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Home > Education World Notebook Series > Diversity in Education

C O L U M N S B Y D A T E

Columnist Ellen Delisio explores news items, noteworthy individuals, and programs of interest to the diversity community.

Diversity News Wrap-Up
August 8, 2001

NEA to Provide Homicide Insurance

The National Education Association (NEA) plans to begin offering members "unlawful homicide" insurance in September, in response to the killings of several teachers in the past few years. The policy would provide the teacher's family with $150,000 in the event the teacher is killed on the job, which is twice the amount paid in the event of an accidental death. The insurance will be provided free of charge.

Source: CNN.com, July 26, 2001

CA Teachers Turn Down Bonuses

Hundreds of California teachers are rejecting $400 bonuses from the state for raising standardized test scores. Some teachers think the program forces teachers to compete against one another and puts too much emphasis on one standardized test. Many teachers are donating the money to charities or scholarships. The state has allocated $677 million in reward money for students, teachers, schools, administrators, and secretaries involved in improving academic achievement.

Source: Nanette Asimov,San Francisco Chronicle, July 30, 2001

Hawaii Board of Ed Weighs Adding Creationism

Hawaii's state Board of Education has said it would discuss including creationism in the science curriculum as one of the theories of humans' origin on Earth. Hawaii is introducing new science performance standards for kindergarten through 12th grade, and board members said they would talk about adding language to the curriculum to indicate that evolution is one theory of life's origin. The board also plans to discuss requiring that students be taught other theories as well.

Source: Jennifer Hiller, The Honolulu Advertiser,July 31, 2001

Diversity News Wrap-Up
July 20, 2001

Harvard Study Notes School 'Resegregation'

Schools More Separate: Consequences of a Decade of Resegregation, a study released this week by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, offers up some discouraging news about diversity in American schools. The school population is more diverse than ever, but racial segregation is growing.

According to the study, housing discrimination and reversals of desegregation plans that were court-ordered three decades ago have contributed to the "resegregation" of schools. At the same time, between 1968 and 1998, the number of African American and Hispanic students in the country's public schools increased by 5.8 million; the number of white students decreased by 5.6 million.

Despite the movement of minority populations to the suburbs, those schools remain segregated as well, the study reveals. White students are the most segregated; on average, they attend schools where fewer than 20 percent of the students are from other racial backgrounds. African Americans and Hispanics, on the other hand, go to schools in which 53 to 55 percent of the students are from their ethnic groups.

Some risks of not addressing the situation are "increasing serious racial and ethnic polarization, probably reinforced by educational inequalities," which limit the educational mobility of a significant part of the population. The report calls for "more proactive efforts" to create integrated schools, through methods that include the expansion of federal magnet schools and support for local and state desegregation efforts.

Diversity News Wrap-Up
July 13, 2001

California Legislature Considers Mandatory Kindergarten

California lawmakers are debating whether to make kindergarten compulsory for most students. The state now requires that students master certain skills by the end of kindergarten, yet kindergarten attendance is not mandatory. Teachers groups support the measure, but it could be defeated because of lack of funds.

Source: Martha Groves, Los Angeles Times, July 11, 2001

Court: Wealthy Texas Districts Can Help Poorer Ones

A Texas state judge has ruled that a law requiring more-affluent school districts to give money to poorer ones is constitutional. The state limits the amount school districts can raise in property taxes to $1.50 per $100 of property valuation; the state has been taking funds from the wealthier districts and distributing them to those that do not raise as much in property tax revenue. Opponents of the measure argue that it is an illegal statewide property tax.

Source: CNN.com, July 11, 2001

Improved NYC, Boston Schools Get More Flexibility

Administrators in Boston and New York City are granting their higher-performing schools more flexibility over finances and regulations. They include 26 schools in Boston that have adopted improvement plans and raised test scores and two charter schools in New York City on the verge of closing. The two charter schools are scheduled to relinquish their status and enter a "learning zone," a program that will award them more funding but still allow them flexibility.

Source: Mark Stricherz, Education Week, July 11, 2001

Diversity News Wrap-Up
July 6, 2001

Summer School Attendance Grows

Summer school is becoming a way of life for students in some communities, with enrollments soaring in urban areas. About one-third of students in Baltimore and New York City are attending summer classes as are about 16 percent of Chicago students and about 13 percent of New Orleans students. Last year, 80 of the nation's 100 largest school districts retained students who did not successfully complete summer school.

Source: CNN.com, July 2, 2001

Miami-Dade Schools Ruled Desegregated

A U.S. judge has ruled that the Miami-Dade County (Florida) school district has achieved desegregation and no longer requires court supervision. The district, which had been under court supervision since 1970, has 360,000 students, 54 percent of whom are Hispanic, 32 percent African American, and 12 percent white. School officials said they would continue "race-conscious" policies to keep schools from becoming racially isolated.

Source: CNN.com, July 1, 2001

Funding Could Threaten Connecticut Magnet Schools

Insufficient state funding could jeopardize programs at interdistrict magnet schools in Connecticut, designed to attract urban and suburban students, an official with the Capitol Region Education Council, which operates the schools, said. The recently adopted Connecticut state budget included enough money to cover current services at the schools but would leave the schools with a $5.67 million operating deficit if more money is not released, according to the official.

