Fast Report

01/24/06 -- Dunn named acting under secretary of education

• President Bush appointed David Dunn acting under secretary of education, the U.S. Education Department announced Jan. 18. Dunn will be in charge of vocational, adult, and postsecondary education and will also continue his responsibilities as chief of staff to Education Secretary Margaret Spellings.

Previously, Dunn was special assistant to the President for Domestic Policy at the White House and was associate executive director of the Texas Association of School Boards.

Business group plans to rank school systems

• The U.S. Chamber of Commerce plans to launch a new initiative in the coming weeks to “measure and rank the performance of state school systems.”

“We hope this will be a positive force to motivate further reform,” the organization’s president and CEO, Thomas J. Donohue, said at a Jan. 4 press briefing. He says the ratings will be disseminated widely to the business community, investors, the press, and the public.

The chamber hasn’t determined which criteria will be used to rank states and school districts nor how this effort will differ from other ranking systems, such as those developed by Standard & Poor’s and School Match, says Senior Vice President Arthur Roth­kopf.

In an interview on the “Marketplace” public radio program, NSBA Executive Director Anne L. Bryant expressed doubts that ranking schools is the answer to school reform, comparing this approach to “fattening the elephant by weighing him.”

Mass. groups urge education overhaul

• A coalition of 44 organizations in Massachusetts, including the Massachu­setts Association of School Committees, has called for a major overhaul of the state’s school reform policies.

The Alliance for the Education of the Whole Child charges that current state policies have led to an increase in dropouts, narrow drilling for the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, and a failure to provide high-quality learning for low-income children.

“The status-quo approach to school reform has failed to close the achievement gap,” says Lisa Guisbond, the lead author of The Campaign for the Education of the Whole Child, the report published by the alliance this month.

“Evidence from across the nation, as well as Massachusetts, demonstrates we cannot test our way to equity,” Guisbond says. “Instead of high-quality teaching tied to strong standards, our kids are getting standardized, one-size-fits-all test prep.”

The alliance wants the state to stop using the MCAS as a graduation requirement and calls for a system of “authentic school accountability that rests on a balance of local and state measures and uses multiple forms of assessment.”

In addition, the report recommends a better system of measuring school quality, a restructuring of the state board of education, more support for English language learners, better assessments for vocational students and students with disabilities, and policies to reverse the trend of resegregation.

California rejects exit exam alternatives

• California Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell announced Jan. 6 that there should not be any alternative assessments for students who fail to pass the state’s exit exam.

Students who are scheduled to graduate this June are the first who must pass both the math and English sections of the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) to receive a diploma.

Even if an alternative exam were allowed, it is late in the year to develop one, says Holly Jacobson, assistant executive director of the California School Boards Association, which has supported legislation calling for alternatives.

Studies have shown that 50,000 students in the class of 2006 are in danger of failing to pass the CAHSEE. Jacobson says 78 percent of students who are seniors had passed both parts of the exam by the end of the last school year.

Students can take the test six times. If they still don’t pass by the end of their senior year, they can retake it later in adult education or at a community college.

Florida plan would divide large districts

• Legislation under consideration in Florida would divide large school districts into smaller ones.

Each of Florida’s 67 counties has a single school district. A proposed constitutional amendment passed by a House committee Jan. 10 would allow the state’s largest districts -- those with more than 45,000 students -- to be divided into smaller districts with fewer than 20,000 each.

Fifteen districts could be affected. The largest, Miami-Dade, could be split into 18 separate districts. Hillsborough County could have nine districts, and Pinellas County could have five.

If passed by the legislature and signed by the governor, the proposal would be put before the voters next November.

Supporters of the measure say breaking up large districts could result in better student performance and more community involvement. Critics argue it could lead to more racial and economic segregation and more bureaucracy.