Education Week - October 5, 2016 - 4

NEWS IN BRIEF
Group Campaigns to Rid
Schools of Police

Sean D. Elliot/The Day via AP

A coalition made up of what it
says are more than 100 organizations in 27 states and the District
of Columbia has issued a document
calling for the removal of law enforcement from schools.
The Dignity in Schools Campaign,
which represents students, parents,
advocates, and educators, also called
for new forms of discipline and student supports.
Its position paper comes a few
weeks after federal officials released
new guidance urging schools to limit
the roles of school-based officers and
to ban their involvement in routine
disciplinary issues. The guidance
also recommends better training and
more carefully worded agreements
between law-enforcement agencies
and schools. But those recommendations don't go far enough, the campaign said, calling for the removal of
designated, on-site officers altogether.
-EVIE BLAD

Nearly Half of States Now
Offering Biliteracy Seals
Twenty-two states and the District
of Columbia are now promoting bilingualism among K-12 students by
offering the seal of biliteracy-special
recognition on high school diplomas
for graduates who demonstrate fluency in two or more languages.
The popularity of the seals of biliteracy stems in part from the expansion of dual-language programs
across public schools that bring
both native English-speakers and
English-language learners together
into classrooms to learn all academic content in English and the
target language.
Supporters of the special recognition say that earning the seal could
give students an advantage, opening the door for college scholarships,
internships and jobs that require
proficiency in a language other than
English.
-COREY MITCHELL

Court Dismisses Funding Suit
Filed by Small N.Y. Districts
A judge has thrown out a lawsuit
against New York that claimed the
state was shortchanging students
in eight small-city districts and denying their constitutional right to a
"sound basic education."
While calling the students' performance "undeniably inadequate,"
state Supreme Court Justice Kimberly O'Connor said the plaintiffs
hadn't proved the state has not
met its obligation to them. The ruling last month said the state could
adjust funding levels for districts
based on fluctuations in its fiscal
condition and still deliver on its obligation to ensure students have access to an adequate education.
The lawsuit was filed in 2008 on
behalf of students in Jamestown,
Kingston, Mount Vernon, Newburgh, Niagara Falls, Port Jervis,
Poughkeepsie, and Utica, cities challenged by high rates of poverty, students with disabilities, and Englishlanguage learners. -ASSOCIATED PRESS

BON APPÉTIT
Cafeteria worker Emily
Dickinson serves lunch to
students at Bennie Dover
Jackson Middle School in
New London, Conn. The New
London district is
undergoing what's been
called a food revolution
after hiring professional
chefs. Students say they
are having meals they've
never seen the likes of in a
school cafeteria.

Islam Section Faces Ax
In Tenn. Draft Standards
Seventh graders in Tennessee
would no longer spend as much time
learning about the history of Islam
under a proposed draft revision of
the state's academic standards.
A section on Islam currently
taught in social studies classes has
been removed from the state board
of education's draft. Most of the
sections involving Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and
other religions have remained in the
draft in some form.
Students would no longer be learning about the Quran or the differences between the Sunni and Shiite
branches of the religion, for instance.
Some Muslim history remains. Students would still be expected to learn
about Malian king Mansa Musa and
his pilgrimage to Mecca.
-AP

Chicago Teachers Union
Sets Strike Date
The Chicago Teachers Union said
last week that it will go on strike Oct.
11 if it does not reach an agreement
with the district over a new contract.

4 | EDUCATION WEEK | October 5, 2016 | www.edweek.org

Union leaders said the two sides
were still negotiating, and a strike
could be averted if they reach a tentative agreement before the deadline.
The announcement came just two
days after the union revealed the
results of a near-unanimous vote
among members to authorize a
strike. The last strike in the financially troubled district took place in
2012 and lasted seven days.

At issue are records demonstrating how often cyber students log
in to their school's online learning
platforms, as well as how much
time they spend using their school's
learning software. State guidelines
indicate that students in full-time
online schools should spend about
five hours per day on schoolwork. A
preliminary audit, however, found

that most students logged in for
only an hour or so per day.
A spokesman for the school described the audit as a "sham."
-BENJAMIN HEROLD

U.S. Faults Boston Latin
On Handling of Racial Issues
Officials at the nation's first and

-DENISA R. SUPERVILLE

Calif. Districts Can Ignore
Tying Scores to Reviews
A California court has handed
Students Matter, the group behind
the high-profile Vergara v. California teacher-tenure case, yet another
defeat in its quest to upend laws
that the group says keep bad teachers in the classroom.
In this latest case, Doe v. Antioch,
the plaintiffs claimed that collective
bargaining agreements covering 13
districts were violating state law by
barring the use of student test scores
in teacher-evaluation systems. But
the court disagreed, ruling that the
districts that aren't using student
test scores for evaluating teachers
are in compliance with state law.
The decision comes just weeks
after the state supreme court refused to consider Vergara, letting
stand an appeals court decision that
the state's teacher job-protection did
not violate students' equal-protection rights.
-EMMANUEL FELTON

Ohio Cyber Charter Found
To Inflate Attendance
Just 41 percent of the 15,000 students at Ohio's largest online charter school do enough work to be considered full-time students, a state
education department audit finds.
As a result, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow could be ordered
to repay $60 million in public funds.

REPORT ROUNDUP

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TEACHER LEARNING
"Focusing on Mathematical Knowledge: The Impact of ContentIntensive Teacher Professional Development"
Fourth grade math teachers who took content-intensive
professional development improved their own general math
knowledge, but those gains did not trickle down to students,
according to a federal study released last week.
For the study, published by the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences, 221 4th grade teachers
across five states were randomly assigned to either take part
in the professional development or not.
The group that participated took an 80-hour workshop in
summer 2013 that "focused on deepening teachers' knowledge
of grades K-8 mathematics." Teachers also received 13 hours
of professional development during the 2013-14 school year,
including one-on-one coaching sessions and meetings during
which they analyzed student work.
The teacher-participants scored 7 points higher on a test of
math knowledge than those in the control group (258 versus
251) after the intensive summer program, and their gains were
sustained.
Students whose teachers took the professional development
scored 2 percentile points lower than the control teachers' students on both the state math assessment and another test, though
the difference was not statistically significant
-LIANA HEITIN
SCHOOL STAFFING
"The Productivity Costs of Inefficient Hiring Practices: Evidence
From Late Teacher Hiring"
Teachers who are hired when the school year is in full swing
are not as effective as those hired before classes begin, a new
study finds.
Brown University researchers analyzed data from an un-

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Education Week - October 5, 2016

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