Education Week - August 26, 2015 - 4

NEWS IN BRIEF
K-12 Instructional Materials,
Construction Gain in Budgets

Dylann Roof, the white man
charged in the slayings of parishioners at Charleston's Emanuel AME
Church, had appeared in photos
waving the Confederate battle flag.
The shooting sparked debate over
whether to eliminate school names
and mascots tied to the Confederacy.

School spending on instructional
materials and construction has
risen over the past year, as funding
for K-12 continues to creep upward
from the days of the Great Recession, according to the 2015 Annual
State of the Educational Marketplace report.
Total K-12 spending for instructional materials rose by 9 percent
over the prior year, to $11.8 billion
in the 2013-14 school year-the first
increase since the 2007-08 year, the
report by the Education Market Association says. Still, spending has
not returned to prerecession levels.
More than $14 billion was spent
on school construction during
2014, an increase of 5 percent over
the previous year, and the fourth
straight year that spending on
school construction has risen.

-COREY MITCHELL

Texas Attorney General
Sues Alleged Diploma Mills

Douglas R. Clifford/The Tampa Bay Times/AP

-SEAN CAVANAGH

Four TV Networks to Air
Education Special Jointly
The four major commercial
broadcast TV networks will simultaneously air an hourlong special
to highlight education and raise
money for an industry initiative.
The Entertainment Industry Foundation announced the "Roadblock"
show, airing Sept. 11 on the ABC,
CBS, NBC, and Fox networks. The
show is meant to support an initiative called Think It Up, which the
foundation said will seek to start a
movement in support of the nation's
students, teachers, and schools.
The foundation promises the participation of such stars as Kristen
Bell, Stephen Colbert, Scarlett Johansson, Matthew McConaughey,
Gwyneth Paltrow, and Jeremy
Renner, plus musical performances,
comedy sketches, and segments
highlighting teachers and students.

WELCOME SURPRISE
From left, siblings Naomi
Ferretiz, 9, and Josue and
Jesus Ferretiz, both 5,
receive backpacks stocked
with school supplies at their
Clearwater, Fla., home.
Educators from Dunedin
Elementary School
distribute the free supplies
as part of the school's
Neighborhood Knock
program.

-MARK WALSH

notifying them of possible corruption at a Concord charter school.
The email claims association with
Anonymous, a widely publicized
network of Internet hackers and activists. The message said that Anonymous had gathered documents exposing the "manipulation and greed"
surrounding Clayton Valley Charter
High School. Police have confirmed
that the hacker obtained the contents
of at least one school staff member's
email account.
Clayton Valley school officials declined to comment. -ASSOCIATED PRESS

Police Probe Computer Hack
Of Calif. Charter School

New York Bans Smoking
Near After-School Sites

Authorities are investigating an
email sent by a hacker to Contra
Costa County officials in California

New York state is banning smoking near after-school programs.
The law signed by Gov. Andrew

Cuomo, a Democrat, is intended to
protect children from secondhand
smoke at public and private schools.
It will establish a 100-foot boundary from entrances, exits, and programs' outdoor areas while those
after-school programs are in session.
-AP

Charleston Schools Bar
Confederate Flag Images
The Charleston County district in
Charleston, S.C., the city where nine
black church members were shot and
killed earlier this year, has barred
students from displaying emblems
with the Confederate flag.
Students may no longer wear
clothing, jewelry, or other apparel
bearing the image of the Confederate flag, local media report.

State Attorney General Ken Paxton
of Texas announced last week that he
has sued a Dallas-based group of 13
private schools and their operators,
saying they marketed and sold fraudulent diplomas and transcripts.
Students paid up to $500 for the
diplomas, says the lawsuit, and were
falsely told the diplomas would help
them get into colleges, universities,
and the military.
The lawsuit alleges that Eddie
Minnieweather of Dallas and six
other people ran a group of diplomamill high schools in strip malls and
office space across North Texas. The
schools' officials could not be reached
for comment.
-McCLATCHY-TRIBUNE

State Forces Milwaukee
To Sell Vacant Schools
The Milwaukee school system
will put all its vacant and surplus
buildings on the market this fall,
and only charter and private school
operators will be allowed to submit
bids for them, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
Historically, the district has been
reluctant to sell the facilities to
potential competitors that could
siphon off its students-and state
funding. But a new Wisconsin law is
forcing the district's hand.
A report from the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty said the state
needed to intervene because Milwaukee's empty schools have sat unused
for an average of seven years. -C.M.

Board Members at Center
Of AP History Flap Targeted
A group of Colorado parents and
teachers that has been seeking to
oust three Republican school board

Exit-Exam Cancellation Leaves California Students in a Bind

| TRANSITIONS |

California lawmakers scrambled last week
to draft emergency legislation to allow about
5,000 students to graduate even though they
lost their last chance to take the state-required
exit exam.
Officials of both state university systems
announced that accepted students would not be
denied their places in the incoming freshman
class because they hadn't been able to take the
exit exam.
The students were left hanging this summer
when the state allowed its contract for the exit
exam to expire, canceling the July administration of the test-the last-ditch session for many.
That unfinished business was keeping students
from enrolling in training courses, the military,
and college.
State legislators wrote a bill that would permit

Mark Murphy, the secretary of education in
Delaware, is stepping down. He has been
the target of criticism by the state teachers'
union and lawmakers unhappy with his
school reform efforts.

4 | EDUCATION WEEK | August 26, 2015 | www.edweek.org

those students to graduate, and lawmakers were
scheduled to take action on it late last week.
The San Francisco school board had already
voted to throw out the exit-exam requirement for
the class of 2015.
State schools chief Tom Torlakson issued
a statement saying that the contract was allowed to lapse because the exam doesn't reflect
the state's common-core standards and because of
pending legislation that would ax the exit-exam
requirement.
Gov. Jerry Brown and state school board President Michael Kirst also issued a statement saying that "students who have been accepted into
college should not be prevented from starting
class this fall because of a test cancellation they
could not control," according to the San Francisco
Chronicle.
-CATHERINE GEWERTZ

Steven Godowsky, a veteran administrator and
former superintendent of the New Castle County
Vocational Technical district in Delaware, has
been nominated to succeed Murphy.
Kriner Cash has been appointed superintendent
of the Buffalo school district, the second largest
in New York state.
He was most recently the schools
superintendent in Memphis, Tenn., and fills
the vacancy left by Pamela Brown's resignation
in June 2014.

http://www.edweek.org

Education Week - August 26, 2015

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