Education Week - May 13, 2015 - 4

neWS IN bRief
Alabama Teenagers to Study
How to Encounter Police
Federal prosecutors are working
with the fbi and police in Mobile,
Ala., on a program meant to teach
teenagers how to navigate encounters
with police.
The program was to begin late last
week with a group of students from
Blount High School. Organizers say
its goal is to develop respect between
young people and police after several
high-profile fatal shootings involving
unarmed black men.
High school students are the program's
target audience. The program
will feature students taking part in
mock police encounters and getting
feedback on what they should do in
certain situations. Organizers say
they hope to continue the program
next fall with students throughout
more than a dozen counties.
-ASSOCIATED PRESS
Colo. Close to Letting Schools
Be Sued for Acts of Violence
Legislation to make Colorado public
schools legally liable for student
safety awaits the signature of Gov.
John Hickenlooper, who has said he
supports the measure.
The state House and Senate
agreed last week on final language
in the bill to allow public schools to
be sued for negligence in cases of
shootings or other violence. The bill
is named for Claire Davis, who was
killed at Arapahoe High School in
2013. She was shot by a fellow student
who then turned the gun on
himself.
Lawsuits would be limited to
$350,000 per victim or $900,000 per
incident.
-AP
Waiting Lists Swell
For Urban Charters
Waiting lists for charter schools in
some of the country's largest urban
areas have swelled to more than
300,000 students collectively, says
a report from the National Alliance
for Public Charter Schools.
New York City had the largest
number of students with their
names on wait lists, at 163,000,
according to estimates from the
TREATING TEACHERS
From his Lumpy's ice cream
truck, Buck Buchanan gives
business teacher Kiera Hinton
scoops of ice cream, while art
teacher Janice Little waits
for her treat. The truck was
parked outside the Shepard
International Baccalaureate
Magnet Middle School,
in Durham, N. C., last week
in honor of Teacher
Appreciation Week.
Washington-based alliance. Los
Angeles followed with 68,200 and
Houston with 35,000. The number
of students on waiting lists in New
York is nearly double the number
actually attending charter schools
in the city. In Boston, almost three
times as many students are on the
lists compared with those already
enrolled in charters.
The report's authors acknowledge
their estimates don't account for the
fact that students might be on multiple
waiting lists, which could skew
the numbers upward. -ARIANNA PROTHERO
Guide to Data Privacy
Issued for Parents
The Future of Privacy Forum has
released a guide to help parents
understand student-data-privacy
policies and clarify students' and
parents' protections under state
and federal law.
The National pta and Connect
Safely, a California nonprofit that
promotes safe use of online technology,
worked with the forum, a
Washington-based organization that
advocates responsible use of data, in
publishing the online resource.
The new parent resource provides
details about who can access
students' data, what education
companies can do with student
information, what laws are in
place to protect student data,
and when parents can opt out of
sharing their child's information.
-AUDREY ARMITAGE
Student's Facebook Rant
Ruled Free Speech
A federal judge has ruled that
an Oregon 8th grader's rant to a
friend on Facebook that his health
teacher was "just a bitch" and "she
needs to be shot" was not a true
threat of violence but was protected
free speech.
The student "did not intend to
threaten or otherwise communicate
with [the teacher] and did not
seriously believe that [the teacher]
should be shot," U.S. District Judge
Michael W. Mosman wrote in his
ruling last month.
In 2012, the then-14-year-old was
given a 3½-day in-school suspension
for the comments he made
from home to his circle of Facebook
friends. He and his mother sued the
REPORT ROUNDUP www.edweek.org/go/rr
SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT
"State Capacity to Support School Turnaround"
A new federal report confirms what many district and state level
officials already know: Turning around low-performing schools, a
key requirement of both the School Improvement Grant program
and the Obama administration's marquee Race to the Top program,
is really important-and really, really hard.
More than 80 percent of states have made fixing their lowestTeacher
Ed. Accreditation Group Ousts Founding President
The board of the Council for the Accreditation of
Educator Preparation, now the sole national accreditor
of teacher-preparation programs, made an
unexpected move last week to replace the group's
founding president, James G. Cibulka.
Christopher Koch, until recently Illinois' superintendent
of schools, will serve as caep's interim
president while a search for a new president is
launched, the organization said in a release.
It gave no explanation for the change in leadership.
Caep, however, has had a rocky few months. It has
been criticized for a disorganized piloting of its new
accreditation standards. And the major association
representing teacher colleges has already signaled
that it wants revisions to some of those standards.
Mr. Cibulka, a former dean of the college of education
at the University of Kentucky, was initially
tapped in 2008 to lead the National Council for the
Accreditation of Teacher Education, one of two predecessors
to caep. As the president of ncate and caep,
he launched several initiatives, including a report
calling on the field to increase the amount of handson
student-teaching and the creation of the panel
charged with writing the new standards.
He was also one of the negotiators during a 2012
attempt to craft new federal regulations for teacher
preparation. In that role, he had a hand in brokering
compromises between two factions that, broadly
speaking, supported or opposed the U.S. Department
of Education's proposals. The negotiations ultimately
broke down, and the department released its own
draft in November.
-STEPHEN SAWCHUK
performing schools a high priority, but at least half have said the
work is "very difficult," says the report released last week by the
Institute of Education Sciences, the U.S. Department of Education's
research arm. The report results from a collaboration of the American
Institutes for Research and Mathematica Policy Research.
The data came from administrators in 49 states and the District of
Columbia, in a survey conducted in spring 2012 and spring 2013.
The researchers also found that, in 2012, a total of 38 states
reported significant gaps in their expertise when it came to school
turnarounds. And that number didn't improve the next year, with
40 states reporting big gaps in 2013.
The toughest tasks had everything to do with school staff. In 2012, 21
states said they needed more expertise in developing teacher-evaluation
systems that took student growth into account, the same number as in
2013. By 2013, more than half the states in the survey identified recruiting
and retaining qualified staff to work in turnaround schools as an
area in which there were significant knowledge gaps.
-ALYSON KLEIN
DIGITAL EDUCATION
"Digital Learning 24/7: Understanding Technology-Enhanced Learning
in the Lives of Young People"
Many students, particularly older ones, are making extensive use of
their own digital devices in schools, in some cases more so than learning
technologies issued by their districts, a new nationwide survey suggests.
4 | EDUCATION WEEK | May 13, 2015 | www.edweek.org
Bernard Thomas/The Herald-Sun/AP
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Education Week - May 13, 2015

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