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Education Reform Briefs
From the Associated Press/Las Vegas Sun, 9/8/97Education Spending Provisions for FY 1998 Major spending provisions of the $80 billion bill being considered by the House to fund labor, education and health programs in fiscal year 1998 include the following education-related expenditures:
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From InfoBeat -- Reuters News Service, 9/11/97National Testing, the Senate, and Money The Senate voted 51-49 to consolidate billions of dollars in education programs -- including the Goals 2000 school reform plan, bilingual and immigrant assistance, vocational education and aid to disadvantaged children -- into grants to school districts. Senators voted on the same day, 87-13, to let the administration proceed with a proposal to test 4th graders in reading and 8th graders in math, starting in 1999. Instead of Education Department oversight, the voluntary tests will be administered by an independent board -- a top demand of conservatives who fear testing could be a first step toward federal control of local curriculum. |
From the Family Research Council, 9/9&11/97Arguments Against National Testing Private tests, such as the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (grades K-9) and Stanford Achievement Test (grades K-12) already exist to provide information to parents and teachers about how children perform in relation to national norms. FRC Education Analyst Jennifer Marshall said, "Federal tests won't improve local education. These tests will duplicate existent private norm-referenced and criterion-referenced tests. New federal tests will require wasteful spending estimated at $22 million to develop the tests and $100 million to annually administer the test." |
From the Education Excellence Network, 9/1297EEN's Take on the Senate National Test Vote The Senate compromise bill that would give authority over Clinton's proposed national tests to a reconstituted National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) instead of the U.S. Dept. of Education, as Clinton had proposed. Under the amendment, sponsored by Senators Coats and Gregg, NAGB would maintain the right to review, change, and even eliminate the $13 million contract that the Dept. of Education awarded in August to a consortium to develop the tests. In addition, NAGB member terms would be increased from 3 to 4 years, and its membership would include more governors and state policymakers (of a different party than the president). |
From the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, 9/11/97Chairman Bill Goodling' Thumbs Down on Tests "I don't support efforts to hand over President Clinton's testing program to the National Assessment Governing Board. As I have said many times before, new federal education tests won't boost the academic performance of a single American child. Instead, it will boost federal involvement in our schools. Rather than spend $100 million on more tests, House Republicans and many Democrats would rather send federal dollars directly to the classroom, bolster basic academics, and seek ways to increase parental involvement." |
From the National PTA, 9/11/97Opposition to Senate Funding Bill (S. 1061) National PTA President Lois Jean White today pledged that the National PTA will work vigorously to eliminate, during conference negotiations, an amendment to Senate bill S. 1061 that affects more than $11 billion in federal funds for education programs. "This provision eliminates the policy and targeting objectives included in most Dept. of Education programs, including Title 1 and Goals 2000," White said, "while at the same time wiping out accountability for how the money is spent at the local level...The National PTA supports maximum local control in school reform efforts, but local education agencies can't assume the entire burden for administration of these programs." |
From the Education Excellence Network, 9/12/97Charter School Biased Against Special-Needs Student Federal civil rights officials have found that the Renaissance Charter School in Boston discriminated against a special-needs kindergartner by shortening his school day, suspending him, placing him with a teacher not trained in special education, and finally forcing his mother to withdraw him from the school. Among 16 remedial actions demanded by the U.S. Dept. of Education Office for Civil Rights, the school agreed not to shorten the day of any disabled student unless it is in the student's interest; to ensure that any separate classes are equipped like other classrooms and staffed with special-needs teachers; and to guarantee that students with behavioral problems have access to counselors. |
From the American Association of School Administrators, 9/11/97An Alert to Members: Voucher/Tax Credit Vote Imminent The backers of "vouchers/tax credits/choice" have won the support of two Senate Democrats: Robert Torricelli (NJ), and Joseph Lieberman (CT). The proposal sounds innocent -- giving parents the ability to set up "Education Savings Accounts" and allowing them to contribute...tax-free...up to $2,500 each year for K-12 expenses at private, parochial or home schooling schools. Other family members -- aunts, uncles, grandparents -- may also contribute to these accounts. And you pay NO interest on any account earnings. Adoption of this amendment (called "Coverdell in the Senate; Gingrich/Armey in the House) would be the "foot in the door" voucher/tax credit advocates have been seeking. |
