Fast Report

2/8/05 -- Spellings names Dunn chief of staff

• U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings announced Jan. 22 the appointment of David Dunn as chief of staff.

Dunn previously was special assistant to President Bush for domestic policy at the White House Domestic Policy Council. Before joining the Bush Administration, Dunn was associate executive director of the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB). Spellings is a former lobbyist at TASB.

Students lack knowledge of First Amendment

• U.S. high school students do not know enough about the First Amendment, states a report issued Jan. 31 by the John S. Knight Foundation.

More than a third of the students surveyed by researchers from the University of Connecticut believe the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees. Half erroneously believe the government can censor the Internet, and 75 percent think flag burning is illegal.

“These results are not only disturbing; they are dangerous,” says Knight Foundation President and CEO Hodding Carter III. “Ignorance about the basics of this free society is a danger to our nation’s future.”

Detroit plans to close nearly half its schools

• Declining enrollment and budget troubles have led to a decision in Detroit to close almost half of the city’s 240 public schools.

ähe district plans to close 110 schools over the next five years, including 40 schools before the start of the next school year. A decision will be made this month on which schools to close, says spokesperson Lekan Oguntoyinbo.

He says the district has lost more than 10,000 students this year. In the past nine years, enrollment has dropped from 175,000 to 140,000. By 2008, enrollment is expected to decline to 100,000.

Most of the enrollment decline can be attributed to Detroit’s shrinking population, Oguntoyinbo says, but the public schools also are losing students to charter schools and suburban districts with open enrollment policies. The city’s population has gone from 1.9 million in 1950 to under 900,000 today.

Many Michigan school systems have budget problems, but Detroit’s deficit of $198 million is by far the largest. The loss of students has exacerbated the district’s financial problems, Oguntoyinbo says. Each departing student equals a loss of $7,000.

Rising medical costs and increases in the mandatory contributions to the state retirement system have added to the deficit, as well as the cost of education reforms promoted by Chief Executive Kenneth Burnley.

The school board voted Jan. 25 not to renew Burnley’s contract, which ends June 30. Detroit citizens voted by a 2-to-1 margin in November to restore an elected school board. The district has had an appointed board since it was taken over by the state in 1999.

States seek revisions to NCLB plans

• The Virginia state board of education has submitted a lengthy request to the U.S. Education Department in January seeking significant changes in its NCLB plan.

he state board hopes Education Secretary Margaret Spellings will be “more open to having a dialogue with states,” says state board spokesperson Charles Pyle.

One of Virginia’s requests calls for a change in the order of sanctions. Virginia wants to be able to offer supplemental services first, and school choice the following year.

Virginia also proposes that school choice and supplemental services be targeted to the students in the subgroups that need the most help.

Connecticut Education Commissioner Betty J. Sternberg has resubmitted a series of amendments to its NCLB plan, citing Spellings’ comments about the need for “more flexibility.”

One of the state’s requests is to continue its assessment system of testing in alternate years -- in grades 4, 6, 8, and 10. Sternberg says adopting annual tests, as required under NCLB, “will cost millions of dollars and will tell us nothing that we do not already know about our students’ achievement and what we must do to improve it.”

Cobb County appeals ruling on stickers

• The Cobb County, Ga., school board voted 5-2 Jan. 17 to appeal the ruling by a federal district court requiring the removal of stickers in science textbooks relating to material on evolution. The school board views the ruling as an intrusion into local control of school policy and administration.

The stickers state that “evolution is a theory, not a fact” and should be “approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.”

U.S. District Court Judge Clarence Cooper ruled Jan. 13 that the stickers violate the First Amendment guarantee of separation of church and state and the Georgia Constitution’s prohibition against using public money to aid religion. The decision says the stickers “convey a message of endorsement of religion,” even though that was not the board’s intent.

The school board decided to appeal the case because it believes the district court has, in effect, condemned the board for taking a reasonable approach to address the concerns of its citizens on a controversial issue.