Education Week - October 2, 2013 - 4

NEWS INBRIEF
Education Researcher
Wins ‘Genius’ Grant
Educational research psychologist
and former teacher Angela Duckworth
was named one of this year’s
24 MacArthur Fellows.
All fellows named by the John
D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation receive a no-strings-attached
award—popularly referred
to as a “genius grant”—worth
$625,000 that is paid out over five
years. The foundation awards fellowships
to creative individuals
who it deems are demonstrating
the potential to make important
contributions to the world.
Ms. Duckworth, frustrated by the
lack of effort she saw from many of
her students, quit her job as a high
school math and science teacher to
try to better understand the psychology
behind educational achievement.
She joined the University of
Pennsylvania faculty in 2007 as an
associate professor in the psychology
department.
Her research has focused on how
children can learn strategies for
self-control, and how that can translate
into instruction.
Now, Ms. Duckworth is working
to develop interventions that foster
traits like grit and self-regulation in
children that can then be applied to
education.
—ALYSSA MORONES
Calif. Law Helps Youths
Salvage Online Reputations
Gov. Jerry Brown signed legis-
lation last week designed to give
teenagers a little more control over
their online identities. The law requires
Internet firms, effective in
2015, to remove online material
posted by a minor when he or she
so requests. In theory, that means
students in California can get a potentially
job- or college-admissionssaving
do-over.
“Kids so often self-reveal before
they self-reflect,” James Steyer, the
founder of Common Sense Media,
told the San Francisco Chronicle
about the rationale for the law.
“Mistakes can stay with teens for
life, and their digital footprint can
follow them wherever they go.”
But there are some important
exceptions in the new law. Most notably,
the erasure requirement will
not apply when the offending material
is posted to the Web by someone
other than the minor making
the removal request. So a student
can still be out of luck if someone
else posts an embarrassing picture
of him or her at a party.
Nor does the law cover adults who
want to turn back the clock and remove
something they posted when
they were minors.
Newtown Told to Release
Tapes of School 911 Calls
After an appeal by the Associated
Press, a Connecticut commission
ruled last week that the Newtown
police department must release
the tapes of 911 calls made during
last December’s shootings at Sandy
Hook Elementary School.
The police department has
—ANTHONY REBORA
Ga. High Court Rules
In Favor of Charters
Georgia’s highest court has upheld
a Fulton County court ruling that
bars the Atlanta school district from
using tax dollars to pay for its pension
obligations before distributing
a share of the money to local charter
schools.
The unanimous ruling announced
last week by the Georgia Supreme
avoided turning the audio over, and
the state legislature passed a law
earlier this year creating exemptions
to freedom-of-information requests,
but those exceptions don’t
apply to 911 tapes.
In a meeting of the Freedom of
Information Commission, the board
ruled unanimously against the
state. Danbury State’s Attorney Stephen
Sedensky III said he plans to
appeal the panel’s ruling.
The Newtown recordings remain
concealed pending the outcome of
the state’s appeal.
—ROSS BRENNEMAN
Court means the 49,000-student
school system can’t deduct millions
of dollars from its revenue to pay
for its expenses before distributing
the money to startup charter
schools.
The justices decided that state
law is clear regarding how the
money is to be distributed to the
schools.
In May 2012, district officials
announced that they planned
to subtract $38.6 million to pay
pension-liability expenses before
distributing money to regular and
charter schools. In August, eight
charter schools sued, leading to the
Supreme Court ruling.
District officials have argued that
all schools in the system share services,
so all of them should have
to deal with the district’s financial
problems.
The charter schools said they
shouldn’t be responsible for a pension
debt they had nothing to do
with. The charter schools don’t participate
in the pension system.
—ASSOCIATED PRESS
Common Math Tests to Be Translated Into Spanish
The common math assessments under development
by PARCC will be translated into Spanish and
possibly other languages, but whether Englishlanguage
learners will have access to non-English
versions will depend on the state in which they live.