Source: Nancy Thompson, Journal Inquirer, July 3, 2001

Diversity News Wrap-Up
June 29, 2001

Colorado Group Seeks to Ax Bilingual Ed

Critics of bilingual education in Colorado have filed a ballot initiative to end the program in the state's schools. Called English for the Children of Colorado, the group initiated a process last week that will require members to collect 80,600 signatures of registered voters in order to get the measure on the 2002 ballot. Members of the group claim children are being forced into bilingual classes, hindering their progress learning English. Voters in California and Arizona have already voted to eliminate bilingual programs.

Source: CNN.com, June 20, 2001

Teacher Residency Requirement Overturned

The Pennsylvania General Assembly has eliminated the requirement for teachers in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh to live within those cities. The move was needed to relieve a teacher shortage in the cities, according to legislators. Some studies had shown that teachers turned down jobs because they did not want to live in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh.

Source: Dale Mezzacappa and Ovetta Wiggins, The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 22, 2001

Corning Inc.to Pay for School Construction

In an effort to attract more high-tech workers, Corning Inc. has offered the Corning, New York, community $60 million for school construction and renovations. The money is earmarked for converting two area high schools into middle schools and replacing them with one new high school. Some in the community opposed the plan, however, and tried to defeat it in a referendum; the final vote was 58 percent in favor and 42 percent opposed.

Source: CNN.com, June 20, 2001

Diversity News Wrap-Up
June 15, 2001

Court Rules Religious Clubs Can Meet After School

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6 to 3 recently that a Christian youth club has the right to meet in a public school after school hours. The case involved the Milford (New York) school district and the Good News Club, which serves children ages 5 to 12. The meetings include reading Bible stories and praying. Club leaders argued that they were denied access to the school building because of their beliefs.

Source: CNN.com, June 11, 2001

L.A. to Help Teachers Buy Homes

The Los Angeles City Council has approved a loan program to help credentialed teachers in low-performing schools buy homes in the city. Under the plan, the city will provide up to $7,500 in forgivable loans for a down payment on a house. The city will forgive the loans at a rate of $1,500 for each year a teacher works at a low-performing school.

Source: Patrick McGreevy, Los Angeles Times, June 13, 2001

Southern Women, African Americans Flock to College

African Americans and women in the South are attending college at a higher rate than other groups in that part of the country, according to figures from the Southern Regional Education Board. Part of the reason is that African Americans make up more than half the high school graduates in Mississippi, Texas, Florida, and Georgia and just under half in South Carolina.

Source: Walter C. Jones, Florida Times-Union, June 13, 2001

Diversity News Wrap-Up
June 8, 2001

Schools Face More-Diverse Populations

Data from the 2000 census indicate that among children under age 18, Hispanic people now make up the country's largest minority group. That means schools will need to continue to address the needs of more-diverse student populations. Most states reported large increases in the number of Hispanic children between 1990 and 2000.

Source: CNN.com, May 23, 2001

Gun-Safety Education Bill Vetoed

Maryland Governor Parris Glendening vetoed a bill that would have required public schools to teach gun safety in kindergarten through 12th grade. A provision in the bill allowed schools to take middle school and high school students to rifle ranges and work with the National Rife Association in developing the courses. Glendening said he would have signed the bill if that provision had not been included. If the bill had passed, Maryland would have been the first state in the country to require gun-safety education.

Source: CNN.com, May 18, 2001

New Special-Education Report Released

The Progressive Policy Institute and the Fordham Foundation have published Rethinking Special Education for a New Century, a 14-paper volume reviewing federal education policy. The report identifies problems in special education, analyzes the sources of the problems, and proposes some solutions. To read the report online, go to .

Diversity News Wrap-Up
June 1, 2001

Report: U.S. Fails in Protecting Gay Students

Gay students suffer so much harassment and violence in schools that it affects their education and personal growth, according to Hatred in the Hallways: Violence and Discrimination Against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Students in U.S. Public Schools, a report prepared by Human Rights Watch. Gay teenagers said they feared going to school and teachers and administrators often ignored their complaints about bullying and physical threats.

Baltimore Students Show Record Gains

Collaboration among schools, the state, and community; curriculum changes; teacher training; and expanded kindergarten and prekindergarten are some of the reasons cited for record gains by Baltimore students on standardized tests this year. First graders scored above average in reading and mathematics on the 2001 Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills for the first time in more than a decade.

Source: Baltimore City Public Schools

North Carolina Students Map County Resources

High school students in rural Robeson County, North Carolina, are creating a series of "green maps" of their county: maps that show the ecological, cultural, historical, civic, and recreational resources of an area. They are doing the work in conjunction with the Rural Education Advancement Program (REAP), the Center for Community Action (CCA), and the Green Map System. Students hope to create more than 40 separate maps over the next few years.

Source:Rural Roots, Vol. 2, No. 2, April 2001

Diversity News Wrap-Up
May 25, 2001

Baltimore Orioles Academy a Hit

The Baltimore Orioles baseball team has joined the Baltimore City Public Schools to form the Orioles Academy for seventh and eighth graders who have not been successful in a regular school setting. The academy is located in Harlem Park Middle School and serves 25 students. The program features small classes, individual instruction, and counseling. The Orioles provide uniforms for the students and such incentives as T-shirts, hats, and tickets to games.

