Education Week - August 5, 2015 - 5

REPORT ROUNDUP

www.edweek.org/go/rr

CHILD WELL-BEING
ers College Community School. She
jumped in front of a train April 17
and died a few days later, the same
day the allegations were made.
It was the first year that the
school had children old enough to
take the tests. Many believed the
school was prospering.
-AP

Brennan Linsley/AP

U.S. Gets Gold
In Math Olympiad

teachers to get bonuses if they scored
in the top 20 percent of students who
took the test when they did.
Some are questioning the bonuses,
which may be the first of their kind
in the country, arguing that there are
better measures of teacher effectiveness and that teachers likely are far
more skilled than they were when
they took the exams. -McCLATCHY-TRIBUNE

N.Y.C. Invalidates Scores
Of Harlem 3rd Graders
New York City has invalidated
the scores of several dozen standardized tests taken by 3rd graders in Harlem amid allegations
of testing improprieties by the
school's principal.
The principal killed herself soon
after testing was completed at Teach-

The U.S. team has won the International Math Olympiad for the
first time since 1994.
This year's contest was held in
Chiang Mai, Thailand, and high
school students from more than
100 countries participated. China,
which topped all other countries in
the most recent administration of
a global assessment known as PISA,
took second place in the math contest. South Korea came in third.
The six American students-all
male-each tackled six problems
individually. They did so in two 4.5hour sessions. The country rankings
were determined by how each student performed, and five of the U.S.
team members won gold.
-L.H.

Los Angeles to Add
'Sext' Ed. to Curriculum
"Sext" education will be part of the
curriculum for Los Angeles students
this fall.
The district will launch a broad
plan to educate students on the
dangers of sharing sexually explicit
photos via texting and the Internet.
perman says the campaign will teach
students about violations of child
pornography and obscenity laws that
can come with sexting along with the
personal consequences.
-AP

CORRECTION
In the July 8, 2015, issue of Education Week, the name of Leslie Kaplan, the author of the letter to the
editor, "School-Leader-Licensure
Standards Lose Their Punch," was
misspelled.

| OBITUARY |
Robert R. "Bud" Spillane, a former superintendent
of the Fairfax County, Va., and Boston school districts,
has died.
Mr. Spillane, who had a reputation as a tough yet
fair leader, died July 18. He was 80.
credited with resuscitating a troubled school system
beset by racial tension and declining enrollment during a time of
court-ordered desegregation.
Leaving Boston for Fairfax County, then the nation's 10thlargest district, he led that suburban system until 1997, "boosting
student performance, expanding academic offerings, and
improving management," The Washington Post reported.
He had been a teacher, an elementary principal, and then a
superintendent in New York and New Jersey. He also served as
deputy state commissioner of education in New York.
In the last decade of his career, Mr. Spillane worked as a regional
schools and as director of the education center for Naval Analyses
Corp., a nonprofit military-research firm in Alexandria, Va.
-COREY MITCHELL

"The 2015 Kids Count Data Book: State Trends
in Child Well-Being"
Children have seen improvement on measures of health and education nationally over
the past five years, but indicators in economic
well-being and "family and community" still lag,
according to an annual report by the Annie E.
Casey Foundation.
Overall, 10 of the 16 indicators that the
foundation tracks improved. All four measures
under the "health" outcome-percentage of lowbirth-weight babies, percentage of children with
health insurance, child and teenage deaths per
100,000 youths, and percentage of teenagers
who abuse alcohol or drugs-improved between
2008 and 2013.
But the report does note that the childhoodpoverty rate, at 22 percent in 2013, was still
higher than it was in 2008, at 18 percent. And
more children were living in areas of concentrated poverty.
-CHRISTINA A. SAMUELS
CLASS TIME
"The Four-Day School Week in Rural Idaho
Schools"
School districts that adopted a four-day
school week in rural Idaho experienced no
significant cost savings, and some districts
even saw costs rise to accommodate the resulting longer school day, according to a new
report.
The Rural Opportunities Consortium of
Idaho interviewed officials in more than
20 districts that have switched to a shorter
week, some of which hoped to save money.
Researchers found that because most employee salaries are fixed, districts did not
save money on personnel. Schools spent more
money on enrichment activities and snacks
for students spending longer days in school.
However, some districts saw benefits from using
the extra day to offer enrichment or college visits for
-JACKIE MADER
students or training for teachers.