The governing board of PARCC—the Partnership for
Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers—
unanimously approved a policy last week that will
allow test designers to have the math assessment
translated into Spanish and other languages that
member states need. Several states in the consortium
have laws and regulations that forbid the use
of languages other than English to test students. But
eight of the 19 member states—Colorado, Illinois,
Massachusetts, New Mexico, New Jersey, New York,
Ohio, and Rhode Island—said they need a Spanishlanguage
math assessment.
New York, which offers several non-English content
assessments, said it would need additional languages,
as did Colorado, Illinois, and Ohio. Among
those languages are: Korean, Chinese, Haitian-Creole,
and Russian.
4 | EDUCATION WEEK | October 2, 2013 | www.edweek.org
Florida, whose future commitment to PARCC and
its tests is murky, was not on the list of states that
want translated math assessments. Home to one of
the biggest populations of English-language learners
in the country, the state currently provides content
tests only in English.
Arizona law prohibits the use of languages other
than English for assessment.
PARCC officials said they will not develop translated
versions of the English/language arts tests.
In June, PARCC approved testing supports for
English-learners that include having test directions
clarified for students in their native language by a
test administrator for both the math and English/
language arts assessments, although that is recommended
only for ELLs with low levels of English proficiency.
Extended time will be available to all ELLs,
regardless of proficiency. And extended time will be
available to all ELLs, regardless of proficiency.
States that end up using translated PARCC math
tests will share the costs of developing them.
—LESLI A. MAXWELL
Michigan House Passes Bill
To Unfreeze Standards Aid
A freeze on spending for the Common
Core State Standards in Michigan
would be eliminated under a
resolution the House of Representatives
approved last week.
House Resolution 11, introduced
by Republican Rep. Tim Kelly, would
allow the state’s education department
and board of education to continue
spending state funds on the
standards as well as the commoncore-aligned
assessments produced
by the Smarter Balanced Assessment
Consortium. The resolution
passed on an 85-21 vote.
Michigan lawmakers had approved
the spending freeze, scheduled
to begin Oct. 1, in the state
budget to give them more time to
review the standards. The resolution
will now be considered by the
Michigan Senate.
The resolution preserves districts’
power under the standards, while
explicitly preventing certain student
information from being shared with
the federal government. Gov. Rick
Snyder, a Republican, is a supporter
of the common core. —ANDREW UJIFUSA
Group Urges Defunding
Of Inadequate Teacher Prep
The Education Trust released a
set of recommendations last week
focused on the teacher-preparation-accountability
provisions of
the federal Higher Education Act,
which is up for reauthorization.
The HEA requires each state to
come up with a way of designating
programs that are “at risk” or “low
performing.”
The Education Trust, which advocates
on behalf of low-income and
minority students, notes that programs
with low ratings can, under
federal law, lose federal financial aid
if the state subsequently withdraws
its approval from those programs.
The problem, it says, is that the law
doesn’t require states to act in that
way; few, if any, ever have.
Many of the advocacy group’s
recommendations for the HEA align
with policy developments already
occurring in the field, such as requiring
programs that prepare
teachers to be more selective and
to take student outcomes into account.
The Council for Accreditation
of Educator Preparation recently
approved standards to that
end, and the U.S. Department of
Education’s forthcoming teacherpreparation
regulations, which
have been delayed for nearly a year,
are also expected to include them.
—STEPHEN SAWCHUK
Pa. District Officials Resign
After Racist Text Messages
A criminal investigation is un-
derway in the Coatesville, Pa.,
school district after the discovery
of racist text messages about stu-
PEER
RECOGNITION
Grand Blanc, Mich.,
special education
students Hannah
Abdelkader, left, and
Aidan Silverton, both 15,
laugh and smile as they
hug outside the
Abdelkaders’ home.
The two were voted the
homecoming prince
and princess of the
freshman class.
Jake May/The Journal/AP
Education Week - October 2, 2013

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