Source: Urban Educator, May 2001

Rural Trust Plans Finance Center

The Rural School and Community Trust plans to establish a Rural Education Finance Center within the coming year. The center will serve as a clearinghouse on school finance issues for rural school systems. Scheduled services include helping rural school administrators advocate for equitable funding, providing advice about legal issues related to school funding, and reporting on policy developments affecting rural school financing.

Source:Rural Roots, Vol. 2, No. 2, April 2001

Newark Students to Help Build Schools

An eight-week pre-apprenticeship program will ready public high school graduates in Newark, New Jersey, to help build and remodel district schools. Graduates who complete the program will be eligible to train as construction trade apprentices. Classes will begin in September. Graduating seniors will receive first priority for the eight-week program, followed by recent graduates.

Source:Urban Educator, May 2001

Diversity News Wrap-Up
May 18, 2001

Zero-Tolerance Policies: Fair or Foul?

Zero tolerance policies have a greater affect on children who are African American or Latino or who have disabilities than on white children. A report by the http://www.law.harvard.edu/civilrights/conferences/zero/zt_report2.html#intro Advancement Project and The Civil Rights Project shows that although African American children represent only 17 percent of the national public school population, they serve 32 percent of out-of-school suspensions. White students, who make up 63 percent of the national public school enrollment, represent 50 percent of expulsions and serve 50 percent of suspensions.

School Consolidation Bill Dies in North Dakota

A bill that requiring all school districts in North Dakota to have a high school recently failed in the state legislature. The North Dakota Department of Public Instruction maintains that it would be more efficient to consolidate districts, rather than continuing operating districts that only have elementary schools.

Source: Rural Policy Matters, April 2001

Firm Fails to Boost Scores in Some Schools

Advantage Schools Inc., a for-profit company that runs public schools in eight states and Washington, D.C., has not improved the finances or test scores in schools it runs in at least seven states, according to a Boston Globe report. Advantage did not live up to its agreements regarding teacher qualifications, financial management, school facilities, or student performance in at least seven of its 19 charter schools, according to the Globe.

Diversity News Wrap-Up
May 11, 2001

Intensive Preschool Has Long-Term Benefits

Children from low-income families who attended structured preschool programs were more likely to complete high school and less likely to be arrested than were children from similar economic backgrounds who did not attend preschool. During a 15-year study, researchers at the University of Wisconsin tracked 1,500 children from Chicago, Illinois, from age five to 20 The results were published in the May 9 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Source: Jacques Steinberg, The New York Times,May 9, 2001

Debate Over Paddling Resurfaces

Lawsuits filed by two families in rural Louisiana who want to ban paddling in school again spurs debate about the practice. One set of parents filed suit after their ten-year-old daughter sustained bruises from being paddled by the principal. The other parents maintain that their son, who attends the same school, has been paddled excessively. Louisiana is one of 23 states in which corporal punishment remains legal.

Source: Jodi Wilgoren, The New York Times,May 3, 2001

Philadelphia Court Program Attacks Truancy

Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) city officials are trying to make parents more accountable for their children's truancy. Through the Stop Truancy and Recommend Treatment (START) program, overseen by the city's family court, regional courts set up in schools hold hearings that students and parents must attend. Parents are contacted if students miss 25 days or more of school. In about 72 percent of the cases, absenteeism has decreased to between one and three days in a two-month period after the hearing.

Source: Barbara Laker, Philadelphia Daily News,May 9, 2001

Diversity News Wrap-Up
May 4, 2001

Low Lead Levels Affect IQ

Children exposed to lead levels now viewed as safe scored lower on intelligence tests, according to a study done in Rochester, New York. Youngsters whose lead levels were lower than 10 micrograms per deciliter of blood, a level considered harmless, scored 11.1 points lower than the mean on the Stanford-Binet intelligence test at age five. During the study, 276 youngsters, aged six months to five years, were tested for lead every six months.

Source: The Associated Press, April 30, 2001

Baltimore Reorganizing Schools

Baltimore school officials have announced plans to reorganize the city's nine high schools into smaller schools with themes. Three schools are scheduled to be converted by fall of 2002, and three more will be reorganized in each of the three following years. A $229,000 grant from the Baltimore office of the Open Society Institute, which supports social causes, is helping to pay for the restructuring plans.

Source: Robert C. Johnston, Education Week on the Web, May 2, 2001

CGCS Creates Gauge for Urban Districts

TheCouncil of the Great City Schools has created a series of reports designed to serve as gauges for urban student achievement. The reports review urban students' scores based on race, income, and gender on the Stanford Achievement Tests, Advanced Placement Tests, Scholastic Assessment Tests, and American College Tests.

Source: Karla Scoon Reid, Education Week on the Web, May 2, 2001

Diversity News Wrap-Up
April 20, 2001

Desegregation Order Lifted in Florida District

A recent court decision ended 30 years of court-mandated busing in the Hillsborough County School District in Tampa, Florida. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided that racial segregation in the school system had been eliminated and busing students was no longer necessary. School officials plan to launch an $80-million "controlled choice plan" to encourage white students to attend urban magnet schools and minority students to attend suburban schools.

