Teachers draft reform plan
Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times
Union's proposal calls for local, grass roots control over schools and gives instructors more breathing room to formulate curricula.

Lawyers’ Squad to Weed Out Bad Teachers in N.Y.C
Vaishali Honawar, Education Week
An aggressive drive meant to weed out incompetent tenured teachers in New York City is under attack from the local teachers’ union and some teacher-quality advocates, who describe it as a “witch hunt.”

Official Leaves Post as Texas Prepares to Debate Science Education Standards
Ralph Blumenthal, The New York Times
After 27 years as a science teacher and 9 years as the Texas Education Agency’s director of science, Christine Castillo Comer said she did not think she had to remain “neutral” about teaching the theory of evolution.

Usually Contentious Title I Formula Is No NCLB Barrier
David J. Hoff, Education Week
For all of this year’s debate about the future of testing, accountability, and other policy issues around the No Child Left Behind Act, virtually no one has brought up the question of how best to give out billions of dollars a year under the law.

Education Conservancy Reels in Donations for 'Beyond Ranking' Web Site
Eric Hoover, The Chronicle of Higher Education
Mr.  Lloyd Thacker, director of the Education Conservancy, wants to build an interactive college-search tool, a free Web site loaded with "educationally sound" information. Two weeks ago, he started a campaign to raise $400,000 to create a prototype.

Political Explosion on Undocumented Students
Elizabeth Redden, Inside Higher Ed
A recent legal memo from the North Carolina Community College System office broadening the definition of “open door” admissions sparked a firestorm across the state. Citing a 1997 state attorney general opinion that “denies colleges the authority to ‘impose nonacademic requirements on admissions,’” David J. Sullivan, assistant to the president for legal affairs for the system, wrote to the leaders of the 58 community colleges that, “notwithstanding any policy of the local board, colleges should immediately begin admitting undocumented individuals” as out-of-state residents.

In Haiti, a Rare Leg Up
Monica Campbell, The Chronicle of Higher Education
On a recent afternoon in one of the most-impoverished areas in Haiti's capital, Suzie Pascal, a third-year engineering student at the State University of Haiti who is at the top of her class, returned home. Ms. Pascal is one of 80 students supported by the Haitian Education & Leadership Program, Haiti's largest university-scholarship program, which provides merit scholarships to students in the top 10 percent of their high-school classes in the country's poorest areas.

Budding boffins
The Economist
Finland produces the best science students, according to the OECD's three-yearly Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

Minister scraps the 11-plus exam
BBCNews.com
The controversial transfer test for P7 children will be scrapped from next year, NI's education minister has said.

Canadian students move up in rankings
Janice Tibbetts, CanWest News Service
Canadian students are on a roll in their academic performance on the world stage, this time ranking third in an international test of science ability that compared 15-year-olds in 57 countries.

N.S. to revamp university welfare rules
D. Jackson, The Nova Scotia Chronicle Herald
The MacDonald government is poised to allow more people to stay on welfare while going to university.

French-immersion students lose linguistic duality over time: census
Macleans.ca
Many students who graduate high school with French immersion certificates are losing their highly prized linguistic duality over time.

Teachers facing sack over fees
Janine MacDonald, The Australian
THE school year in Western Australia may end in chaos as hundreds of teachers face deregistration in the second last week of term for not paying their registration fees.

Boys' reading skills a worry
Anna Patty, The Sydney Morning Herald
The State Government has singled out the declining reading skills of teenage boys in NSW for special attention.

ALP to begin work on education: Gillard
AAP, The Sydney Morning Herald
Work on the Labor government's so-called education revolution will start apace within days, Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard says.

Outcomes Linked to High-Quality Afterschool Programs: Longitudinal Findings from the Study of Promising Afterschool Programs
Vandell, Deborah Lowe. Reisner, Elizabeth R. Pierce, Kim M.
A new study by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Policy Studies Associates, Inc. finds that regular participation in high-quality afterschool programs is linked to significant gains in standardized test scores and work habits as well as reductions in behavior problems among disadvantaged students. These gains help offset the negative impact of a lack of supervision after school. The two-year study followed almost 3,000 low-income, ethnically diverse elementary and middle school students from eight states in six major metropolitan centers and six smaller urban and rural locations. About half of the young people attended high-quality afterschool programs at their schools or in their communities.

The Educational Policy Institute is an international non-profit think tank dedicated to the study of educational opportunity. The Week in Review is a weekly publication that highlights the top news stories, reports and statistics related to academic preparation and access and success in the US, Canada, and beyond. The publication also features a commentary written by either President Watson Scott Swail, EdD or Vice-President Alex Usher.

To submit comments, news releases, or submissions, please email Dr. Watson Scott Swail at wswail@educationalpolicy.org or call (757) 430-2200.