Education Week - May 8, 2013 - 4

EDUCATION WEEK

MAY 8, 2013

www.edweek.org

NEWS IN BRIEF
A PROM FOR
EVERYONE

Roy Roberts, the emergency manager of the 50,000-student Detroit
public school system, will retire
on May 16. Mr. Roberts, 74, was
appointed by Michigan Gov. Rick
Snyder in May 2011.
Gov. Snyder has not yet named
Mr. Roberts’ successor, but said he
is focused on continuity and stability. William Aldridge, the district’s
chief financial officer, will take on
top administrative duties when Mr.
Roberts leaves.
During Mr. Roberts’ tenure as
emergency manager and emergency financial manager, the district’s deficit has been reduced from
$327 million to about $72 million.

Wilcox County
High School
students Mareshia
Rucker, 17, left, and
Stephanie Sinnott,
18, try on prom
dresses donated
by well-wishers
last week near
Abbeville, Ga.
The students
helped organize the
school’s first racially
integrated prom
in response to
Wilcox County High
School’s traditional
prom, held by, and
for, white students
only.

Bryan Meltz/The New York Times

Emergency Manager
Exiting Detroit District

—JACLYN ZUBRZYCKI

‘Parent Trigger’ Plan
Falls Short Again in Fla.
For the second year in a row, a
tie vote in the Florida Senate has
meant defeat for a proposal to allow
a “parent trigger” option in the
state after such legislation passed
the state House of Representatives.
The Senate voted 20-20 last week
on the Parent Empowerment in
Education Act, which would have
allowed a majority of parents at
a struggling school to petition to
implement significant changes in
the way the school was run. (There
is no procedure for breaking a tie
vote in the Florida Senate.) Republicans control both chambers of the
legislature.
Supporters of the proposal, such
as the Foundation for Florida’s
Future, which is backed by former
Republican Gov. Jeb Bush, argued
that it would allow parents to have
a much stronger voice in the educational process.
But opponents, led by the Florida
pta and others, argued that such
petitions would allow for-profit corporations to take control of public
schools.
—ANDREW UJIFUSA

Court Sides With S.C.
On Special Ed. Funding
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the federal government should not have reduced
its special education funding to
South Carolina before allowing an
appeal, and that the state should get
its money back until U.S. Secretary
of Education Arne Duncan makes a
final decision.
The decision by the court, which
heard the case last month in Lexington, Va., came nearly two years
after the federal agency said it
would reduce the state’s allotment
for special education because of the
state legislature’s budget cuts.
The penalty involves the state’s
failure to meet “maintenance of
effort” rules during the recent
economic crisis. Federal law bars
states from spending less money

on special education from one year
to the next. If they do spend less,
their federal allotment is cut by a
corresponding amount.
The $36 million punishment
is what’s left of an initial threat
two years ago to cut $112 million.

Indiana to Review Common-Core Commitment
Action comes as AFT calls for
moratorium on high stakes

—ASSOCIATED PRESS

Phila. District Plans
To Open Online School
The Philadelphia school district,
which has been plagued by budget
woes and declining enrollment,
has announced plans to open a
virtual academy to lure students
and families back to the system.
The goal is to make the Philadelphia Virtual Academy the
“preferred choice for parents and
students who want a quality online education,” Superintendent
William Hite said in a statement.
The school would serve students
in grades 6-12 and open next academic year, Mr. Hite said.
The 138,000-student district
would run the academy through
a partnership with the Chester County Intermediate Unit,
a regional education agency.
—SEAN CAVANAGH

N.Y.C. Middle Schools
To Try Longer Day
School days will get longer for
2,000 New York City 6th graders
next fall as the nation’s largest
school system experiments with
having students spend more time
in class, district officials announced
last week.
The plan, which echoes moves
to lengthen school days in other
districts, will involve students in
20 schools yet to be chosen. Students will get 2½ extra hours a
day of reading, tutoring, and other

As one state prepares to re-examine its adoption of the Common Core State Standards, the
leader of the American Federation of Teachers
has called for a moratorium on high-stakes decisions linked to new tests based on the standards.
Indiana lawmakers approved legislation late
last month that would require a policy and fiscal review of the common core and sent the bill
to Gov. Mike Pence, a Republican, who is expected to sign it into law. The Indiana board of
education retains control over the decision
to keep or drop the common core and has reiterated
its support for the standards, but Gov. Pence can
replace six of the board’s 10 members this summer.
State schools superintendent Glenda Ritz, a
Democrat, said that while the measure would
not mean a pause in Indiana’s common-core im-

educational activities, run by The
After-School Corp., a nonprofit
group that works on extending
school days in cities.
The city council and private
foundations are paying for the
extra instruction, as part of a $4.6
million effort to improve middle
school reading.
—AP

plementation or reverse its progress in kindergarten and 1st grade, it would require Indiana’s
previous standards to be kept in other grades,
alongside the common core.
Separately, in prepared remarks for an April 30
speech last week, aft President Randi Weingarten said that while she supports the common core,
states need more time and resources for professional development, curriculum, and instruction
that will reflect the new content standards, which
cover English/language arts and mathematics.
Before that takes place, she argued, teachers,
students, and schools should not be judged on
test scores from new assessments aligned to the
common core. Few schools so far have successfully shifted to use of the common core in their
classrooms, Ms. Weingarten said. She also criticized the Obama administration for providing
funding for test development, but not for professional development based on the common core.

tional police officers.
That would have allowed for
armed police resource officers
and unarmed security guards in
each of the district’s seven schools.
Newtown’s Sandy Hook Elementary School was the site of a mass
shooting by an adult intruder in
December.
—NIRVI SHAH

Residents of Newtown Online-Safety Program
Reject Budget Increase Launched for Teenagers
Residents of Newtown, Conn.,
have voted against a hike to the
town and school district’s budgets
of about 5 percent that was proposed to improve school security
across the 5,500-student district.
Between them, the Hartford
Courant reported, the proposed
school and town budgets of about
$111 million would have included
nearly $1 million to hire addi-

Facebook and the National Association of Attorneys General have
announced the launch of a new consumer education program designed
to help teenagers and their parents
more closely manage their visibility
and privacy on the Internet.
In addition to a video series and
tip sheet on the Facebook Safety
page, the campaign will include
state-specific public-service an-

—ANDREW UJIFUSA

nouncements with 19 participating
attorneys general and Facebook’s
chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg.
The campaign was announced
at the Privacy in the Digital Age
presidential initiative summit in
Maryland last month.
—ROB BOCK

Student Must Be Read
Rights in Some Cases
A high school student’s statements to an assistant principal
about giving prescription pills
to other students had to be suppressed in a criminal proceeding
because the student had not been
given a Miranda warning, Kentucky’s highest court has ruled.
The Kentucky Supreme Court
ruled 4-3 last month that the student should have been given the
familiar warnings from the U.S.

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Education Week - May 8, 2013

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