Source: The Urban Educator, April 2001, at Council of the Great City Schools

New Online Resource for Rural Schools

The Congressional Rural Caucus is sponsoring a new Web site, Navigating Resources for Rural Schools, which offers information for rural schools. Developed by the National Center for Education Statistics at the U.S. Department of Education, the site includes links to data and information on current and changing conditions in education in rural areas of the United States.

Source: Rural Education News, April 2001

Survey: Students Have Easy Access to Guns

American high school students have easy access to guns -- according to a nationwide survey conducted last year, more than one in five male high school students had taken a gun to school in the previous year. Administered by the non-profit Josephson Institute of Ethics, the survey indicated that 47 percent of high school students and 22 percent of middle school students said they could get a gun if they desired one.

Source: CNN.com, April 2, 2001

Have you heard of an issue, a program, or an individual who might be of interest to the diversity community? If so, please e-mail me at edelisio@educationworld.com.

Diversity News Wrap-Up
April 27, 2001

Sacramento Summer School to Grow

A record number of Sacramento City, California, students are scheduled to attend summer school this year to avoid repeating a grade. The summer program was developed to comply with a statewide policy eliminating social promotion. Students who pass the six-week summer program will move up to the next grade.

Source: Erika Chavez, The Sacramento Bee,April 22, 2001

Philadelphia Recruits Teachers from Overseas

The Philadelphia School District has joined a number of urban districts that recruit teachers from overseas. Philadelphia has hired some Spanish teachers from Spain and now is recruiting teachers from India, primarily to teach mathematics and science. Administrators in Philadelphia project that the system may need to fill as many as 850 teacher vacancies by the fall.

Source: CNN.com, April 20, 2001

Ontario Weighs Strike Intervention

The Ontario, Canada, provincial government is considering legislation that would force Toronto school support staff back to work and end a four-week strike. Although schools have been open during much of the strike, Toronto school administrators closed most of the city's 565 schools for several days this week because of the strain of operating without aides, janitors, secretaries, and other personnel.

Source: Canadian Press, Thestar.com, April 25, 2001

Have you heard of an issue, a program, or an individual who might be of interest to the diversity community? If so, please e-mail me at edelisio@educationworld.com.

Diversity News Wrap-Up
April 20, 2001

Desegregation Order Lifted in Florida District

Source: The Urban Educator, April 2001, at Council of the Great City Schools

New Online Resource for Rural Schools

Source: Rural Education News, April 2001

Survey: Students Have Easy Access to Guns

Source: CNN.com, April 2, 2001

Have you heard of an issue, a program, or an individual who might be of interest to the diversity community? If so, please e-mail me at edelisio@educationworld.com.

Diversity News Wrap-Up
April 13, 2001

Achievement Gap Growing Again!

The once-shrinking achievement gap between low-income and minority students and other youngsters is growing again, according to Closing the Achievement Gap, by Kati Haycock, president of the Education Trust. Haycock writes in the report that between 1970 and 1988, the achievement gap between white students and African American students was halved, and the gap between Latino and white students was reduced by one-third.

Since then, however, the disparity has begun to increase again, Haycock explains. Now, by the time African American and Latino students finish high school, their reading and writing skills are at the level of white students in the eighth grade.

What are the reasons? Although parents need to spend more time working with children at home and poverty certainly plays a role, often students in poorer districts have a less-challenging curriculum and must meet lower standards than students elsewhere do, Haycock says. In some middle schools in high poverty, urban districts, students often were assigned to color a picture related to an assignment rather than engage in writing or mathematics, according to Education Trust research.

Solutions? Uniform standards and a challenging curriculum with high expectations can make a difference in these students' level of achievement, Haycock writes. Overwhelmed classroom teachers cannot make up for all their students' deficiencies, so more extra help for students is needed before and after school and in the summer. Without swift action, the gap will only widen, she maintains.

Have you heard of an issue, a program, or an individual who might be of interest to the diversity community? If so, please e-mail me at edelisio@educationworld.com.

Diversity News Wrap-Up
April 6, 2001

NYC Teachers Could Remove Disruptive Pupils

A proposal from Harold O. Levy, the New York City schools chancellor, could help make city classrooms more-peaceful places. Teachers would gain the authority to remove disruptive students from their classes for up to four days. Suspending students from class would require following a formal procedure. They would be sent to in-school suspension centers, either in their own schools or others in the district, so they could continue to receive instruction.

Source: Abby Goodnough, The New York Times,April 4, 2001

Report: Schools Perpetuate Gender Roles

In class, teachers frequently are more receptive to boys than to girls, calling boys by name more often, looking them in the eye, and not scolding them when they call out, according to a panel of educators that met recently at the University of Michigan's Women's Research and Education Institute. Sexual harassment of girls by other students also is on the increase, panel members said.

Source: Kim North Shine, Detroit Free Press,March 26, 2001

Rural Students Celebrate 'Small Towns, Big Dreams'

Almost 600 high school students from rural South Dakota and Nebraska gathered in Kearney, Nebraska, at the end of March for a student conference, Extravaganza 2001. Centered on the theme of "Small Towns, Big Dreams," the students met to discuss ways of using school-related activities to rejuvenate rural towns.

