Education Week - April 16, 2014 - 5

REPORT ROUNDUP www.edweek.org/go/rr
MATH EDUCATION
two knives, was eventually subdued
with the help of a school police officer
and an assistant principal.
Sophomore Alex Hribal is being
charged with the crime as an adult.
-AP
Court Backs N.Y.C. Ban
On Religious Services
A federal appeals court, ruling
for the sixth time in a long-running
case over weekend church services
in public schools, has upheld the
New York City school system's rules
against opening its facilities to such
worship services.
A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals
ruled 2-1 this month against
the Bronx Household of Faith, a
congregation that has been battling
since 1994 over its efforts to hold
services in a public school.
In the latest ruling, the 2nd Circuit
majority said the First Amendment's
"free-exercise clause does not
entitle Bronx Household to a grant
from the [New York City district] of
a subsidized place to hold religious
worship services."
-MARK WALSH
L.A. Pact on Teacher Layoffs
Ducks Seniority Issues
Plaintiffs and the local teachers'
union reached an agreement last
week designed to prevent 37 schools
in the Los Angeles Unified School
District from getting hit by layoffs.
The pact calls for hiring new administrators,
installing mentors to
help inexperienced teachers, hiring
counselors, and providing 40 hours
of professional development for
teachers in the schools. It does not,
however, alter the fundamentals of
teachers' seniority rights-the provisions
that the plaintiffs sought to
change when the suit was first filed.
The suit was filed in 2010 on
behalf of students in the schools,
which were losing dozens of novice
teachers during budget-based
layoffs.
-STEPHEN SAWCHUK
Ind. Board Members Say
Teacher Ratings Unfair
Members of the Indiana board of
education say a new performanceevaluation
system failed parents, students,
and teachers when results released
last week found only 2 percent
of educators in need of improvement.
Some board members, along
with state schools Superintendent
Glenda Ritz, echoed concerns of lawmakers
and education policy experts
who had criticized the evaluations
as too good to be true.
Almost 88 percent of teachers
were rated "effective" or "highly effective,"
about 2 percent were rated
in need of improvement, and less
than half a percent were deemed
ineffective, the lowest grade.
-AP
Gaps Widen in High School
For High Achievers
Research from the Education Trust
chronicles the performance of students
who start high school as high
achievers and finds that students of
color and from disadvantaged backgrounds,
on average, graduate with
lower grades, pass fewer Advanced
Placement exams, and don't do as
well on the ACT or SAT as their peers
from wealthier and white families.
The report, issued this month, focuses
on the top quartile of students,
based on sophomore-year assessments,
and follows their progress
through graduation. About one in
17 black students and one in nine
Latino students perform in the top
quartile, compared with about one
in three white and Asian students.
While 10 percent of economically
disadvantaged students are the
highest achievers, nearly half of
wealthy students are. -CARALEE J. ADAMS
Charter Students Contribute
To Higher Transit Costs
The cost of transporting charter
school students to class in Ohio was,
on average, about 44 percent higher
than for students attending regular
public schools, an investigation by
the Akron Beacon Journal shows.
In part, the extra cost comes from
having to bus charter students
longer distances, sometimes with
fewer of them on the route. Statewide,
school buses traveled an extra
15,600 miles every day in 2012 to
accommodate charter school students,
which adds up to about an
additional $85,000 every day. That
extra cost is largely footed by the
urban districts in which most charters
operate, says the newspaper.
State funding for school transportation,
which in the past varied from
$9 million to $33 million a year, was
zeroed out in 2010.
-KATIE ASH
Civil Rights Group Sues
New Mexico Over Equity
New Mexico's current education
improvement agenda-including
new teacher-evaluation and A-F
school-grading systems-is harming
the state's large population of
English-language learners and lowincome
students, charges a lawsuit
filed against the state by the Mexican
American Legal Defense and
Educational Fund, or MALDEF.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of sev-
eral parents with children in public
schools, also alleges that state
officials aren't providing adequate
funding to schools to support the
needs of several groups, including
English-learners, Latino students,
and American Indian students.-L.A.M.
Startups in Education Set
Record in Raising Money
It's already been a banner year for
ed-tech startups.
Ninety-nine startups in education
have raised more than $500 million,
a record in the past five years, according
to TechCrunch, citing statistics
from its database of technology companies,
people, and investors.
That compares with 20 companies
raising more than $64 million during
the same period five years ago. However,
it's not the greatest number of
companies to be funded in a given
quarter. Over the past five years,
that happened in the second quarter
of 2013, when 120 companies raised a
total of $319 million. -MICHELE MOLNAR
"Who Is Afraid of Math? Two Sources of Genetic
Variance for Math Anxiety"
Mathematics anxiety can be explained, at
least in part, by genetic factors, says a recent
study published in the Journal of Child Psychology
and Psychiatry.
Researchers followed 216 identical twins
and 298 same-sex fraternal twins over about
a seven-year period, starting when they were
in kindergarten or 1st grade. The 11 authors
measured students' math anxiety, general
anxiety, math problem-solving skills, and
reading comprehension through a battery of
assessments.
