Education Week - September 16, 2015 - 1

Education WEEk

VOL. 35, NO. 4 * SEPTEMBER 16, 2015

edweek.org:

BRE AKING NEWS DAILY

Shock Waves
From Ruling
On Charters
Schools' Backers Scrambling
As Wash. Law Struck Down

Sid Hastings for Education Week

By Andrew Ujifusa

Superintendent Joseph Davis, who took the helm of the Ferguson-Florissant district July 1, visits with students at McCluer High School in Florissant, Mo.
A national debate on race was triggered last year when a black teenager was killed by a white police officer in nearby Ferguson. PAGE 14

Hidden Biases Tough for Schools to Erase
Under Pressure, Colo.
Schools Forge New Path
By Sarah D. Sparks
Commerce City, Colo.

By 10 a.m., the teacher referrals are already starting to fill the box outside Ari Gerzon-Kessler's office at Monoco Elementary,
a low-income, high-minority school in this
district at the northeast edge of Denver. The
principal will bring in parents and call students from their classes, as he does several
times a week.
In most schools, parents and students
dread being called to the principal's office,
but at Monoco Elementary, these are all
"positive referrals," for which Gerzon-Kessler reads detailed praise from a teacher to
the student, in English or Spanish, as his
or her family looks on.
"This [referral] is four minutes of work

BEYOND BIAS
Countering Stereotypes in School
ABOUT THIS SERIES:
This package kicks off a yearlong
series on efforts to recognize and
overcome discrimination in schools.
COMMENTARY

32 A teacher in the Normandy, Mo., district,
near Ferguson, shares her experiences.
30 Students from Michael Brown's school
district discuss how bias has touched their lives.
www.edweek.org/go/NormandyStudents
ONLINE Q&A

Hear Ferguson's new superintendent discuss
how he plans to deal with educational
inequities in the district.
www.edweek.org/go/fergusonQA

Students Are Hope, Impetus
For Recovery in Ferguson
By Denisa R. Superville
Ferguson, Mo.

When protests erupted in this community last year
after the death of Michael Brown, and then later
when a grand jury declined to indict the white police
officer who shot the black 18-year-old, Shawn Filer
and Aniya Betts wanted to be part of the solution.
Spurred by the events, the two 11th graders at McCluer High School in the Ferguson-Florissant school
district decided to focus on improving their school,
first by participating in forums on race and then
leading The Vision, a student group formed in the
wake of the unrest.
In the past year, The Vision's efforts have centered
on in-school activities that could make a difference for
students, including improving interactions between
students and teachers, a step that could prove instrumental in reducing disciplinary infractions, suspen-

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Parent-Teacher Digital Exchanges Studied
By Sara Gilgore
Technology is not only changing the way students learn-it is reshaping the way parents
and teachers interact.
Educators and researchers have long been
intrigued by the potential of digital platforms

and tools to strengthen communication between
teachers and families. But in recent years, the
proliferation of smartphones and various forms
of apps, text-messaging, email, and social media
has vastly improved the speed and scope of that
communication, a digital transformation that carries implications for educators and parents alike.

PAGE 25 >

Scholars Lament
Decline of Courses
On Ed. History
By Stephen Sawchuk

Academic researchers have taken notice, and
are beginning to probe what kinds of tech-based
communication between educators and families
bring the biggest academic payoff for students.
Many of the tech tools that connect teachers
with parents are offered by commercial providers and used by teachers at their own initiative.
But some school systems, like the San Francisco
Unified School District, are integrating these
platforms with their student-information systems, making them functional at the classroom,

Once an ubiquitous course requirement that nearly all aspiring teachers
took, the history of education seems to
be going the way of land-line phones,
floppy disks, and shorthand.
Crowded out by an ever-expanding
teacher-preparation curriculum in the
latter half of the 20th century, such
courses are now almost exclusively electives reserved for graduate education
students, according to scholars who have
documented the decline.
To put it simply: Is the history of education, well, history? And more to the
point, does that matter?
Yes, it does, some teacher-educators
say.
Take the increasing segregation of
students by race today, a situation with
echoes of 1954, the year of a historymaking U.S. Supreme Court decision
on the issue. Look at Washington state,
where just this month the state's highest
court justified scotching charter schools on
the basis of a 1909 ruling. Consider age-

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DIGITAL DIRECTIONS

The Washington State Supreme
Court's decision earlier this month
finding the state's charter school law
unconstitutional has sent shock waves
through Washington's educational establishment, handed charter critics a highprofile victory, and left the schools' supporters scrambling to keep the state's
small, relatively young charter school
sector alive.
In its 6-3 ruling in League of Women
Voters v. Washington, the court found
that the law approved by voters through
a 2012 ballot measure, Initiative 1240,
improperly designated charters as "common schools," and that the schools were
not therefore entitled under the state
constitution to certain state funds they
presently draw on.
Despite the prominent setback for
charters, it might be difficult for skeptics of the autonomous, publicly funded
schools to create any momentum outside
Washington from the decision. For example, in the majority opinion, the justices
relied heavily on state precedent regard-

http://www.edweek.org http://www.edweek.org/go/NormandyStudents http://www.edweek.org/go/fergusonQA

Education Week - September 16, 2015

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