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July 30, 2010
State Roundup
D.C.--- D.C. charter schools will share
nearly $10 million to use during the 2010-11
school year for "innovative compensation
strategies" for their teachers, according
to an announcement Tuesday by District officials.
The money -- part of $20 million the federal
government gives the city's charters each
year -- is aimed at helping them keep pace
with a new D.C. Public Schools teachers
contract. The DCPS contract, passed in early
July, offers a nearly 22 percent pay raise
by 2012 and bonuses of up to $30,000 for
the top-performing instructors. The average
DCPS salary is predicted to jump from about
$67,000 this year to more than $81,000 in
the fall.
Read
more…
July 29, 2010
School Funding/Litigation
LA---Three groups claim Louisiana's Department
of Education fails to ensure that students
with disabilities have equal access and
are protected from discrimination.Their
complaint says more than 30 of the 80 New
Orleans schools that have opened since Hurricane
Katrina have violated the rights of disabled
students.
Read
more…
MO---Under Missouri law unaccredited school
districts must pay tuition of its students
who choose to attend accredited school in
an adjoining district. The Missouri Supreme
Court has ruled that the unambiguous mandatory
language of a state statute requires unaccredited
school districts to pay the tuition of its
students who choose to attend an accredited
school in an adjoining district.
Read
more…
Education Finance—General
IL---Chicago Public Schools officials have
suggested a list of concessions from its
teachers to close a $370 million budget
hole, including unpaid holidays, frozen
wages and unpaid school recesses. The proposals
are part of ongoing negotiations between
the district and its teachers union to avoid
having larger class sizes, which schools
CEO Ron Huberman has said could increase
to 33 students, from 31, at the high schools.
Read
more…
RI---R.I. taxpayers facing need to reinforce
state pension fund. The required taxpayer
contribution will increase by close to 18
percent from $127.9 million this year to
$151.3 million for retired state employees
during the year that begins on July 1, 2011,
and from $203.7 million to $239.7 million
for retired teachers at the same time, as
a result of new state and local contribution
rates approved unanimously last week, albeit
with obvious reluctance, by the state Retirement
Board chaired by General Treasurer Frank
T. Caprio, who is running for governor.
Read
more…
Other News
Saying that reforming education is perhaps
“the economic issue of our time,”
President Obama went before a major civil
rights organization on Thursday to defend
his main education program against criticisms
from some minority and teachers groups.
Read
more…
July 28, 2010
School Funding/Litigation
FL---The Florida Education Association filed
a lawsuit Friday to block the state Legislature's
attempt to reduce school funding and increase
class sizes.
Read
more…
MI---The Michigan Supreme Court, in a 4-3
split, has ruled that school districts claiming
a violation of the state constitution’s
prohibition on unfunded mandates are not
required to prove exactly how much the school
districts’ costs increased as a result
of the mandate. The supreme court affirmed
the court of appeals’ decision granting
the plaintiffs a declaratory judgment on
this claim. The court also concluded that
the plaintiffs’ suit had been “sustained”
within the meaning of state constitutional,
allowing the plaintiffs to recover attorney
fees.
Read
more…
State Roundup
CA---A state appeals court strengthened
the authority of local school boards over
charter schools Monday by making it harder
for California education officials to approve
statewide charters with campuses in multiple
counties.
Read
more…
D.C.--- The Washington Teachers Union (WTU)
plans to bring a class action suit challenging
the recent termination of 241 teachers for
poor performance, says the Washington Examiner.
WTU President George Parker contends that
the terminations are based on a "flawed
document" – the D.C. Public Schools’
teacher and staff evaluation tool, called
Impact, which rates teachers from "highly
effective" to "ineffective."
Read
more…
FL---Florida became the latest state to
adopt a set of national benchmarks for student
learning in math and English on Tuesday
with the approval of the Common Core State
Standards. The vote makes Florida the 30th
state to adopt the standards, following
approvals in Massachusetts and the District
of Columbia last week. In all, about 40
states are expected to adopt the benchmarks
by this fall.
