Education Week - March 6, 2013 - 4

EDUCATION WEEK

MARCH 6, 2013

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NEWS IN BRIEF
SEEKING
SOLUTIONS

A legal challenge to Washington
state’s new law allowing the creation of charter schools has been
filed by a state teachers’ union
and a coalition of other groups
concerned about the constitutionality of the measure approved by
voters last November.
The Washington Education Association’s complaint was filed
with state Attorney General Bob
Ferguson on Feb. 27 and asks him
to investigate and “promptly institute legal proceedings to remedy the constitutional violations”
within the charter school law,
which would allow up to 40 charter schools to open over five years.
The complaint argues that the
new charter law interferes with
the state’s “paramount duty” to
provide for public education. The
coalition maintains that the state
is already under a 2012 state Supreme Court order to overhaul
its K-12 funding system, but that
the Charter School Act will divert
already insufficient resources
away from public school districts.

A teacher explains
a math problem
at Afghanistan’s
Children-A New
Approach center
in Kabul. The pending
withdrawal of U.S. and
other foreign combat
forces from the country
comes as international
aid is on the decline.
Aid organizations are
racing to find new
funding for basic
services, such as
K-12 education, that
the country has been
unable to deliver
on its own.

–ANDREW UJIFUSA

Pediatricians Criticize
Harsh Discipline Codes
Schools are too quick to suspend
students or expel them and need to
take a hard look at those “drastic”
policies, the American Academy of
Pediatrics said last week, building
on a previous position paper published six years ago that questioned
zero-tolerance discipline policies.
The newest statement also outlines ways pediatricians can help
identify and intervene if children

A Musadeq Sadeq/AP

Wash. Teachers’ Union
Sues Over Charter Law

have behavior problems, and
instructs children’s doctors to
champion policies that emphasize
prevention strategies and alternatives to out-of-school suspension
and expulsion.
The 60,000-member academy
says discipline policies that call for
ejecting students from school have
been shown not to improve school
safety, but the effect on students
can be profound.
To prevent behavior problems
from arising and reduce the use
of suspension and expulsion, the
group recommends early identification of at-risk children, intervention before problem behaviors occur,
and implementation of clearly ar-

ticulated and carefully taught ageappropriate codes of conduct with
stated alternatives.
—NIRVI SHAH

College Board Begins
Redesign of SAT Exam
David Coleman, the president of
the College Board, announced in a
letter to members last week, the beginning of an effort to redesign the
college-entrance exam to better reflect the Common Core State Standards. The new assessment will aim
to better connect K-12 and higher
education institutions and more
sharply focus on a core set of knowl-

edge and skills that are essential
for readiness, access, and success in
college, wrote Mr. Coleman, a chief
architect of the common standards.
To get the process rolling, the College Board will hold meetings across
the county to solicit feedback from
stakeholders.
The organization hopes to increase
the value of the sat to K-12 teachers, administrators, and counselors;
ensure content reflects excellence in
classroom instruction; and develop
companion tools to improve instruction and curriculum. —CARALEE ADAMS

Conn. Bill Would Ban
Video Gun Violence

improving stem education at the
K-12 and college levels.
The partnership, announced
last week by the National Science
Foundation, seeks to explore and
develop some of the best ideas
from researchers in both countries, according to a press release.
Together, the projects represent a total of $4 million in grant
awards from the American and
Finnish governments.
One project seeks to expand and
improve stem teaching and learning through the use of mobile
video technology.
Another is targeting the growing
field of game-based learning in the
science, technology, engineering,
and math disciplines.
–ERIK W. ROBELEN

Ga. and Texas Officials Remove Local Board Members
DeKalb County board suspended by
governor under contested 2011 law
Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal suspended six of the
nine board members of the 99,000-student DeKalb
school system in suburban Atlanta last week, following a recommendation from the state board of
education.
The governor, a Republican, exercised powers granted by a 2011 law that allows the state’s
leader to suspend and remove board members.
The school system, Georgia’s third largest, is in
danger of losing its accreditation in the wake of a
scathing report from the Southern Association of
Colleges and Schools detailing corruption in the
school board. The district has been on accredited
probation since December.
With two-thirds of its members suspended, the
school board is unable to make any legally binding
decisions.
A federal judge in Atlanta was scheduled to
hear a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality
of the law that allows Gov. Deal to suspend board
members. The governor has exercised this authority before: Board members in three other counties

have been suspended over the past year.
The DeKalb board members are currently suspended without pay and must wait 30 days to ask
to be reinstated. A nominating committee has been
created to find new board members, though the confirmation of any new members will depend on the
outcome of the legal challenge.
While several states have laws allowing the state
to take over failing districts, and some allow a governor to suspend elected board members, such actions are rare, according to Kathy Christie, the vice
president of the Denver-based Education Commission of the States.
In Texas, meanwhile, the El Paso school board’s
challenge to the state education commissioner’s
decision to install a new board was denied.
The Texas Education Agency said that the Dec. 6
decision is now final and only needs clearance from
the U.S. Department of Justice before the new members can take over. Education Commissioner Michael
Williams said he took the action to restore public
trust after a high-stakes testing scandal that landed
the former El Paso school superintendent in prison.
–JACLYN ZUBRZYCKI

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Legislation introduced in Connecticut, a state rocked by the
shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December, would
ban youths from playing “violent
point-and-shoot” video games in
arcades and public places.
The measure, introduced by
Democratic state Sen. Toni Harp,
would apply to games that use a
“facsimile of a firearm” or an imitation that a “reasonable person
would understand was intended
to depict a weapon of violence.”
The bill also would establish a
task force on violent video games
to study their effects on youth
behavior and make policy recommendations to state officials.
In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court
struck down a California law that
banned the sale of violent video
games to minors.
–SEAN CAVANAGH

U.S., Finland Join
Forces on STEM Work
Researchers in the United
States and Finland are teaming
up on a set of projects aimed at

AmeriCorps to Serve
Struggling Schools
A $15 million grant over three
years will place AmeriCorps
volunteers in persistently underachieving schools around the
country, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said last week.
AmeriCorps is managed by the
federal Corporation for National
and Community Service, which
in partnership with the Education Department plans to place
650 volunteers each year in 60
rural and urban schools. The corporation will also raise private
funds to contribute to the effort.
The grant will augment AmeriCorps work already ongoing in
low-performing schools: currently, its volunteers work in a
quarter of the 1,300 schools eligible for federal school improvement grants.
Public or private nonprofit
organizations, including faithbased and other community
groups; schools or districts; insti-

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Education Week - March 6, 2013

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