstacle in the struggle to reduce the achievement gaps: the concentrations of poverty in American schools."

Can Separate Be Equal: The Overlooked Flaw at the Center of No Child Left Behind points out that a middle-class school is 24 times as likely to be consistently high performing as a high-poverty school.

Low-income students do worse academically, on average, than middle-class students, the report states. But "low-income students attending middle-class schools perform higher, on average, than middle-class children attending high-poverty schools."

According to the report's author, Richard D. Kahlenberg, Century Foundation senior fellow, "NCLB does nothing directly to address America's long-standing problem of separately educating poor and middle-class children."

Kahlenberg says one element of NCLB designed to address such inequities, allowing for school choice for students attending schools needing improvement, has not so far had much of an effect. That's because few families are taking advantage of the opportunity to transfer, and NCLB does not require interdistrict choice.

CDC reports positive youth health trends

• Significant improvements have occurred over the past decade in various health-related behaviors among high school students, reports the 2003 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System released May 21 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

However, the report warns, many youths continue to engage in a variety of behaviors that put them at risk for injury and disease.

Among the positive trends in the report:

• The percentage of high school students who reported ever having sexual intercourse was 47 percent in 2003 compared to 54 percent in 1991.

• The percentage of sexually active students who used a condom the last time they had sexual intercourse increased from 46 percent in 1991 to 63 percent in 2003.

• Thirty percent of high school students rode with a driver who had been drinking alcohol in 2003, compared to 40 percent in 1991.

• The percentage of high school students who reported current cigarette smoking -- which had increased from 28 percent in 1991 to 36 percent in 1997 -- fell to 22 percent in 2003.