GUEST COMMENTARY

Robin Hood Gone Bad

DR. WATSON SCOTT SWAIL President & CEO, Educational Policy Institute

Most of us are glad that 2009 has passed. It was, in the words of the Queen Elizabeth II in 1992, an annus horribilis. You can do the translation. The economy tanked, states were in severe budget situations, and the Administration and Congress battled with budgets and ways to support the economy without bankrupting the nation. Oh, and Kris Allen won American Idol.

So we welcome 2010 with wide arms and great hope. But it may not get better. News of state budgets are getting more extreme, and the federal deficit is in serious condition. And it’s an election year, so it will be interesting to see what gets done.

All this stated, I spent this week wondering how to kick off your 1020 commentaries. And then I got an email. My colleague, Martin Gould of the National Council on Disability, sent me a Wall Street Journal article called “Special-Ed Funds Redirected: School Districts Shift Millions of Dollars to General Needs After Getting Stimulus Cash.” And this set me off.

In 2009, school districts across the US used ARRA funds to save jobs that would have been eliminated due to state budget cuts and local cuts. And that is, in part, what the stimulus bill was supposed to do. But according to this WSJ article, what many school districts did in addition to those specified funds was to use ARRA funds that were designated for special education to be repurposed for general use. That is, they used special education funds to save jobs in other areas. As the superintendend of Broward County Public School, James Notter, said in the article, “we absolutely need this.” And the GAO estimates that 44 percent of school districts around the country will do the same thing. READ MORE...

48,802 people were awarded doctorates in 2008, up 1.4 percent from 2007 (one of the smallest increases in the last several years). Forty-six percent of doctorates earned in 2008 were awarded to women. The largest doctoral field was the life sciences with 11,088 doctorates awarded. Just over half (53%) of graduates reported having no graduate or undergraduate education-related debt, 19% reported cumulative debt of $20,000 or less, and 8% reported debt over $70,000
Source: National Science Foundation

Recession Fuels Shift from Private to Public Schools
Greg Toppo, USA Today
It's too early to tell whether the recession has had a profound effect on public schools' educational mission. But parents and educators across the nation say it's already bringing subtle changes to the culture of many public schools as some families seek the personal attention they received from private schools before bringing their children to public institutions.

Assembly OKs Bill to Change California Schools
Patrick McGreevy and Howard Blume, LA Times
Despite strong objections from teachers unions, the California state Assembly on Tuesday night approved changes to California schools that would give parents more power to transfer their children from badly performing campuses and petition for fixes that could include removing principals. The changes are intended to help California win a share of $4.3 billion in Race to the Top funds.

Camping Out for Kindergarten
Christine Smith and Jessica Greene, NBC News
Pitching a tent and sleeping on the sidewalk is common for concert tickets. But for kindergarten? Outside Don Callejon Elementary School in Santa Clara Wednesday, about 70 parents pitched tents, ate pizza and played on their iPhones passing the time. On Thursday morning, parents got out of their sleeping bags, waiting for a chance to get their kids the road to a good education. There are 120 slots and students with siblings get first priority. Parents say the neighborhood has a high count of kids, so competition is tough.

Engineering Class Shows Girls Male-Dominated Field
Michael Bimbaum, Washington Post
While students at an all-girls school in Montgomery County were laboring one day last month to build bridges out of Popsicle sticks, their teachers were trying to build bridges for them into the male-dominated field of engineering. The bridges shattered under 60 pounds of pressure. Teachers at the Holton-Arms School in Bethesda hope their seemingly unique engineering course will make girls' interest in the field last longer.

Extra School Funding in Jeopardy?
Lori Higgins, Detroit Free Press
Michigan's quest to receive up to $400 million in federal education aid could be jeopardized as some unions issue letters urging leaders not to sign a memorandum of understanding that is necessary for districts to receive the money. They say union leaders are being asked to sign an agreement for a plan they haven't seen, and draft versions of the plan in some cases includes controversial issues that were not part of bills Gov. Jennifer Granholm signed Monday to improve public schools.

Governor’s Call for Giving Colleges Priority over Prisons Faces Hard Political Tests
Shane Goldmacher and Larry Gordon, LA Times
At the center of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's State of the State speech Wednesday was a proposal that outside of Sacramento might seem like common sense: Mandate that the state invest more dollars each year in its public universities than in locking people up in prison. But to many inside the Capitol, that idea appears all but unattainable. The governor called for a constitutional amendment that would prohibit corrections spending from outstripping funds for higher education by 2014-2015.

Obama Announces Teacher Training Initiative
USA Today
President Barack Obama announced a $250 million initiative Wednesday to train math and science teachers and help meet his goal of pushing America's students from the middle to the top of the pack in those subjects in the next decade. He said the $250 million in public and private investments for the "Educate to Innovate" campaign will help train more than 100,000 teachers and prepare more than 10,000 new educators in the next five years.

