Fast Report
12/6/05 -- In-state tuition for immigrants proposed
• Legislation, supported by NSBA, was introduced in the Senate Nov. 18 to enable undocumented residents of the United States who graduate from public schools to enroll in colleges and universities at the in-state tuition cost.
The lead sponsors of the bill, which would amend the Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, are Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.).
The bill is similar to one that was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee during the last Congress. With the current session almost over, it’s not likely Congress will pass this bill in 2005.
NSBA’s Delegate Assembly approved a policy resolution in April calling for in-state tuition and other incentives for U.S. residents that graduate from American high schools, including undocumented immigrant students.
The resolution notes that “NSBA recognizes the need to increase the number of highly qualified teachers of diverse backgrounds and notes that public schools are required by law to educate students regardless of their citizenship status.”
Districts expected to meet teacher aide goal
• Most states and districts expect to meet the requirement in the No Child Left Behind Act that all teacher aides in Title I schools be “highly qualified” by June 2006, reports a Nov. 29 survey by Recruiting New Teachers Inc. (RNT) and the Urban Institute.
School officials in urban districts projected a 90 percent average compliance rate by the June 2006 deadline, while rural districts projected a 95 percent average compliance rate.
To be considered “highly qualified,” NCLB says paraeducators must have attained an associate’s degree, completed at least two years of college, or passed a test measuring reading, writing, and mathematics competency.
The report says there has been significant progress since the passage of NCLB, when about 40 percent of the nation’s nearly 750,000 teacher aides were considered “highly qualified.”
U.S. students below average in math
• A Nov. 22 report dispels the widely held belief that U.S. students do well in mathematics in grade school but decline precipitously in high school.
The study compares the math skills of students in industrialized nations and finds that U.S. students in the fourth and eighth grade perform consistently below most of their peers around the world and continue that trend into high school.
The study, conducted by the American Institutes for Research (AIR), re-examines data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study and the Program for International Student Assessment.
Los Angeles mayor proposes takeover
• One of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s key goals is to take control of the nation’s second-largest school district before his first term ends in 2009.
Villaraigosa claims that the elected seven-member school board and the teachers union are inhibiting reform.
A.J. Duffey, president of United Teachers of Los Angeles, calls mayoral control “a bad idea,” adding, “to disenfranchise the elected board is to do a grave disservice to the voting public.”
School board President Marlene Canter focuses on the positive. “We’re excited to have a dynamic mayor who’s as passionate about education as we are. We look forward to any concrete proposals he has to build on the progress we have made.”
Canter says the school board is promoting several new initiatives, including full-day kindergarten, a new working relationship with the teachers’ union to improve student achievement; moving to a college prep curriculum; breaking down large secondary schools into small learning communities; and building new schools to relieve overcrowding.
Church groups raise NCLB ‘moral concerns’
• A committee of the National Council of Churches issued a statement Nov. 28 warning that the No Child Left Behind Act “is leaving more children behind than it is saving, especially children of color and poor children.”
Instead of treating children “as unique human beings to be nurtured and educated,” the statement says, the act has encouraged school districts to regard children as “products to be tested and managed.”
The council’s Committee for Public Education has raised 10 “moral concerns” about NCLB, including the following:
• By setting “an impossibly high bar -- that every single student will be proficient in reading and math by 2014 -- we fear that this law will discredit public education when it becomes clear that schools cannot possibly realize such an ideal.”
• NCLB “blames schools and teachers for many challenges that are neither of their making nor within their capacity to change.”
• “The relentless focus on testing basic skills . . . obscures the role of the humanities, the arts, and child and adolescent development.”
• NCLB “makes demands on states and school districts without fully funding reforms that would build capacity to close achievement gaps.”
Among the groups represented by the committee are the Disciples of Christ; the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Presbyterian Church (USA).