3/16/04 -- NCLB leads to cuts in liberal arts
• Due to the demands of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), schools are devoting more time to reading, math, and science, "but squeezing out social studies, civics, geography, languages, and the arts," reports the Council for Basic Education.
According to a report released March 8, one-quarter of the principals surveyed said they are decreasing instructional time for the arts, and one-third expect further decreases. Twenty-nine percent report overall decreases in instructional time for social studies.
Academic Atrophy: the condition of the Liberal Arts in America's Public Schools finds that schools with large minority populations are more likely to cut instruction in the liberal arts.
Rule change facilitates single-sex classes
• The U.S. Education Department announced proposed rules March 3 that would make it easier for school districts to create same-sex classes and schools.
The No Child Left Behind Act directs the department to issue guidance to school districts about how innovative single-sex schools and classes could participate in certain NCLB programs.
The proposed regulation would amend rules under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibit sexual discrimination in education programs that receive federal funds. Currently, Title IX rules prohibit same-sex classes, except in specific situations, such as sex education or physical education classes.
Under the proposed amendments, single-sex classes would be permitted if they are part of an evenhanded effort to provide a range of diverse educational options for male and female students or if they are designed to meet particular, identified educational needs of students.
Participation in such programs must be voluntary, and school districts would have to ensure that the opportunities for both sexes are substantially equal. For example, if a school offers an Advanced Placement physics class for girls, the school must also offer a co-ed AP physics class.
Hawaii retains statewide system
• A proposal to break up the Hawaii school system into seven or more school districts has been rejected by the state legislature.
Gov. Linda Lingle, a Republican, called on state lawmakers earlier this year to let voters decide whether to amend the state constitution and break up the islands' 182,000-student school system, currently governed by the state department of education.
She proposed a plan to create smaller, local school districts, each with its own elected school board.
But the Democratic-controlled state legislature opted for its own school-reform measure March 4.
The Senate passed a bill that bases school financing on the individual needs of students, rather than school enrollment, and gives the state education department more autonomy over purchasing, hiring, and budgeting -- functions currently overseen by other state agencies.
Minority youths left behind, report charges
• Minority students have only a 50-50 chance of graduating from high school, concludes a report released Feb. 25 by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard and the Urban Institute.
According to the report, 75 percent of white students graduated from high school in 2001, while only 50 percent of black students, 51 percent of Native American students, and 53 percent of Hispanic students got a high school diploma that year.
"Despite wide ranges within some states, nearly every state shows a large and negative gap between whites and at least one minority group," the report states.
Losing Our Future: How Minority Youth Are Being Left Behind by the Graduation Rate Crisis calls the diploma gap a "hidden crisis" that is obscured by U.S. Department of Education regulations issued under the No Child Left Behind Act that "allow schools, districts, and states to all but eliminate graduation rate accountability for minority subgroups."
The report also finds that most official graduation rates are estimates based on inaccurate data.
Ads are key factor in childhood obesity
• A report by the Kaiser Family Foundation of Washington, D.C., finds that fast food advertising plays a significant role in childhood obesity.
The report concludes that children who spend the most time watching TV are more likely to be overweight -- not because they are spending less time being physically active but because they are exposed to billions of dollars worth of food advertising and marketing.
The report cites studies that show the typical child sees about 40,000 ads a year on TV, and that the majority of ads targeted to children are for candy, cereal, soda, and fast food.
Furthermore, many of the advertising and marketing campaigns enlist children's favorite TV and movie characters, such as SpongeBob Cheez-Its and Scooby-Doo cereals.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that since 1980 the proportion of overweight children ages 6 to 11 has more than doubled and the rate for adolescents has tripled. About 10 percent of 2 to 5-year-olds and 15 percent of 6 to 19-year-olds are overweight.