Skills to Fix Failing Schools
Laura Pappano, NY Times
Much in K-12 education is being turned on its head, especially where fixing failing schools has become a national focus. This means new education leadership jobs: running charter schools, directing turnarounds of troubled schools and founding nonprofits with creative answers to education challenges. Such work demands educators who are more M.B.A./policy-wonk, which is why universities are unveiling degree programs that pull professors from schools of education, business and public policy.

1st Toyota Education Project Announced in Miss.
ABC News
Economic development officials on Wednesday announced the first project to use funds from a $50 million education endowment pledged by Toyota Motor Corp. The project is a curriculum management audit of eight school districts in the area surrounding a Blue Springs site where Toyota plans to build a car plant. Toyota will make its first $5 million payment in May to the education fund being run by the Tupelo-based CREATE Foundation. Work on the plant, meanwhile, is stalled because of the recession.

Gates Foundation Boosts Agricultural Funding and Education
Kristi Heim, Seattle Times
Two recent grants and a $10 million investment by the Gates Foundation aim to boost access to education and capital for African agriculture. A $1 million grant today to Michigan State University will support a pilot project to create a virtual hub of agricultural education material. The MSU researchers will work with African educators to develop material designed to improve agricultural practices in an 18-month project called AgShare Open Education Resources.

China Education Resources Partners With the Coca-Cola Company
CNN Money
China Education Resources Inc. ("China Education", "CER", "the Company") (TSX VENTURE: CHN) (PINK SHEETS: CHNUF) Wednesday announced that it has launched a joint promotional campaign in China with Coca-Cola Company ("Coke") promoting Qoo, a non-carbonated beverage developed by Coke targeted at the youth market.

Thousands of Schools Remain Shut
BBC News                
Heavy snow has extended the holidays of hundreds of thousands of pupils as head teachers kept their doors closed. About 9,000 schools were shut across England on Wednesday, with 950 closing today in Wales, and at least 250 in Scotland and 16 in Northern Ireland.

U of A Adopts Honour System for Sick Students
Elise Stolte, Edmonton Journal, CA
In Canada, the University of Alberta has permanently done away with doctor-signed sick notes, asking students to self-declare instead when they are too ill to complete assignments or write exams. As for students wanting to take an 'flu vacation,' or those who 'forgot' to study and need a convenient excuse to postpone the inevitable: "we trust the students," said university registrar Gerry Kendal. "We saw that in high school. We're just not expecting that's going to happen to any significant degree whatsoever (now)."

India Issues Advisory for Students in Australia
Ed Payne and Harmeet Shah, CNN
A weekend killing in Australia has prompted the Indian government to issue an advisory for its college students studying in that country. Australia has seemed increasingly less safe for Indian students over the past year. During a one-month period over the summer, at least 10 Indian students were attacked. The most severe case left an Indian student in a coma; another student was stabbed in the stomach. More than a dozen arrests were made.

Small High School Has Big Impact for Homeless
Craig and Marc Kielburger, Vancouver Sun, CA
There aren't many principals who would allow their students to duct tape them to the wall. But, when it comes to helping Cariboo Hill secondary school in Burnaby fundraise to fight homelessness, more than one staff member was willing to put themselves in a sticky situation. With the money raised, students were able to buy toques, gloves and socks for the winter. Considering in the 2008-2009 season the city's extreme weather shelter was open for 47 nights, these donations will provide warmth to the people who need it most.

Revving the Education Engine
This new ECS paper engages education, policy and workforce leaders to explore how to effectively align education, workforce and economic development policy to meet state and regional workforce needs. It provides a comprehensive view of alignment that addresses the various pathways students pursue through the education system and into the workforce. The paper provides examples of promising policies and programs states are employing to create greater alignment, as well as practical steps that state leaders can take in their states to fully leverage their education assets to meet state workforce and economic development goals.

A New Diverse Majority: Students of Color in the South’s Public Schools
This report by the Southern Education Foundation (SEF) finds that the South’s public schools have a majority of students of color for the first time in history. In the school year ending 2009, African American, Latino, Asian-Pacific Islander, American Indian, and multi-racial children constituted slightly more than half of all students attending public schools in the 15 states of the South. This transformation establishes an important landmark in American diversity and a historic milestone for the only section of the United States where racial slavery, White supremacy, and racial segregation of schools were enforced though law and social custom for more than two-thirds of the nation’s history.

The Progress of Education Reform: Service-Learning
The term service-learning is used frequently these days, but confusion remains as to what it is and why it matters. More importantly, are there any measurable benefits? This issue of The Progress of Education Reform looks at four research studies that explore the impact of service-learning on student achievement and civic engagement.