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Money Is Stumbling Block for Bush's Education Plan
The Washington Post, April 22, 2001

As the Senate prepares to debate President Bush's education proposal, the White House and Senate Democrats remain at odds over a crucial element of the plan: the amount of money the government should spend to improve schools. Democrats continue to push for $250 billion in new education spending over the next decade, more than 10 times the amount proposed by the president.

(See also: Money May Be Education Deal Breaker, Associated Press, April 24, 2001; Budget of the U.S. Government - Fiscal Year 2002, Office of Management and Budget, 2001.)

Congress Education Glance
The New York Times, April 24, 2001

This article outlines the key differences between President Bush's education proposal and the Senate bill scheduled for debate this week

Paige Says Team to Tackle
Education Department Finances
The Washington Post, April 21, 2001

Education Secretary Roderick R. Paige said he will appoint an eight-person "strike team" to address waste, fraud and errors in the Education Department, promising to deliver "a clean audit" in 18 months.

Schools Are Now Marketers
Where Choice Is Taking Hold
The New York Times, April 20, 2001

While studies of limited choice programs show that parents who choose schools are generally more satisfied than they were before choice, and while their children's test scores often rise, there is little evidence of improvement in districts or systems as a whole. What does tend to improve immediately, though, is salesmanship, placing public school educators in an unfamiliar and sometimes uncomfortable role.


Plans Floated to Guarantee Special Education Aid
Education Week, April 23, 2001

Proposals to move the funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, now $7.11 billion, from the discretionary to the mandatory side of the education budget have recently gathered momentum in Congress.

More Time in Child Care Connected to Bad Behavior
Education Week, April 23, 2001

According to the results of a study by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, children who spend time in child-care centers have better cognitive and language skills than children in other arrangements, including care by their mothers, but the more time children spent in any type of nonmaternal child care, the more at risk they were for behavior problems such as aggressiveness and disobedience.

(See also: "Do Preschool and Nannies Turn Kids Into Bullies?", Time Magazine, April 23, 2001.)

Test-Score Gains in Texas Traced
to Policies on Minority Progress
Education Week, April 23, 2001

A recent report by the Education Trust, commissioned by the Business Roundtable, says that Texas has made impressive gains in student achievement over the past decade and earned a place as a national model. It claims that the gains have been particularly striking for low-income and minority students and have not come at the cost of higher dropout rates.

Hispanic Parents Told How to Talk to Teachers
The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, April 23, 2001

The Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) has started a program to train parents how to get involved in their children's schools. A nine-week pilot program is under way at Benteen Elementary School in Atlanta, where 37 percent of students are Hispanic.

Opinion: A Noneducator Pulls Off
the Impossible: Urban School Reform
The Los Angeles Times, April 22, 2001

Less than a year on the job, San Diego School Superintendent Alan Bersin, the former U.S. attorney and "border czar" for the Southwest region, has successfully instituted a number of "top-down" reforms.

FCC Issues Rules for
Filtering Access to Internet Sites
The Washington Post, April 17, 2001

The Federal Communications Commission has announced that, starting July 1, 2001, schools must take steps toward filtering the Internet access they provide to children and adults, or they will be denied federal E-rate support for Internet access and classroom wiring.

Sites Changing Formats for Child-Privacy Statute
The Baltimore Sun, April 23, 2001

In response to a federal law requiring that websites that attract children under 13 to get permission from parents before asking for names, physical locations and other details that could expose kids to marketers and molesters, many sites have re-evaluated whether they really need all the information they had previously collected, and many have improved mechanisms to get parental consent. But others simply dropped services or limited usage to avoid paperwork.

Promised Sex-Ed Report Languishes
The New York Times, April 21, 2001

Towards the end of the Clinton administration, Surgeon General David Satcher laid the groundwork for a far-reaching report on sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies on the young that would urge comprehensive sex education in every grade, along with measures that would "promote responsible sexual behavior" like improved access to contraception. The report was never published, and now, with the Bush administration in office, Dr. Satcher's call to action has been muffled.

Mississippi Near Settlement in Rights Case
The New York Times, April 24, 2001

As a settlement agreement in a long-standing civil rights case, the State of Mississippi has agreed to spend $500 million to improve its historically black colleges and speed their integration. The case began in 1975 when Jake Ayers, a black sharecropper, sued the state on behalf of his son, contending that Mississippi's three black universities — Jackson State, Alcorn State and Mississippi Valley State — were vastly inferior to the colleges that whites attended.

