Education Week - April 16, 2014 - 4

NEWSINBRIEF
States, Ed. Dept. Faulted
On Test-Integrity Protection
The U.S. Department of Educa-
tion's inspector general released
a report last week that faults
state and federal officials for not
doing more to protect the integrity
of K-12 testing systems. It follows
a report last year that drew similar
conclusions about Michigan's
system.
The new report examines the
testing systems in Mississippi, Nebraska,
South Carolina, and Texas
as part of a nationwide audit.
Auditors found weaknesses in test
security, monitoring, and risk analysis.
They also found that state testing
systems did not always require
corrective action if questionable test
results were found.
Auditors flagged federal officials
for not doing more to improve test
integrity.
Department officials say the
agency is working to improve its
protocols.
-MICHELE McNEIL
HHS Secretary Sebelius
Left Stamp on Head Start
U.S. Secretary of Health and
Human Services Kathleen Sebelius
announced her resignation last
week, prompting widespread assessment
of her work during the
flawed rollout of the Affordable
Care Act.
But Ms. Sebelius also leaves be-
hind a substantial legacy in the
early-childhood arena.
The office of Head Start is a part
of the Health and Human Services
Department, and during her tenure,
the federal early-education
program for children from lowincome
families started requiring
some of its organizations to compete
for money in a bid to increase
provider quality.
Ms. Sebelius also served as a tagteam
partner with U.S. Secretary
of Education Arne Duncan in promoting
a proposal from the White
House to boost state-run preschool
programs with $75 billion over 10
years from the federal government.
They both visited child-care
centers and made other joint appearances
to talk up the proposal.
-CHRISTINA A. SAMUELS
EMPTY DESKS
Parents, graduates, and
activists set up desks to block a
street in front of the Los Angeles
Unified School District central
office last week to protest high
student-dropout rates.
Vast Digital Divide Found
In Nation's Schools
Applications for federal E-rate
money show broad gaps between poor
and wealthy school systems' access to
high-quality technologies and varying
abilities among districts to purchase
connectivity at affordable rates,
a new analysis reveals.
The research, released last week
by Education SuperHighway, a San
Francisco-based nonprofit, is based
on data it collected and analyzed
from more than 1,000 districts in 45
states. Collectively, the districts made
$350 million in requests for funding
during the 2013 application process.
The survey found that schools
with higher levels of technology buy
at cheaper prices and spend more
money on Internet services.
-SEAN CAVANAGH
More States Requiring Tests
For Kindergarten Entry
More than half the states and the
District of Columbia now require children
to take kindergarten-entrance
assessments, a trend that continues
to grow, the Denver-based Education
Commission of the States reports.
Such exams aim to gauge pupils'
abilities in language and literacy
development, cognition and general
knowledge, motor skills, and social
and emotional development, the ECS
says in a 50-state analysis of kindergarten
policies released last month.
In 2013, four states-Iowa, Ne-
vada, Oregon, and Wisconsin-
began requiring kindergartenentrance
assessments.
-JULIE BLAIR
Only Two District Finalists
In Running for Broad Prize
The Broad Foundation announced
last week that Georgia's Gwinnett
County district and Florida's Orange
Professional-Development Expert Acquitted of Molestation
Douglas B. Reeves, a prominent education author
and professional-development provider for school leaders,
has been acquitted of child-molestation charges.
After a two-day trial, a jury in Lynn, Mass., found
him not guilty this month of the one count that had
been filed against him in 2012: indecent assault and
battery of a child under 14.
The charge stemmed from a July 2006 visit by a
then-9-year-old girl-with her younger sister and
mother-to the home of Mr. Reeves, a family friend.
Now 17, the girl testified that when she and her sister
were watching a movie, Mr. Reeves asked to get
in bed with them and touched the girl between her
legs, according to Mr. Reeves' lawyer, Max Stern.
The girl didn't tell anyone about the alleged incident
until she was in therapy in 2012 for depression
and social difficulties, Mr. Stern said. He presented
an expert witness who said the girl's therapist had
led her to make up the allegation.
The prosecution cited the detail in the girl's story
and rejected the argument that it had been fabricated,
according to the Lynn Daily Item. Testifying at
the trial, Mr. Reeves said he did not get into bed with
the girls, but went into the room to get his computer
so he could do work in another room.
Mr. Reeves, 60, the author of dozens of books and
articles about school leadership and implementing
academic standards and curriculum, founded the Englewood,
Colo.-based Center for Performance Management
in 1994. It was later renamed the Leadership
and Learning Center and bought by Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt in 2011.
-CATHERINE GEWERTZ
County district are finalists for this
year's Broad Prize for Urban Education.
It named just two top contenders
for the first time since the $1 million
competition began in 2002.
Typically, four or five districts are
named as finalists for the top prize,
but the Los Angeles-based philanthropy,
which said it had raised the
bar, noted that its board was disappointed
at the "overall progress of
urban school systems across the U.S."
This is the first time Orange
County has been named as a finalist.
Gwinnett County won the Broad
Prize in 2010 and was a finalist in
2009. The winner will be announced
in September.
-ALYSSA MORONES
New Superintendent Named
For Atlanta Public Schools
Meria Carstarphen, who has been
schools superintendent in Austin,
Texas, for five years, has been
tapped by the Atlanta school board
to lead its school system.
She has also been a superintendent
in St. Paul, Minn., and was the
chief accountability officer in the
District of Columbia public schools.
The 47,000-student Atlanta district
has been embroiled for several
years in a cheating scandal that last
year led to the indictment of 35 educators,
including retired Superintendent
Beverly Hall.
-LESLIE A. MAXWELL
Sacramento District, Union
Bail on NCLB Flexibility
The Sacramento, Calif., school
district and its teachers' union announced
last week they are withdrawing
from a first-of-its-kind
No Child Left Behind Act waiver
the U.S. Department of Education
granted last year.
In August, U.S. Secretary of Educa-
tion Arne Duncan bypassed the state
of California and granted the socalled
CORE-for California Office to
Reform Education-waiver to eight
districts. That allowed those districts,
4 | EDUCATION WEEK | April 16, 2014 | www.edweek.org
which also include Los Angeles and
Long Beach, to set up their own accountability
system outside the
state's. Teachers viewed the process
as uncollaborative and were particularly
upset about plans to tie teacher
evaluations to test scores.
A CORE spokeswoman said she expects
the remaining seven districts
to stick with the waiver.
-M.M.
Parents Pull Thousands
From New York Tests
Most of New York state's elemen-
tary students took state tests meant
to show how they are faring under
a heavier academic load, but thousands
sat them out under instructions
from their parents, who say
the state relies so heavily on testing
that it's interfering with learning.
Advocacy groups estimate that
more than 28,000 of the state's
1.2 million 3rd through 8th graders
skipped the three-day English/language
arts assessments this month.
That's more than double last year's
number. The mathematics assessments
begin April 30.
Opposition to standardized testing
in New York is not new, but it has intensified
in the past two years, since
the state made such tests count for
at least 20 percent of a teacher's annual
performance score and based
questions on the more challenging
Common Core State Standards.
-ASSOCIATED PRESS
Charges Filed in Attacks
At Pa. High School
Authorities have charged a 16-yearold
student with four counts of attempted
homicide and 21 counts of
aggravated assault in a knife attack
that wounded 21 students at a Pennsylvania
high school last week.
At least four of those students at
Franklin Regional High School in
Murrysville, a suburb of Pittsburgh,
were injured seriously.
The youth, who allegedly wielded
Richard Vogel/AP
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Education Week - April 16, 2014

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