Read
more…
NJ---New Jersey’s largest school district
will create a special enterprise zone for
education in September, bringing together
seven low-performing schools for an ambitious
program of education and social services
provided through a coalition of colleges
and community groups led by New York University.
Read
more…
Other News
Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced
Tuesday that the District and 18 states,
including Maryland, remain in the running
for a share of $3.4 billion in the federal
Race to the Top competition, with winners
to be announced in September.
Read
more…
July 27, 2010
School Funding/Litigation
MD---Student resources once on the chopping
block to be fully funded, school officials
say. City Council restores money for health
centers; school officials to find funds
for crossing guards and bus passes.
Read
more…
NJ---School funding cuts claim another victim:
full-day kindergarten.
Read
more…
NM---The already thin school budgets are
likely to get even thinner this fall after
Gov. Bill Richardson's administration last
week announced a $150 million state revenue
shortfall, which will cut another 3 percent
from public schools.
Read
more…
Education Finance—General
PA---Pennsylvania school districts got some
breathing room in their budgets on Friday
by having their contribution rate to employees’
pension system cut by a third. The Public
School Employees’ Retirement System
voted 12-2 to cut the employers’ contribution
rate that taxpayers pay to 5.64 percent
of payroll, which will lower this year’s
cost by $349 million. The action was required
by a state law passed as part of the enactment
of the $28 billion state budget.
Read
more…
Other News
Seven leading civil rights groups, including
the NAACP and the National Urban League,
called on U.S. Secretary of Education Arne
Duncan today to dismantle core pieces of
his education agenda, arguing that his emphases
on expanding charter schools, closing low-performing
schools, and using competitive rather than
formula funding are detrimental to low-income
and minority children.The groups, which
[July 26] released their own education policy
framework and launched the National Opportunity
to Learn campaign to advance their ideas,
want Mr. Duncan to make big changes to his
draft proposal for reauthorization of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
Read
more…
D.C.--- Accountable to whom? D.C. Schools
Chancellor fires teachers based on ‘value-added’
measures. This was one of the first instances
of the use of value-added measures for high-stakes
personnel decisions, but it won’t
be the last.
Read
more…
July 26, 2010
State Roundup
CA---An audit of textbooks at 21 local high
schools has found that lost books and excessive
purchases at these campuses cost the Los
Angeles Unified School District nearly $10
million. Such problems are pervasive across
the system of more than 1,000 schools, auditors
concluded, exponentially increasing the
potential losses and unnecessary spending.
Read
more…
D.C.--- School Chief dismisses 241 teachers
in Washington. Michelle Rhee, the reform-minded
chancellor who took over the District of
Columbia public schools three years ago,
on Friday fired 241 teachers, or 5 percent
of the district’s total. All but a
few of those dismissed had received the
lowest rating under a new evaluation system
that for the first time held them accountable
for their students’ standardized test
scores.
Read
more…
MD---A Maryland judge has ordered a financial
consulting company to pay $39 million to
the state's pension fund for miscalculating
how much the state owed retirees since the
early 1980s. The $31.8 billion pension fund
was initially seeking $73 million from Seattle-based
Milliman Inc., which the state hired to
calculate its pension contributions for
judges, state police, transit police, and
other law enforcement officers from 1982
to 2004.
Read
more…
RI---R.I. teachers settling contracts. In
most of the settled contracts, teacher union
locals have agreed to wage freezes, even
in some cases salary cuts, and significant
hikes to their health insurance premiums
in an effort to save jobs and help their
communities close gaping deficits.
Read
more…
Other News
After a take-it-or-leave-it vote by the
Senate, House Democrats face little choice
but to drop billions in aid for schools,
college students, and others that they had
hoped to add to legislation paying for President
Obama’s troop surge in Afghanistan.The
Senate rejected the House measure, passed
earlier this month, by a 46-to-51 vote that
fell short of a majority, much less the
60 votes required to defeat a filibuster.
Read
more…
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