They found that genetic factors related to
general anxiety and math cognition accounted
for 40 percent of the variance in math anxiety
among students. The other 60 percent was explained
by environmental factors specific to the
child. (Variance describes distance from a statistical
mean.)
-LIANA HEITIN
TEACHER TURNOVER
"Seven Trends: The Transformation
of the Teaching Force"
Reversing a trend, teachers hired during
the Great Recession may be sticking around
longer than those hired a few years before
the downturn, according to new data.
The information is part of an update of an
earlier project identifying seven trends in the
composition of the teaching force that was led
by University of Pennsylvania researcher
Richard Ingersoll. In general, the numbers
show that the teaching profession is simultaneously
growing older as baby boomers enter
their 60s; younger and less stable as retention
rates fall; more female; and more racially
and ethnically diverse.
The updated data, from the Consortium for
Policy Research in Education, show that in
2007-08, the "mode" of teachers' experience levels-or
the most common figure-was just one year.
By 2011-12, it was five years, which suggests that
teachers hired during the lean recession times are
staying longer.
-STEPHEN SAWCHUK
STUDENT HEALTH
"Availability of Drinking Water in U.S. Public School
Cafeterias"
Most schools meet the U.S. Department of Agriculture's
drinking-water requirements, but students
still aren't drinking enough water, a study
concludes.
Published in the April issue of the Journal of the
Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the study was
produced by researchers from the University of
Michigan and the University of Illinois at Chicago
to examine schools taking part in the National
School Lunch Program. The USDA mandated increased
access to free drinking water for program
participants beginning in 2011-12. Most schools
complied by providing cafeteria drinking fountains,
water pitchers, or bottled water.
Yet fewer than one-third of children and teenagers
got the recommended daily water intake-
about five cups for schoolchildren younger than 8.
The authors say the presence of water fountains
may not, by itself, be enough to overcome the inadequate
intake. Without water being readily available
at their lunch tables, students have to make
special trips to fountains, or wait in line for it. And
younger students may need permission to visit a
water fountain.
-ALYSSA MORONES
TIME TO LEARN
"Cracks in the Hourglass: Inequalities in Learning Time
Between Low-Poverty and High-Poverty Schools"
Poverty-related challenges steal time from high
school class periods, leading students at low-in-
New Child Well-Being Index
Spotlights Racial Disparities
"Race for Results"
As children from minority populations gradually become
the majority in the United States, the country
must address unequal outcomes and opportunities
between racial and ethnic groups to ensure a prosperous
future, a report released this month says.
For its report, the Baltimore-based Annie E. Casey
Foundation created a new index that uses 12 educational,
health, and economic factors to rank how
children from major racial and ethnic groups fare in
every state.
"It is clear that children of color-especially Afri-
can-Americans, American Indians, and Latinos-are
in serious trouble in numerous issue areas and in
nearly every region," the report says.
If the United States had closed the academic achieve-
ment gap between African-American and Latino students
and their white peers by 1998, the country's
gross domestic product in 2008 would have been up
to $525 billion higher, the report says, citing a 2009
estimate by the management-consulting firm McKinsey
& Co.
The state-by-state rankings are similar to the foundation's
popular "Kids Count Data Book," but the
new report disaggregates the data by race, presenting
state snapshots to inform policy discussions. The
index factors include: low-birthweight births, preschool
enrollment, 4th grade reading proficiency, the
share of children who live in areas where the poverty
rate is less than 20 percent, and on-time high school
graduation rates.
Nationally, Asian and Pacific Islander children
fared the best under the index, followed closely by
white children. African-American children fared the
worst, slightly behind American Indian children.
-EVIE BLAD
come schools to receive an average of half an hour
less instruction per day than their peers in higherincome
schools.
Those preliminary results were drawn from
a study presented at the annual meeting of the
American Educational Research Association,
held this month in Philadelphia. The study,
based on a 2013 survey of a representative sample
of 783 teachers from 193 California charter
and regular public schools, was led by John Rogers
of the University of California, Los Angeles,
and conducted with assistance from the Ford
Foundation. (The foundation also underwrites
coverage of more and better learning time in
Education Week.)
Disruptions such as welcoming new students
to the classroom, locking the school down during
emergencies and drills, administering standardized
tests, and coping with teacher absences eat
away at more instructional time in high-poverty
schools than in lower-poverty schools, according to
the study. So, too, do such routines as the transition
of students from the hallways to the start of a new
class period.
-HOLLY YETTICK
TEENAGE PREGNANCY
"Preventing Pregnancies
In Younger Teens"
Eighty-three percent of U.S. teenagers did
not receive any sex education before they first
had sex, according to a new federal report
that argues for starting sex education earlier.
The report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Con-
trol and Prevention, in Atlanta, notes that 27 percent
of 15- to 17-year-olds report having had sexual
intercourse. A quarter of teenagers who give birth
are between ages 15 and 17. Only 38 percent of teenagers
who give birth at age 17 or younger go on to
earn their high school diplomas by age 22, compared
with 60 percent of older teenage mothers, according
to the CDC.
-DEBRA VIADERO
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Education Week - April 16, 2014

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