10/26/04 — Proposed rules address Boy Scout access
• The U.S. Education Department is seeking comments from the public on proposed regulations published in the Federal Register Oct. 19 to require public schools to allow the Boy Scouts to use school facilities on an equal basis with other groups. Comments are due Dec. 3.
The proposed rules enforce the Boy Scouts of America Equal Access Act, which was included in the No Child Left Behind Act. It requires public schools that receive federal education funds to provide the Boy Scouts and other patriotic youth organizations with equal access to school facilities.
Some school districts have refused to let the Boy Scouts meet on school property because the group requires an oath of allegiance to God and country and because of complaints that it discriminates against homosexuals.
Pro-NCLB video masquerades as news
• The U.S. Education Department is promoting No Child Left Behind with a “video news release” that appears to be a news story, but fails to state that the production of the video was paid for with federal funds.
Ketchum, a public relations company that created the video, developed a similar video promoting the new Medicare law for the Department of Health and Human Services. The Government Accounting Office found that program to be covert propaganda last May and thus in violation of federal law.
“The Bush Administration seems to have made a habit of using taxpayer dollars to pay for partisan propaganda,” says People For the American Way Foundation (PFAWF) Education Policy Director Nancy Keenan. PFAWF obtained documents about the video through a Freedom of Information Act request.
PFAWF also reports that the Education Department has paid Ketchum to rank newspapers and individual reporters on a 100-point scale on their coverage of NCLB. Stories that portrayed the Bush Administration and Republican party as committed to education got high scores, while stories that addressed inadequate funding and other negative aspects of NCLB got low ratings.
Texas charter schools perform poorly
• Texas’ charter schools are performing well below other public schools on state tests, according to an analysis by the Dallas Morning News.
Forty-two percent of students at the state’s 235 independent charter schools that administer the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) passed those exams, the newspaper reported Oct. 20.
Statewide, the overall passing rate on the TAKS for all public school students was nearly 67 percent. Charter school supporters point out that students in charter schools are more likely to come from poor families.
Study finds ‘boot camps’ ineffective
• “Boot camps,” detention centers, and other programs that rely on “scare tactics” to prevent children and adolescents from engaging in violent behavior are not only ineffective, but may actually make the problem worse, according to a panel of scientists convened by the National Institutes of Health.
The panel found these types of “get-tough” programs often exacerbate problems by grouping young people with delinquent tendencies, allowing those who are more sophisticated to instruct the more naive. It also says the practice of transferring juveniles to the adult judicial system can result in greater violence among incarcerated youths.
According to the panel, more effective intervention approaches include Functional Family Therapy and Multisystemic Therapy. Both of these programs are long-term and focus on social competency skills and family involvement.
The report can be accessed at http://consensus.nih.gov.
Appeals court rules on religious mural
• The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a lower court’s ruling that a school principal’s order to remove religious symbols and messages from a mural that was part of a school beautification project did not violate a student’s free speech rights.
The court found that the school, in Palm Beach County, Fla., had not created a limited public forum, the speech involved was school sponsored, and the principal had legitimate pedagogical reasons for the restrictions placed on the content of the murals.
NSBA had submitted an amicus brief in support of the school district.
Education complex to be built on RFK site
• The Los Angeles board of education approved a plan Oct. 12 to demolish most of the historic Ambassador Hotel where Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1968 and build three new schools on the site.
The board approved the $318.2 million Heritage K-12 plan, recommended by Superintendent Roy Romer and board President Jose Huizar, by a 4-3 vote.
The school board says the project is necessary to alleviate severe overcrowding in nearby schools. The new integrated K-12 campus will serve about 4,000 students in a K-3 primary center, middle school for grades 4-8, and high school.
Some of the hotel’s culturally significant features will be preserved. The Embassy Ballroom, where Kennedy spoke after winning the California presidential primary, will be reconstructed as a library.