2/22/05 -- Utah seeks flexibility in implementing NCLB
• Utah is again in the forefront of efforts to challenge the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The state’s House of Representatives passed a bill sponsored by Rep. Margaret Dayton (R) Feb. 15 that says the state’s testing system should take precedence over the testing mandates in NCLB.
Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. (R) had threatened during his campaign to opt out of NCLB, even though such action could cost the state $100 million in federal education funds. The Utah House passed opt-out legislation last year, but the measure was not passed in the Senate.
A team of U.S. Education Department officials was planning to visit the state in mid-February, and state officials hope the federal government will be more willing to allow flexibility. “We had these same conversations last year and got nowhere,” state Superintendent of Schools Patti Harrington told Stateline.
The Utah School Boards Association supports the concept of Dayton’s bill but doesn’t want to lose federal funding, says Executive Director Richard Stowell. “We think there needs to be more flexibility for all the states. We support NSBA’s bill.”
Many recent graduates said to be unprepared
• College instructors estimate that more than two out of five college students have not been adequately prepared by their high schools, reports a survey released earlier this month by Achieve Inc., an organization created by governors and business leaders.
Forty percent of high school graduates say they are inadequately prepared to deal with the demands of employment and postsecondary education, and 39 percent of recent graduates in the work force say they have gaps in their preparation.
Employers estimate that 45 percent of recent entrants into the work force are not adequately prepared to advance beyond entry-level jobs.
Report warns of complete privatization
• A well-funded conservative movement is on the verge of creating a major shift toward privatization of the nation’s public schools, charges a report by the Commonweal Institute, a non-profit think tank based in Menlo Park, Calif.
“Most Americans are unaware of the threat posed by this well-organized and funded assault on our nation’s public schools. The threat is real and it is urgent,” says Leonard M. Salle, the institute’s president and co-author of the report with David C. Johnson.
The report, Responding to the Attack on Public Education and Teacher Unions, says the attack on public education is part of a broader “conservative” opposition to many “liberal” institutions and policies, such as organized labor, progressive taxation, regulation of business, reproductive choice, and the environment.
“If there is no effective counter-force, ultra-conservatives will continue to advance their ideological agenda without significant opposition,” Salle says.
Contact: www.commonweal.org.
S.C. school boards fight tuition plan
• Passage of a tuition tax credit program, under consideration by the South Carolina legislation, “could result in the loss of millions of state dollars,” according to a study released Feb. 8 by the South Carolina School Boards Association and South Carolina Association of School Administrators.
The bill would divert public funds, mostly through state income tax and insurance premium tax credits, to pay for private or religious school tuition or home schooling.
It also would provide unlimited tax credits to corporations and individuals who donate funds to scholarship-granting organizations that award scholarships for private or religious school tuition and home schooling.
The study, conducted by Miley and Associates, an economic development consulting firm, refutes a study released a year ago that claimed public schools will be financially better off as a result of losing students due to a tuition tax credit.
That study, by the South Carolina Policy Council, was based on the concept of “marginal cost.” It asserted that when a child leaves a public school, the decline in the cost to educate that student is more than enough to offset the loss of per-pupil state funding.
Miley points out that the marginal cost concept does not apply to “real-world” school finances because small fluctuations in student migration would not necessarily trigger the elimination of a school’s largest expense -- teachers and other personnel -- but will reduce its funding.
Unless the scale of such migration is significant enough to eliminate entire classes (and the teachers assigned to those classes), it is unlikely to lead to cost savings.
Groups want to improve teacher force
• The Education Commission of the States, ETS, and Learning Point Associates have joined forces in an initiative to develop policies to ensure that the country’s neediest students get the best teachers.
The National Partnership for Teaching in At-Risk Schools, launched Feb. 9, will address the challenges that the nation’s poorest, lowest-performing schools face in recruiting and retaining well-prepared teachers.
The partnership will focus on five areas it believes are most critical in solving the problems of at-risk schools: teacher supply, teacher distribution, teacher recruitment, beginning teacher support, and school environment.