District Administration - April 2011 - (Page 15)

Br iefings NewsUpdate Memphis City Schools Will Merge After a Landmark Vote MeMphis (Tenn.) CiTy sChools will forfeit its charter after a landmark vote in the city on March 8 mandated the district allow shelby County—its neighboring suburban district—to regain control of its school system. Memphis, which has been separate from the county, has long been deemed the struggling district, while shelby County (Tenn.) schools has been regarded as the successful one. The move was originally proposed by the Memphis school board in november 2010 after sCs wanted to become a separate school district, walling itself off from the county’s control and separating its tax base from Memphis. in the eyes of the Memphis school Board, giving up their sovereignty and merging the districts was a way to create a better school system. The merger with shelby County schools has been filled with controversy, and neither district has supported it outwardly. not only will the merger produce a single-source funding mechanism but it will become the 16th largest lunches. state report cards typically label the district with a D or F. shelby County schools, conversely, has 48,000 students and, for the last five years, has earned an A from the state. “There’s this notion that school grades, graduation rates and test proficiency rates will improve automatically for Memphis schools,” said Kriner Cash, superintendent of MCs. “if you merge an A with an F, everybody won’t automatically get a C. There’s hard work to do.” Despite MCs’s track record of poor academic achievement, Cash says the district has undergone many bold reforms for improvement and doesn’t want the merger to deter them. “last night’s vote [March 8] ended chapter 1 of what we believe will be a very long book,” said shelby County school Board president David pickler at a press conference in which he described the plan to merge the districts. MCs and sCs will continue to operate independently of each other until 2013. Memphis City Schools Superintendent Kriner Cash (center) spoke at a news conference about the approval of a referendum to transfer control of MCS to Shelby County Schools. school district in the country. While 67 percent of voters from the city of Memphis approved the measure to merge the schools, the turnout was low, with a mere 17 percent of registered voters coming out to the ballot box after a highly politicized campaign leading up to the vote. MCs represents 70 percent of the county, with roughly 110,000 students, 87 percent of whom receive free or reduced-price School Improvement Grants—Two Years Later A nAtionwiDe survey of forty-two stAtes AnD the District of Columbia examined how states are using the $3.5 billion in school improvement Grants, part of the federal title i program. Early State Implementation of Title I School Improvement Grants under the Recovery Act, conducted by the Center on education Policy and released in late february, found that changes in the guidelines implemented for these grants were intended to funnel more resources toward those high schools most in need. in 2009, the obama administration required states applying for the grants to choose from one of four school improvement models. funding for school improvement Grants was boosted by the $100 billion for education under the American recovery and reinvestment Act in 2009. the study’s findings indicated that states are actively seeking out improvement grants. twenty states reported that at least three-quarters of the eligible schools in their states applied for the grants. other findings proved that of the four federally approved school-turnaround models—transformation, turnaround, restart and school closure—the transformation model was preferred by 74 percent of respondents. “school improvement grants are critical because they provide the extra funding that is needed to help struggling schools,” said Jack Jennings, president and Ceo of the Center on education Policy. Jennings said that some felt the intervention models were too restrictive for some schools, which leaves room for improvement for the grant program. April 2011 15 U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (center) and NEA President Dennis Van Roekel (right) visited G. James Gholson Middle School in Landover, Maryland. The school is using a School Improvement Grant to implement a school turnaround model. www.DistrictAdministration.com http://www.DistrictAdministration.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - April 2011

District Administration - April 2011
Contents
From the Editor
Letters
News Update
Labor Relations
Administrator Profile
District Profile
Conversations
Superintendent Staying Power
Helping STEM Take Route
High-Stakes Cheating
Are Your Graduates Succeeding in College?
Problem/Solution
New Products
Product Focus
Online Edge
Going Mobile
Professional Opinion

District Administration - April 2011