Source: Elisabeth Higgins Null,Rural School and Community Trust Project of the Month

Diversity News Wrap-Up
March 23, 2001

Cleveland Recruiting Teachers from India

Administrators from the Cleveland (Ohio) Municipal School District plan to visit four cities in India to recruit mathematics and science teachers for the fall. The Cleveland school system is anticipating hiring about 850 teachers this year. Out of 1,200 teacher candidates interviewed last year, only about 45 were certified to teach math or science. Cleveland school officials plan to use the Teachers Placement Group to help with teacher recruitment in India.

Source: The Urban Educator, March 2001

Birmingham Schools Aim for Literacy by Grade 3

The Birmingham (Alabama) school system has adopted a reading program designed to ensure students will be literate by third grade. Called the Universal Literacy System, developed by Voyager Expanded Learning, the program provides children who have difficulty learning to read with after-school and summer school programs. Parents of the children are required to sign a literacy contract and work with their children at home. School officials plan to launch the program in kindergarten and first grade in the 2001-2002 school year and then add it to second and third grades in subsequent years.

Source: The Urban Educator, March 2001

Detroit to Launch Capital Projects

Seven years after voters passed a $1.5 billion bond package to construct and renovate schools, work finally is getting under way. After several years of delays, the school system is planning to start 12 capital improvement projects, including the construction of nine schools. Four new elementary schools are slated to open by fall 2002.

Source: The Urban Educator, March 2001

Diversity News Wrap-Up
March 16, 2001

Texas Bill Would Allow Rural Administrators to Carry Guns

In the wake of two school shootings this month, a Texas lawmaker filed a bill that would permit principals and superintendents in rural districts to carry handguns to protect students. The bill pertains only to administrators in counties with fewer than 20,000 people who have licenses to carry concealed handguns. Those administrators without gun licenses would have to take handgun training and undergo background tests.

Source: The Associated Press, The Houston Chronicle, March 8, 2001

Paige, Rodham Clinton to Address Urban Educators

U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige and U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., are scheduled to address leaders of the country's urban school systems March 17 to 20 at theCouncil of the Great City Schools Annual Legislative/Policy Conference at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. More than 300 urban school superintendents, senior administrators, board members, and deans of schools of education are slated to attend and discuss federal policy and possible legislation.

Source: Council of the Great City Schools

NYC Parents Gain Choice in Bilingual Program

In New York City, parents of children in bilingual programs now have more say about when their children will enroll in English-immersion programs. Under a plan approved by the board of education, students who fail an English competency test will no longer be automatically assigned to bilingual classes. Parents will be able to choose from one of four instructional programs.

Source: CNN.com, February 28, 2001

Diversity News Wrap-Up
March 9, 2001

Voucher Study Raises Questions

Study: Voucher Threat Prompts School Improvements
A study by the pro-voucher research group the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research concluded that the threat of giving vouchers to Florida students in low-performing schools helped those schools improve. But voucher opponents said efforts by the staff made the difference, not the threat of vouchers. According to the study, 76 Florida public schools posted failing scores on the state achievement test. Those schools could have been required to give children vouchers to private schools if scores did not increase in a year. By the second year, all the schools had improved enough to move off the failing list.

Source: Diana Jean Schemo, The New York Times,February 16, 2001

St. Louis to Build New Schools The ending of St. Louis (Missouri) voluntary city-county busing is prompting the city to construct five new schools and renovate two closed elementary schools and a high school to accommodate returning students. The busing program began as a result of a desegregation lawsuit brought against the city in 1972, which allowed city students to go to 16 suburban districts. But a settlement of the lawsuit in 1999 stipulated that suburban districts could stop accepting students after three years.

Source: The Urban Educator, February 2001

Sacramento Schools' Home Visits Spur Federal Grant The success of a home visiting program by Sacramento (California) teachers has resulted in a $1.02 million federal grant to expand the program statewide. The money will be used to help train teachers and parents for home visits. Sacramento students who received home visits from teachers had improved test scores, did homework more regularly, and worked more with their parents on assignments.

Source: The Urban Educator,February 2001
Also: Read an Education World article about the program.

Diversity News Wrap-Up
February 23th, 2001

The latest resources for urban, high-poverty, and rural schools from Education World columnist Ellen R. Delisio

February 16, 2001

Boston Teachers Want Stiffer Penalties for Violence
The Boston Teachers Union urges zero tolerance for attacks on teachers and tougher penalties for students who attack school staff. A union proposal would lift the one-year maximum for student expulsions and give teachers the right to review the criminal records of students in their classes. In the past month, a parent allegedly attacked a first-grade teacher in front of her class, and a student allegedly threatened a staff member with a knife.

Source: Ed Hayward, Boston Herald,February 15, 2001

Edison Seeking to Operate Schools in NYC, Penn.
Edison Schools Inc., a not-for-profit school management company, is seeking to run five troubled schools in New York City and all 11schools in the Chester-Upland, Pennsylvania, school system. The five New York City schools are in the Chancellor's District, which oversees schools in need of improvement. The Chester-Upland schools are under the control of a state-appointed board put in place last summer as part of an improvement plan.