(See also: Mississippi Desegregation Suit Settled for $500 Million, The Washington Post, April 24, 2001.)

Advocate for Poor Communities
Urges Detailed Data on Report Cards
Education Week, April 17, 2001

According to a survey study by the Center for Community Change, state report cards connoting school success are often based solely on student test scores, giving parents an incomplete snapshot of a school's quality. The study says that states should incorporate attendance rates, graduation rates, teacher qualifications, and class-size figures so parents can get a full understanding of what's happening at the school.

MARYLAND

Recruiting and Keeping Good Teachers
The Baltimore Sun, April 23, 2001

The Howard County school board is seeking help from local businesses in developing benefits packages that are more effective in recruiting and retaining teachers. The effort is unique in the Baltimore region, as most jurisdictions have left businesses out of the equation.

New School Texts Eyed
The Baltimore Sun, April 23, 2001

For the first time in about a decade, the Baltimore County school system is poised to purchase a new reading series -- perhaps two series -- to ensure a more consistent reading program for all elementary school pupils.

PENNSYLVANIA

Opinion: PSSA Tests Flawed and Racist
The Morning Call (Allentown), April 23, 2001

A coordinator of the Penn State Labor Education program argues that Pennsylvania state assessment tests should be multilingual.

VIRGINIA

Teens Talk About Race
Richmond Times-Dispatch, April 23, 2001

In Prince Edward County, a group of teens from several area churches meets regularly to talk about tough issues youths face and to get past racial stereotypes.

School-Funding Pleas Stun Fairfax Leaders
The Washington Post. April 21, 2001

Fairfax County school advocates, including Superintendent Daniel A. Domenech, launched a last-minute blitz for more school funding before a meeting of the Board of Supervisors yesterday. But the supervisors, who had already pledged an extra $15 million, rejected the pleas as cynical and ungrateful.

WASHINGTON, D.C. METRO AREA

Energy Contract Used To Repair D.C. Schools
The Washington Post, April 23, 2001

According to an analysis by The Washington Post of thousands of pages of documents obtained from the D.C. Public school system under the Freedom of Information Act, school officials were unable to provide job-by-job proposals or invoices showing what repairs were done in cases involving hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to Washington Gas.

Opinion: Better Schools Won't Come Cheap
The Washington Post, April 22, 2001

Peggy Cooper Cafritz, President of the D.C. Board of Education, is pleading for more funding to improve D.C. Public Schools.

Some Push Hard for Software
The Washington Post, April 19, 2001

A Washington Post survey of area school districts found that a large digital divide exists -- even among schools in the same district, where some schools have a ratio of two students for one computer and other schools labor under a ratio as big as 11 to 1.

SPECIAL ARTICLES & REPORTS

Honor in the Boxcar: Equalizing Teaching Quality
The Education Trust, Spring 2000

Leaders from 13 national organizations share their ideas and recommendations for providing our best teachers to the children who need them most.

Romancing the Child
Education Matters, 2001

E.D. Hirsch, Jr. of the University of Virginia argues that the progressive way of running schools -- focusing on unstructured, "individually tailored" instruction -- has been ineffective in closing the achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students and that schools must turn their focus to more explicit instruction that includes a high degree of drill and practice.


Leadership for Student Learning:
Redefining the Teacher as Leader (pdf)
Institute for Educational Leadership, 2001

This report lays out 10 ways that teachers can provide valuable leadership in schools. (See also: Teacher Leadership Should Be Strengthened, Education Week, April 23, 2001.)

President Bush's FY2002 Budget:
Leaving Children Behind
Children's Defense Fund, 2001

According to the Children's Defense Fund Action Council, while a handful of children's programs would receive additional funding under the FY2002 budget, most programs assisting children are either frozen at this year's level or are increased only slightly -- to a level where they are not enough to serve the same number of children next year.

2000 Children's Defense Fund Action Council Nonpartisan Congressional Voting Record
Children's Defense Fund, 2001

Based on 10 crucial votes in the House and in the Senate that affected the lives of millions of U.S. children, the CDF Action Council found 47 Senators and 108 House Members failed children and scored below 50%; while 34 Senators and 48 House Members consistently stood up and voted to protect children with scores of 100%. Also listed are the top and bottom state delegations for children.

WEBSITES & LINKS

National Institute of Child Health and
Human Development (www.nichd.nih.gov)

Part of the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The NICHD conducts and supports laboratory, clinical and epidemiological research on the reproductive, neurobiologic, developmental, and behavioral processes that determine and maintain the health of children, adults, families and populations.

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