Education Week - September 12, 2018 - 5

Staton Breidenthal/Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Will Counts/Arkansas Democrat-Gazette via AP-File

A WARMER WELCOME
Elizabeth Eckford, right, sits on a bench dedicated in
honor of the Little Rock Nine across from Central High
School, 61 years after angry crowds tried to block her and
other black students from entering the Little Rock school
in the segregated South. Current students saw photos of
Eckland sitting on a similar bench six decades ago and
wanted to replicate it.

and another takes its place at the front. The words will
get increasingly difficult each week. Some of the drivers
have made up songs about the words, and others ask
students to use them in a sentence before getting on
and off the bus.
The pilot program began at four elementary schools
this school year and is set to expand to all 55 elementary schools in November.
-MARVA HINTON

School Resource Officer Activates Taser
To Awaken Sleeping Student in Ohio
Police in northeast Ohio have placed a school resource
officer on unpaid leave for activating a Taser to wake up
a sleeping student.
The incident occurred late last month at Liberty
Preparatory School in Smithville. Police say the officer was called to a classroom when a sleeping student wouldn't wake up for a teacher or principal.
Smithville Police Chief Howard Funk said the officer
removed the cartridge from the Taser and "arced" it.
Authorities say the sparking sound and noise from
the other students woke the sleeping student. No
probes were deployed, and the teenager wasn't hurt.
Funk will meet with the Smithville solicitor to determine if any charges should be filed.
-AP

teachers' speech to students' home life may influence a student's approach to learning. Six of
the studies have been completed; results of the
other eight are expected late this year. -S.D.S.
CIVICS
"Leadership Perspectives on Public
Education: The Gallup 2018 Survey of K-12
School District Superintendents"
A new Gallup poll finds district superintendents increasingly concerned about teaching
their students to be "engaged citizens."
Nearly 3 in 4 superintendents considered
teaching such citizenship skills a challenge
for their district-a sharp spike, since only
about half considered it a concern in polls in
2013 and 2017. And more than 90 percent of
superintendents now consider high graduation rates and high student engagement the
most effective gauges of school effectiveness,
far outstripping the 61 percent who favor
standardized-test scores.
In the wake of a series of school shootings this year, 42 percent of district lead-

Bench Honors
Memory of
Little Rock Nine

District of Columbia Schools Expose
Students' Personal Information Online
A spreadsheet detailing sensitive personal information
about 2,000 students in the District of Columbia public
schools was publicly available online for months.
City Councilman David Grosso tells news outlets
that school officials shouldn't have given his office the
spreadsheet that was posted on his website.
The file saved in February contains names, dates of
birth, housing status, school, grade level, and whether
the student is eligible for special education. School officials provided it in response to questions from Grosso's
education committee.
He said he removed it and alerted the school system
last month after a student spotted it.
School district officials say steps are being taken so it
doesn't happen again.
-AP

CORRECTION
A story in the Sept. 5, 2018, issue of Education Week
on the National Education Association's training for
educators running for office misstated the number of
trainings the organization has held. The NEA has held
three trainings in total.

ers reported having armed security at their
schools, up from 38 percent of superintendents in 2013, in the aftermath of the December 2012 school shooting in Newtown,
Conn. The findings are based on interviews
with more than 2,300 public school superintendents.
-S.D.S.
ACCOUNTABILITY
"Making ESSA's Equity Promise Real"
States are taking advantage of the added
flexibility given them under the federal
Every Student Succeeds Act to adopt a wider
range of indicators for measuring schools'
educational progress, according to a report
from the Learning Policy Institute.
The report looks at indicators in five areas:
suspension rates, school climate, chronic absenteeism, extended-year graduation rate,
and access to a career- and college-ready curriculum. It finds just five states are using all
five indicators. The most popular indicators-
used by 39 states and the District of Columbia-center on college and career readiness.

Almost as many states are using studentabsenteeism rates and extended-year graduation rates for accountability purposes.
-DEBRA VIADERO

EARLY EDUCATION
"Transitions and Alignment From Preschool to
Kindergarten"
The transition from preschool into kindergarten can affect students' engagement and
performance in early grades, but relatively
few states address it in their education
policies, finds a new study by the Education
Commission of the States.
Six states refer to early transitions in laws,
and 14 states and the District of Columbia
include early transitions in regulations.
The report concludes that state policymakers could create a "seamless pathway"
through 3rd grade by aligning standards,
curricula, instruction, and assessments between preschool and kindergarten programs
and provide supports to smooth the transition for parents and children.
-S.D.S.

Elizabeth Eckford, one of the nine
black students who first integrated
Little Rock's Central High School in
1957, walked to a bus-stop bench last
week on the corner of 16th Street and
Park Street as hundreds of people
watched, much as she'd done exactly
61 years ago.
This time, though, the onlookers
weren't furious and violent white protesters who blocked her entrance to the
Arkansas high school but friends and
community members who gathered to
watch her and current Central High
students dedicate a commemorative
bench as part of the school's Civil Rights
Memory Project.
Eckford, 76, told the crowd how lonely
she'd felt that first day of school and how
local reporters had tried to shelter her
from the angry protesters by forming
a "human barrier." Now, she was "very,
very happy" to return, she said, noting
how important it is to discuss and learn
from history.
"I believe that we can only have true
reconciliation after there has been an
honest acknowledgment of the painful
but shared past," Eckford said.
Eckford also said how grateful she
was to the students who led the benchconstruction effort. "I don't cry anymore
when I'm talking about the past, and
that is because of the efforts of students," she said.
High school senior Adaja Cooper, who
led reconstruction efforts, said she began
to consider the idea of reconstructing the
bench during 60th anniversary events
last year when she heard oral histories from the Little Rock Nine. She saw
pictures of Eckford on the bench and
wanted to find it for herself.
"I was looking for the bench all
around Central, all around Little Rock.
I couldn't find it so I was like, you know,
we should just build it," Cooper said.
She contacted architects and community partners, and after she spoke to the
local rotary club, she said they donated
$15,000 "on the spot."
-ASSOCIATED PRESS

Education Week - September 12, 2018

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