Source: Robert C. Johnston, Education Week on the Web, January 10, 2001.

Santa Ana Schools Propose Leaner Cooking
In a bid to help students eat more healthfully and lose weight, staff members at four elementary schools in Santa Ana, California, are encouraging parents to cook without lard. Lack of exercise and too much fast food as well as dishes made with lard contribute to the growing number of obese children in the school system, according to school officials. A local hospital and Latino and county health care organizations are helping with the effort.

Source: Jennifer Mena, Los Angeles Times,February 20, 2001

Diversity News Wrap-Up
February 16th, 2001

The latest resources for urban, high-poverty, and rural schools from Education World columnist Ellen R. Delisio

February 16, 2001

Pre-College Support Key for Low-Income, Minority Students
The recently released report Getting Through College: Voices of Low-Income and Minority Students in New England, prepared by the Institute for Higher Education Policy in Washington, notes that members of low-income and minority groups were more likely to attend college and graduate if they participated in a pre-college support program. Although such programs are helpful to students, the report says, there are not enough for all the students who could benefit from them. Other factors contributing to low-income and minority students' success in college include receiving adequate financial aid and feeling connected to their schools, the report states.

Students With Learning Disabilities to Get Test Help in Oregon
Oregon students who have learning disabilities may use computerized spell-checkers and other aides on state standardized tests, according to a lawsuit settlement. The suit, brought by a group of parents, will affect fewer than 4,000 students, according to a February 2, 2001 Associated Press story. The settlement terms allow students with dyslexia to use spell-checkers. Students who have other disabilities may use calculators, and some students will take tests that are read aloud. Some students also will be able to dictate their answers to test questions.

Younger NYC Students Made Gains in Summer School
Elementary school students who attended summer school showed significant improvement in reading, but middle school students did not fare as well. Fifth graders showed the biggest gains on a reading test at the end of the summer, but reading scores declined for eighth graders. About half of the eighth graders had repeated a grade.

Source: Anemona Hartocollis, The New York Times, February 13, 2001

Diversity News Wrap-Up
February 2nd, 2001

In what may not come as a surprise to parents or teachers, the authors of a national study highlighted this week by the New York Times concluded that when teenagers work more than 20 hours a week during the school year, both their school and personal lives suffer.

Legislators in several states -- including Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Alabama -- plan to seek tighter limits on the number of hours teens can work, according to a January 29, 2001, New York Times article. A Massachusetts lawmaker, for example, is sponsoring legislation that would drop the number of hours 16- and 17-year-olds can work during the school week from the current 48 to 30.

The study, Protecting Youth at Work, was conducted by the National Research Center and the Institute of Medicine, which are part of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers concluded that teenagers who work more than 20 hours a week often have lower grades, drink more alcohol (because of having more spending money and interaction with older colleagues), and spend less time with parents and families than do kids who work fewer than 20 hours.

Additional studies also found that students who work a lot also miss social and athletic activities at school, which can be important to a teen's development.

Others argue that after-school jobs teach teenagers responsibility and keep them busy after school. If the most recent research is true, however, those benefits are eclipsed once young people hit the 20-hour mark. Educators, parents, and lawmakers would be wise to take note of this latest study.

Diversity News Wrap-Up
January 26th, 2001

Some NYC Students to Attend Saturday Classes
Beginning next month, about 95,000 New York City schoolchildren will spend a sixth day in school. The extra day is one of a number of education proposals from Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. About 45,300 eighth graders and high school students will attend weekend classes in mathematics and science to prepare for state exams. Another 48,600 students who have been in bilingual or ESL programs for three or more years will receive an additional three hours of English instruction a week. Giuliani backed his initiatives with about $200 million.
Source: Paul H.B. Shin,The New York Daily News, January 9, 2001

Ohio Voucher Advocates to Return to Court
The attorney general of Ohio has sought a rehearing before the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th District on the issue of whether a school voucher program in Cleveland is illegal. In December, a three-judge panel for the federal appeals court in Cincinnati ruled 2 to 1 against the voucher program, calling it unconstitutional. If the court denies a request for a rehearing, voucher supporters said, they will submit the case to the Supreme Court of the United States.
Source: Darcia Harris Bowman, Education Week on the Web, January 10, 2001

Despite Gains, San Francisco to Break with Edison
Although student achievement has risen since the for-profit Edison Schools took over a San Francisco school three years ago, a newly elected board of education has opted to end its contract with the company two years early. A slight majority on the board indicated it was "philosophically opposed" to managing schools for profit. The incoming school board president called Edison "a destructive force, shattering our sense of community." Students at the school Edison was overseeing ranked third in improvement, placing higher on state tests than students in 68 of the 71 schools in the district.
Source: Editorial, "San Francisco Flunks," Wall Street Journal, January 17, 2001

Diversity News Wrap-Up
January 19th, 2001

The latest resources for urban, high-poverty, and rural schools from Education World columnist Ellen R. Delisio

Rural Education Directory Available
A directory of resources for rural education is now is available at the Rural Education Directory. The directory is a collaboration of the ERIC Clearinghouse, the Regional Educational Laboratory at AEL, and the National Rural Education Association. It includes information about a variety of national associations, research and training centers, health organizations, publishers, federal programs, and colleges and universities. Information about state rural development councils, extension offices, and data centers is also available at this Web site.