From the Center for Education Reform, September 1997CER's Comparison Survey to NEA/PDK/Gallup Effort At the end of August, the Center for Education Reform commissioned International Communications Research (ICR) to conduct a nationwide scientific survey to gauge public sentiment on several education reform issues. CER and ICR set about correcting biased wording, prejudicial phrasing, and contextual ambiguity flaws they believe existed in the NEA/Phi Delta Kappa sponsored effort earlier in the summer. For a complete report on their findings covering school choice; charter schools; quality of education; and politics, the federal government and teacher unions, visit CER's web site at www.edreform.com. |
From the Associated Press/Las Vegas Sun, 9/10/97Most Juvenile Crime Occurs After School Half of all violent juvenile crime occurs between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. on school days, said a report released by Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, a group seeking to persuade Congress to set aside more money for crime prevention programs. The problem will only worsen over time since the number of teenagers is expected to increase 17 percent by 2005, said James Alan Fox, the study's co-author and dean of Northeastern University's College of Criminal Justice. He said today's teenagers had less supervision and fewer activities to occupy them than earlier generations because many communities had cut back on after-school recreation, such as music, drama and sports. |
From the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, September 1997Big Labor Joins WEA in Lawsuit Five hundred sixty (560) labor organizations represented by the Washington State Labor Council just joined forces with the Washington Education Association (WEA) in the Attorney General's case against the WEA. This means that the largest lobbying and political forces in our state have combined their substantial resources to fight the Attorney General's prosecution of the WEA for massive campaign finance violations. |
From the Education Excellence Network, 9/1297PAVE Scholarship Program Endorsed in Milwaukee Recently, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals struck down the inclusion of religious schools in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program. In response, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation has offered the local private scholarship program, Partners Advancing Values in Education (PAVE), a $2 million matching grant to help low-income families attend the school of their choice. This year, PAVE's goal is to raise $4.5 million. In early September, every member of the Milwaukee Public School Board of Directors signed a letter in support of PAVE's fundraising efforts. |
From the National Education Association, 9/14/97Quoting Bob Chase on Conservatives and Vouchers "For more than two centuries, public education has served the profoundly conservative purpose of instilling the shared values and democratic ideals that bind us together as Americans. In recent years, however, a certain brand of "conservative" has been hell-bent to discredit and dismantle not just public schools -- "government schools" is their preferred term of contempt -- but most other institutions of government as well. It used to be Marxists who advocated revolution and the withering away of the state. Today, this is the rebel yell of many people who bizarrely call themselves "conservative"." |
From the National PTA, Week ending 9/5/97Opposing Vouchers Congress returned from its recess this week. Some members of Congress are planning to introduce voucher plans as amendments and as separate measures. The PTA weighed in against a voucher proposal that could be amended to a D.C. spending bill with letters to the District of Columbia Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. The PTA also added its signature to a letter opposing vouchers sent to all representatives by the National Committee for Public Education (NCPE). The National PTA chairs the NCPE. |
From the Education Intelligence Agency, 9/5/97A Mole in Adminstration's Education Meetings The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution's Paul F. Steidler managed to worm his way into weekly meetings between NEA, the U.S. Department of Education, and a host of other representatives of the education establishment, in which "political intelligence is shared and strategies developed on how to advance the Clinton Administration's education agenda." These meetings were going on for at least a year before Steidler found out about them. Read his report on these meetings at the AdTI web site, www.schoolreport.com/AdTI. |
From the Education Intelligence Agency, 9/9/97Michigan Education Association Pays Very Well The Michigan Education Association paid 75 of its top employees -- including three retirees -- more than $100,000 each in salary and expenses last year. The report this data was drawn from lists Pennsylvania second for six-figure teachers' union staffers with 62, followed by California at 22, Illinois at 13, New York at 10, and Ohio with nine. In 1996, the MEA collected $44.9 million in dues from its 110,000+ members. It collected an average of about $400 per teacher. About 63 percent of dues go toward staff salaries, which puts the MEA in line with the other eight states in the study. |
From the Education Intelligence Agency, 9/12/97Peer Review Not So Popular Add NEA-New York to the list of state affiliates who will oppose any effort to establish peer review and evaluation programs in public schools. This brings the number of irreversibly opposed states to five -- California, Wisconsin, New Jersey, West Virginia and New York -- a total of 22.7 percent of the NEA's entire membership. |
From the QEV Analytics, 9/9/97Teens Respond to Survey on Social Ills in Schools QEV Analytics designed these surveys and performed the analysis for the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. The following statistics represent teens responding affirmatively to the statement:
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