Kindergartners' Social Skills
Found to Predict Adult Success
"Early Social-Emotional Functioning and Public
Health: The Relationship Between Kindergarten Social
Competence and Future Wellness"
Young children who share easily, resolve problems
on their own, and cooperate with their peers are less
likely to drop out of school, commit crimes, or need
government assistance, says a new report previewed
online in the American Journal of Public Health.
In some cases, researchers from Pennsylvania State
measures were more meaningful than other evaluations that-on the surface-would seem to have a
more obvious connection to life outcomes. For example, measures of childhood aggression did not significantly predict later criminal activity.
For every 1-point increase on a 5-point scale, children
were twice as likely to earn a college degree; 54 percent
more likely to earn a high school diploma, and 46 percent more likely to have a full-time job.
On the downside, for every 1-point decrease on the
same 5-point scale, a child was 67 percent more likely
to have been arrested by adulthood, and 82 percent
more likely to be in or on a waiting list for public
housing.
The study, which was supported by the Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation, tracked 750 youngsters from
1991, when they were in kindergarten, until they
turned 25.
ham, N.C.; Nashville, Tenn.; rural Pennsylvania; and
Seattle.
Fifty-eight percent were boys, half were white, 46 percent were black, and 4 percent were from other ethnic
backgrounds.
-CHRISTINA A. SAMUELS

31 percent failed to reach any of those "collegereadiness benchmarks" on the test.
The proportions of first-generation students who
have met benchmarks in English, reading, and math
have declined in the past four years. -CATHERINE GEWERTZ

FEDERAL EDUCATION POLICY
"Results of President Obama's Race to the Top"
Education watchers can-and do-argue over
whether President Barack Obama's Race to the
Top grants have improved education for American
students. But as a straight policy lever, a new study
finds the $4.5 billion competition had a big impact.
A study in Education Next tracked, from 2001 to
2014, the implementation of statewide laws and policies in 20 areas that explicitly aligned with Race to
the Top's requirements. These included systems to
measure student-achievement growth and teacher
and principal evaluations that took student-achievement data into account.
States adopted few of those policies before the competition. But in the years afterward, researchers saw
a rapid increase in the proportion of Race to the Topaligned policies adopted-even by states that did not
apply for or win the grants.
-SARAH D. SPARKS
COLLEGE AND CAREER READINESS
"The Condition of College and Career Readiness
2014: First-Generation Students"
Many children whose parents didn't go to college
aim for degrees in higher education, but they're far
less prepared to go to college than their peers who
grew up with college-educated parents, finds a new
report by ACT and the Council for Opportunity in
Education.
Ninety percent of the first-generation students
who took the ACT said they planned to go to college, but 52 percent didn't reach a single one of
the cut scores on the ACT that are associated with
the likelihood of success in college. In the bigger
pool of all students who took the ACT in 2014,

SCHOOL SAFETY
"Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2014"
Fewer high school students reported being in physical fights, being victimized, or carrying weapons in
school in 2013, according to the latest edition of a
federal report that annually tracks student safety on
school campuses.
Produced by the National Center for Education
Statistics and the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the
report also found that the percentage of students who
reported being "afraid of attack or harm at school or
on the way to and from school" dropped from 12 percent in 1995 to 3 percent in 2013. The report also
covers indicators on issues like bullying, drugs, and
school safety measures.
-EVIE BLAD
ENGLISH-LEARNERS
"Identifying and Supporting English-Learner Students
With Learning Disabilities: Key Issues in the Literature
and State Practice"
A new report finds "no proven method" for best identifying and serving English-language learners with
disabilities. However, based on the policies of 20 states
with the highest population of ELLs, the report from the
Regional Educational Laboratory West at WestEd does
offer guidance for states or districts, including:
*
used to place English-speakers in special education.
*
as a student with a disability and as an Englishlearner, not one or the other.
*
programs for English-learner students in special
education.
-C.A.S.
EDUCATION WEEK | August 5, 2015 | www.edweek.org | 5

http://www.edweek.org/go/rr http://www.edweek.org

Education Week - August 5, 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - August 5, 2015