Education Week - February 28, 2018 - 5

BLOG OF THE WEEK

D.C. Schools Chief Resigns
Amid School Transfer Scandal
District of Columbia schools Chancellor Antwan
Wilson resigned last week after little more than a
year on the job.
A majority of the City Council called on him to
resign after it was revealed that his family bypassed
the city's school lottery system so his daughter could
transfer into a sought-after high school. Wilson
helped draft a policy to address the issue of highranking officials receiving special treatment in the
school transfer process.
Wilson, who began his tenure in the school system in February 2017, previously served as superintendent of the Oakland, Calif., district and as
an assistant superintendent in the Denver public
schools. In the District of Columbia, he also inherited a graduation scandal that placed another set
of school system practices under the microscope.
-C.M.

Cincinnati District Gets Kicked Out
Of Charter-Authorization Role
Ohio's push to improve charter school quality has
booted the Cincinnati district out of the charter-authorization business.
The state school board this month yanked authority to create and oversee charter schools from Ohio's
third-largest district.
Blocking a major city from sponsoring charter
schools is a significant change for Ohio, which used
to be one of the most permissive states for charters.
It's also a departure from what happens in most
states, where districts are often the main overseer of
schools in their area.
But the Cincinnati district was rated as a "poor"

oversight organization in fall 2016. That rating
should have killed the district as a charter sponsor
then, but its appeal dragged on.
-TNS

AASA Selects Illinois Educator
As Superintendent of the Year

A two-day teacher strike shut down public
schools across West Virginia last week, as
educators called for higher wages and better
benefits.
All 55 counties closed down schools because
of the walkout. The strike-the first in 30
years-is considered illegal, but that hasn't
stopped hundreds of teachers from heading to
the state capitol to protest.
West Virginia teachers' salaries are
among the lowest in the nation. According
to National Education Association research
of 2015-16 teacher salaries, teachers in
the state make an average of $45,622. The

David Schuler, the superintendent of Township
High School District 214 in Arlington Heights, Ill.,
has been named 2018 National Superintendent of
the Year.
The AASA, the School Superintendents Association, which bestows the annual award, applauded
Schuler's efforts in the 12,000-student district to
create a career-pathways program that has helped
students earn college credit and land internships,
career-specific learning experiences, and industry
certifications.
He also helped launch a teacher-preparation program that provides mentoring and job placement
to high school students who are interested in the
profession through partnerships with elementary
schools and postsecondary institutions.
Schuler served as the 2015-16 president of AASA
and leads its Redefining Ready! program, an initiative devoted to helping educators appropriately assess whether students are college- and career-ready
upon high school graduation.
-C.M.

Years After Standards Adoption, Detroit
Discovers Curricula Are Misaligned
In one of the lowest-performing districts in the nation, students have been using outdated textbooks
for nearly a decade.
In 2010, Michigan adopted the Common Core
State Standards, which, among other expectations,
require more reading and writing based on texts and
math instruction that emphasize concepts over rote
procedures.
But the 48,000-student Detroit district never fully
updated its materials to match, according to a recent
audit of its curricula. Its reading textbooks, for example, date to 2007, according to the Detroit News.
That means Detroit students have been taught out
of books that are not aligned to state goals or tests.
Nor have teachers had access to materials that support some of the standards' goals.
The Detroit school system has been in a state of
administrative and financial dysfunction for years.
It only returned to an elected school board in January 2017, after having experienced a series of emergency managers, as well as the rise and fall of a
state-run "turnaround" district that included many
of its schools.
-STEPHEN SAWCHUK

John Raby/AP

tem by forming its own district.
The court ruled that U.S. District Judge Madeline
Haikala must rescind the part of her 2017 order
that allowed Gardendale to form its own system.
Last spring, she granted Gardendale permission
to start its own system, with conditions, even
though she concluded that race was the main
motivation for the split. Advocates for racially
mixed schools argued that Haikala's ruling rolled
back decades-long efforts to desegregate schools in
the South.
The appeals court ruled this month that Haikala
did not err by declaring that racial segregation was
behind the push for secession, but the panel of judges
did conclude that she abused her discretion by allowing partial secession anyway.
-COREY MITCHELL

W.Va. Teachers
Go on Strike
Across State

Jennifer Hanner, a first-year
teacher from Harts, W.Va.,
center, holds a sign last week,
outside the state Senate
chambers at the Capitol in
Charleston, W.Va. Teachers
statewide went on strike
Thursday over pay and benefits.

CIVICS EDUCATION

STATE-BY-STATE LOOK
AT CIVICS LEARNING
Fewer than 1 in 4 8th graders
understand enough about civics and
government to perform proficiently on
the subject in the National Assessment
of Educational Progress, and states are
exploring various approaches to boost
civics learning, according to a new
analysis by the Center for American
Progress, a think tank. The vast majority
of states require students to take a
civics course before graduating from
high school, and 17 also require
students to pass a citizenship test.

-SARAH D. SPARKS

SOURCE: Center for American Progress

n Requires civics course
n Requires civics exam to graduate
n Requires both
n No requirements

national average is $58,353. Teachers have
called on the West Virginia legislature
to fund both pay raises and the public
employees' health-care program.
The night before the strike, Gov. Jim Justice,
a Republican, signed legislation that will
give teachers a 2 percent increase starting in
July, followed by an additional 1 percent hike
in each of the next two fiscal years. At the
governor's request, the controversial benefits
plan was delayed for a year.
Still, the state teachers' unions have said
the pay raise is not enough.
"Teachers and service professionals are
tired of being told, 'Wait 'til next year,' "
Dale Lee, WVEA's president, told West
Virginia Public Broadcasting. "There's
still a tremendous amount of anger and
frustration."
In 1990, West Virginia's then-attorney
general wrote in an official opinion that
teacher strikes and "concerted work
stoppages" are illegal and that teachers
could be punished by being denied pay,
suspended, fired, barred from teaching in
a public school for a year, charged with a
criminal misdemeanor, or even fined or jailed
if they do not comply with a court injunction
ordering them to return to work, according to
local media.
In a statement, Patrick Morrisey, the
state's current attorney general, said his
office would assist and support officials as
they enforce the law.
State schools superintendent Steve Paine
also called the statewide strike unlawful,
saying in a statement that it "will have a
negative impact on student instruction and
classroom time."
Teachers' unions have lawyers
prepared to defend teachers against any
consequences, the Charleston Gazette-Mail
reports.
-MADELINE WILL

Education Week - February 28, 2018

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - February 28, 2018