Oakland Military School to Open in September
A state-sponsored charter military school is scheduled to open in Oakland, California, in September. The school won approval from the state board of education after local officials reject the idea. Jerry Brown, Oakland mayor and former California governor, was a proponent of the project. The school will be housed at the former Oakland Army base. It will enroll students in grades 7 through 12. Although the California National Guard will run the school, it will have a civilian principal.
Source: Brian Anderson, Contra Costa Times, December 7, 2000

In C-M, Schools Can Name Rooms for Donors
Corporations or individuals who donate money or equipment to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District can have rooms named in their honor, according to a board of education policy adopted in December. Only parts of a school can be named after donors, and acknowledgements will be in the form of plaques. The policy also permits the board of education to name parts of buildings after people it would like to honor.
Source: Jennifer Wing Rothacker, Charlotte Observer, November 29, 2000

Should Schools Monitor Student Language at Sporting Events?
January 12th, 2001

Some students at Keystone Oaks High School, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, might consider finding another outlet for their energies and expression if they want to attend school sporting events.

Recently, about 20 students protested outside the school's gymnasium. They maintained they had the right to shout vulgarities at sporting events, according to an article in the online edition of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

The protest took place before a championship basketball game at the end of December, the article noted. The students were angry because four students had been tossed from a school basketball game the week before for using the word sucks in a cheer about the visiting team. A few games before that, police officers had removed several Keystone students from a game for belly flopping in front of the stands.

The school's athletic director, Joseph Perry, said the belly-flopping students had been told to leave because of other behavior as well, including making crude remarks about opposing players' families. "We are neglecting our duties if we tolerate it," Perry told the Post-Gazette. He asked the students how they would feel if they had to listen to foul language about their family members.

The Keystone High basketball coach said that although he appreciates school spirit, he does not want to see it take the form of harassing opposing teams. Some students, however, think Perry is trying to stifle expression and spirit.

"The coaches love us, the parents love us," one student is quoted as saying. "If the parents don't mind it, then it's not rude."

Diversity News Wrap-up
January 4th, 2001

Hanging Out, Poor Grades Signs of Troubled Kids
Having lots of unstructured time and poor school performance are better predictors of which kids will be troublemakers than income, race, or family structure are, according to a recent national study.

The best deterrent for keeping teens away from risky behavior is parental interest, the study notes. For the study, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, researchers surveyed 90,000 teens.
Source: CNN.com November 30, 2000

Urban Education Award Honors Tennessee Superintendent
Bill Wise, superintendent of the Nashville-Davidson Metropolitan Public Schools, in Tennessee, recently was honored by the Council of the Great City Schools and the IBM Corporation with an award in his name.

Wise is the first recipient of the Bill Wise Award in Urban Education. He received the award for his contributions to urban school business and financial management. The award will be presented annually to a senior school business official in the council's 55 member school systems who exemplifies Wise's ideals of innovation, leadership, professionalism, and commitment.
Source: Urban Educator, November/December 2000

Queens, N.Y., School to Bear Sinatra's Name Even though Ol' Blue Eyes grew up in New Jersey, New York City school officials plan to honor Frank Sinatra by naming a Queens performing arts high school after him. The Frank Sinatra School for the Arts is slated to open by September. Students will be admitted to the school by audition. Classes will meet temporarily at Fiorello H. LaGuardia Community College, in Long Island City; the school is scheduled to have its own building by September 2003.
Source: Edward Wyatt, Karen W. Arenson, and Anemona Hartocollis, The New York Times, December 13, 2000

Diversity News Wrap-up
December 15th, 2000

Judges Rule Against Vouchers in Ohio Schools
Monday, a federal appeals court declared a Cleveland, Ohio, school voucher program unconstitutional. The ruling could set the stage for a U.S. Supreme Court battle. The appeals court judges ruled 2 to 1 against the program, which allowed tuition payments for children who attend parochial schools to come out of public money. The ruling comes about a month after voters in Michigan and California defeated ballot initiatives endorsing vouchers.
Source: Jodi Wilgoren, The New York Times, December 12, 2000

Move to End C-M Busing Rejected
A three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, recently overturned a ruling by a lower court to end 30 years of court-mandated desegregation of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg (North Carolina) School District. The decision means the school system can continue busing students to schools outside their neighborhoods to achieve racial balance. In 1969, Charlotte-Mecklenburg became the first urban district to use busing to desegregate its schools.
Source: Tamar Lewin, The New York Times, December 1, 2000.

Retired Teacher Leaves $6.8 Million to Library A retired Dorchester, Massachusetts, teacher, who built a fortune through investments, left his entire estate of $6.8 million to the Boston Public Library. The donation by the teacher, Thomas R. Drey Jr., is the largest gift by an individual in the history of the library. The library will use the money to support the downtown Kirstein Business Branch.
Source: Boston Public Library

Diversity News Wrap-up
December 8th, 2000

Officials at the New York City Board of Education learned last week that certain schools were designating rooms for Muslim students to pray during school hours as part of their observance of Ramadan. Ramadan, which occurs this year from November 27 to December 26, commemorates when the Prophet Mohammed, the founder of Islam, received the words of the Koran from Allah. During Ramadan, Muslims pray at midday and fast during the day.

