Education Reform Briefs

From the U.S. Department of Education, 8/21/97

Record Student Enrollment for Fall 1997

U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley said increases in student enrollment will continue unabated for the next decade and call for serious solutions to the school overcrowding problems that many school districts are experiencing. Increases are expected to peak at 54.3 million in 2007.

Overall, public elementary and secondary enrollment is projected to increase by four percent over the next ten years, with western states having the largest increases.

From InfoBeat -- Reuters News Service, 8/28/97

France Rescues Kids from Heavy Schoolbags

In France, the enormous schoolbags worn by even the smallest students are regularly denounced by doctors as a national health hazard. "As school resumes, I wish to draw your attention to a few simple steps that could improve students' daily lives [concerning] the excessive weight of school bags," wrote Junior Education Minister Segolene Royal.

Among her recommendations were provision of lockers, authorization of smaller writing pads, and allowing students to share books in class.

From the U.S. Department of Education, 8/29/97

Government Contracts for Test Development

In late August, a contract to develop the voluntary national tests was awarded to an alliance led by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and comprised of test publishers and a bipartisan council. Test items and scoring criteria will be developed this fall, and a field test will be administered during spring 1998. Sample tests will be posted on the Internet in fall 1998.

From the Education Reporter, August 1997

NEA Lobbying Instructions for 1997

Among more than a dozen items on the NEA's lobbying agenda for 1997 are the following:

• a tax-supported, single-payer health care plan for all
• the use of affirmative action
• statehood for the District of Columbia
• education of children of undocumented workers
• a national holiday honoring Cesar Chavez

From the Internet News Bureau, 8/21/97

Education Jobs Marketplace

In "What Matters Most: Teaching for America's Future," a report by the National Commission on Teaching, teacher recruitment is described as slipshod, and it says that "although the share of academically able young people entering teaching has been increasing, there are still too few in some parts of the country and in subjects like mathematics and science." Many schools end up hiring poorly qualified teachers or have teachers teaching out of their field of expertise. The commission advocates overhauling the entire recruitment system and one of its recommendations is the establishment of electronic hiring halls.

Education Jobs Marketplace fills this niche, and can be found on the Internet at www.edjobs.com.

From the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, 9/2/97

Local Politics Protects Failing Schools

"For kids who grow up in depressed, urban areas, their only hope may be a good education. But the city council of Highland Park, near Detroit, just told the world that preserving its failing school system is more important than the students' future.

A proposed charter school called the Learning Academy for Employment wants to offer high school diplomas and construction training to students aged 16 to 20. It would provide an alternative for those who aren't succeeding in Highland Park's regular public schools...

The district, [unfortunately,] didn't want a competing school to succeed where it is failing. When the charter school needed council approval, school district officials asked the council to squash it."

From the Washington Times, 8/27/97

Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll on School Reform

In its 29th annual Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools, government-funded vouchers for public, private or religious schools gained their highest level of support ever. For the first time, even a majority (55 percent) of public school parents favored vouchers. Support was highest among blacks, however, with 62 percent agreeing with the voucher concept.

Other top-rated reforms noted in this poll were putting computers in every classroom (81 percent), establishing national academic standards (77 percent), moving troublemakers to alternative schools (75 percent), and letting families choose a public school (73 percent).

From the School Reform News -- The Heartland Institute, September 1997

The Family Education Act

Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) introduced The Family Education Act (H.R. 1816) in June of this year. Covering public, private, parochial, or homeschooled children, this Act, according to Rep. Paul would return to America's education system a fundamental principle of a free economy: consumer sovereignty; that is, the ability of customers to decide who succeeds or fails in the market.

He noted, "The lack of consumer sovereignty in education is destroying parental control of education and replacing it with state control."

From the Office of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, 8/29/97

Congress Hosts D.C. Students During Roof Repairs

Congresswoman Norton (D-DC) announced that Members of the House and Senate have made available 110 places for D.C. students who will be out of class for most of September while new roofs are being put on D.C. schools. Speaker Gingrich is among the nearly 100 members of the House and Senate who have already offered places.

The Congresswoman said, " Although our students are Washingtonians, most have little contact with the Congress. I expect that the intern opportunity will be a valuable educational experience."

From the School Reform News -- The Heartland Institute, September 1997

Special Education Increasingly Out of Control

A recent Boston Globe report on special education stated, "What was once a pioneering advance in civil rights for the disabled has evolved into an entitlement program increasingly out of control." When the program was first started twenty years ago, the total nationwide cost was $1 billion. Now, taxpayers pay in excess of $60 billion a year -- $3 billion from the federal government, which writes the rules, and $57 billion from the state and local taxpayers, who have to comply with the rules and foot the bill.

From the School Reform News -- The Heartland Institute, September 1997

NEA's "Special" Tax Exempt Status

"Although an attempt to revoke the NEA's property tax exemption failed by a 213-210 vote in Congress in 1995, [Alexis de Toqueville Institution President Paul] Steidler questions whether the exemption is valid. The union appears to be in violation of the charter that granted the tax exemption in 1906, when the NEA was a professional association and not a union. The charter requires the NEA to file an annual financial report on its spending with the U.S. Commissioner of Education, but the NEA has not filed such a report for at least five years.

"The NEA's failure to file this report may automatically disqualify it from the property tax exemption," said Steidler. If so, the District of Columbia would be able to collect over $7.1 million in property taxes for the period Jan. 1, 1993 to Dec. 31, 1997.

From the Claremont Institute Precepts, 8/26/97

Misconstruing the "Wall" Again

How high is the "wall" that separates church and states? According to a California school district, it's higher than the outfield fence at the Downey High baseball field.

Ed DiLoreto, a local businessman, bought advertising space on the fence. He intended to post the Ten Commandments. School officials balked. Government agencies, including the state Attorney General, could find no grounds to refuse the sign. But rather than post the Commandments, district officials stopped selling ads and removed every placard in the district.

Of course, the phrase "wall of separation" does not even appear in the Constitution; Thomas Jefferson included it in a letter to a group of Baptists in 1803.