In one high school, according to the NYC Board of Education, Muslim students used the auditorium for prayer.

District administrators put an end to rooms being designated for prayer on December 1, after learning about the practice through the local media, Margie Feinberg, a board spokeswoman, told Education World. The practice also had drawn the attention of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

The NYCLU contacted the Board of Education to determine the level of schools' involvement in student prayer, according to Marina Sheriff, legislative director of the NYCLU, and to learn whether the schools were endorsing a religion. "Our concern was that the set of circumstances -- designating a room as a mosque, allowing students out of class -- would constitute a problem if there was too much entanglement and [it] starts to look like an endorsement."

According to school board policy, no school can designate space for a specific religion, Feinberg said. That does not mean, however, that students cannot pray during the day: They can pray during lunch period or during other non-instructional time in an open space, such as the cafeteria, or can arrange to leave school to pray, she added.

Diversity News Wrap-up
December 4th, 2000

S.F. Schools Easing Graduation Standards for 2001
About 1,120 San Francisco high school students will graduate in the spring 2001, even though they have not met the state's new mathematics and science requirements for graduation. Administrators learned last fall that about 30 percent of students in the class of 2001 would not meet the standards that were adopted in 1997. School board members said they are relaxing the standards for this year because students were not given sufficient support to pass the courses.
Source: Thomas D. Elias, The Washington Times, Nov. 27, 2000

Pa. Residents Donating Tax Rebates to Schools
Hundreds of recipients of $100 Pennsylvania tax rebate checks have donated the money to local school districts. Residents received the state checks beginning in October as part of a one-time rebate plan designed to offset local property taxes. Some residents said they know schools are underfunded; the Philadelphia school district faces an $80 million deficit this year.
Source: The Associated Press, Nov. 25, 2000

Educational Teleconference for Spanish-Speaking Families
U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley and National PTA President Ginny Markell are scheduled to host a one-hour interactive teleconference on Reaching Out to Spanish-Speaking Families: Ensuring Educational Success on December 5 from 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. The live teleconference, which will be shown via satellite, is aimed at parent-teacher associations, schools, and community groups interested in improving contact with Spanish-speaking families. Participants will need access to a facility with satellite downlink capabilities. For production information, call 202-401-1374.

Diversity News Wrap-up
November 16th, 2000

NYC Mulls Online Training for Teachers
New York City Schools Chancellor Harold O. Levy recently discussed the possibility of providing an online training program for teachers with American Online President Robert W. Pittman and Augusta Kappner, president of Bank Street College. Levy has indicated that he is interested in using computers to provide video instruction for teachers.
Source: Bulletin Board, The New York Times, November 1, 2000.

CGCS Appoints Research Panel
The Council of the Great City Schools has named a 12-member panel to spearhead the council's project to improve student achievement in urban schools.

The Ford Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, and the Office of Educational Research and Management fund the project. It focuses on learning whether urban schools have improved during the last few years, which urban school districts posted the most gains, and how they did it.
Source: Urban Educator, October 2000.

Philly Schools Name CEO
Philip R. Goldsmith, an attorney and a former journalist, bank executive, and deputy mayor, was named chief executive officer of the Philadelphia School District. Goldsmith, who was hired in October, will serve for one year while school officials search for a permanent CEO. The position is a recent addition to the school system.

The Philadelphia School District, the nation's sixth-largest school system, is among several urban districts, including New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles, that have recently tapped non-educators to serve as top administrators.
Source: Urban Educator, October 2000.

Diversity News Wrap-up
November 4th, 2000

Small Classes Benefit Low-Income Students
The benefits of small classes are clear for kindergarteners and first graders. They are less pronounced for second- and third-grade students not identified as from high-poverty backgrounds, according to The Costs and Benefits of Smaller Classes in Wisconsin, a study released in September by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute.

Children in low-income, kindergarten, and first-grade classes benefit most from small class sizes, according to Thomas Hruz, the study's author.

Immigrants Left Behind?
In a new book, Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms, author Diane Ravitch writes that up until the mid-20th century, U.S. schools consciously steered immigrant and working-class children to vocational pursuits rather than to more rigorous academic courses. By doing so, schools ensured that those children would never rise above their parents' economic status, writes Ravitch, a historian and former education official in the Bush administration.

The book, published by Simon & Schuster, maintains that even faculty at Columbia Teachers College and Harvard University maintained that more rigorous courses for certain social classes of students only gave them false hopes.
Source: Richard Rothstein, The New York Times, Oct. 4, 2000

New Advocates for Vouchers
"By any means necessary!" Some advocates for school vouchers in the African American community are adapting Malcolm X's rallying cry. Supporters of vouchers to allow children in low-performing school districts to attend private schools say vouchers could be the most effective way to ensure their children get as good an education as children in private or affluent suburban public schools. A new national organization, the Black Alliance for Educational Options, began to campaign for vouchers this fall.
Source: Jodi Wilgoren, The New York Times, Oct. 9, 2000