Education Week - October 8, 2014 - 5

MN
43
ME
3
1
for office staff. The oversight committee
approved only a third of the
requested amount.
-MCT
Teachers' Strike in Illinois
Cancels School for Two Days
A teachers' strike in suburban
Chicago closed down schools for two
days last week in the 17,000-student
Waukegan district.
The district's teachers began their
strike late last week after contract
talks between the Waukegan school
district and the Lake County Federation
of Teachers ended without a
new agreement.
The district and the union are at
odds over salary, health-care benefits,
and employee working conditions.
School district attorney Tony Ficarelli
said the teachers' union only
wanted to talk about salary. In a
statement posted on the district's
website, Superintendent Donaldo Batiste
said the union's salary request
is too high.
The teachers contend that their pay
isn't comparable to similar nearby
school districts.
-ASSOCIATED PRESS
Threat Leads to Evacuation
Of Sandy Hook School
A bomb threat called into Connecticut's
Sandy Hook Elementary
School last week led authorities to
order students, including many who
lived through the 2012 shootings at
the school's original Newtown site,
out of its current building.
Police checked the school and
grounds and did not find evidence
of danger, according to Monroe Police
Lt. Brian McCauley. He said
the evacuation was ordered as a
precaution.
After the December 2012 shootBEST
AND WORST
STATES FOR
TEACHERS
A new report, based on data
from the National Center
for Education Statistics, the
U.S. Census Bureau, and the
National Education Association,
among others, looks at such
factors as opportunity and
competition, and academic and
work environment to determine
the best and worst states
for teachers.
SOURCE: WalletHub
HI 47
ings, students began taking classes
at a school, also called Sandy Hook
Elementary, in a neighboring town.
The original school was torn down
last year.
-AP
Hawaii Is Ordered to Serve
Older Students Under IDEA
Hawaii must provide free educational
services to more than 1,000
young adults with disabilities who
aged out of the state's system.
The ruling, from U.S. District Chief
Judge Susan Oki Mollway, stems
from a 2013 decision from the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.
Hawaii, which has a single school
district serving the entire state, enacted
a regulation in 2010 barring
both general education students
and students in special education
from attending public school past
the age of 20.
The plaintiffs argued successfully
Tucson District Delays
Police Program in Schools
Tucson city leaders have delayed
a program that puts police officers
in high schools and middle schools
over concerns that officers will ask
students about their immigration
status as required by SB 1070,
Arizona's immigration-enforcement
law.
A state grant would place nine officers
at seven high schools and two
middle schools.
But concerns that police would ask
for a student's immigration status led
to a debate last week when city council
members were set to sign off on the
contracts with the school district.
One council member asked that
that the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act allows students
with disabilities to stay in school
through age 21. -CHRISTINA A. SAMUELS
a clause be put in the contract prohibiting
police from asking students
about their status. But that would
force officers to break the law, said
Police Chief Roberto Villaseñor, a
vocal opponent of the law who nonetheless
says he will uphold it.
-AP
Union Sues N.M. Chief
Over Teacher Evaluations
The National Education Association
is backing a lawsuit by its New
Mexico chapter against state Secretary
of Education-designate Hanna
Skandera, seeking to invalidate her
agency's requirements for evaluating
teachers.
Nea officials say the state has
violated districts' authority in dictating
aspects of the evaluation
systems, particularly by requiring
that a certain portion be based on
growth in students' standardizedtest
scores.
The union and its affiliates have
also filed lawsuits against aspects of
teacher-evaluation laws in Tennessee
and, unsuccessfully, in Colorado
and Florida.
-S.S.
Russia Halts Exchanges
Of Students With U.S.
The U.S. Embassy in Moscow
has voiced regret about Russia's
decision to cancel its participation
in a major high school studentexchange
program.
U.S. Ambassador John F. Tefft
said in a statement that the Future
Leaders Exchange program has
brought more than 8,000 Russian
high school students to the United
States to live with American families,
attend high school, and experience
community life.
Russia said last week it had
halted the program after one of its
students failed to return home. -AP
WY
IA
9
UT
46
AZ
40
CO
TN
50
MS
FL
44
Best
Worst
KY 42
41
48 SD
10
6
WA
OH
8
PA
WV
49
SC
NY
5
2
VA
NC 51
45
7
4
MA
rate their interest in a series of trivia questions. The questions
and answers were later presented, paired with images
of unrelated faces, while the participants underwent brain
scans. Later, the participants were tested on both the trivia
and facial recognition.
The researchers found when people were curious about
a particular question, they were not only better at learning
and remembering that information, but were also "primed"
to better learn unrelated information like the faces. Curiosity
increased activity in areas of the brain related to rewards and
the creation of new memories.
"Curiosity may put the brain in a state that allows it to
learn and retain any kind of information, like a vortex that
sucks in what you are motivated to learn, and also everything
around it," lead author Matthias Gruber said in a
statement on the study.
-SARAH D. SPARKS
FITNESS AND LEARNING
"Effects of the FITKids Randomized Controlled Trial on
Executive Control and Function"
Elementary school children who exercised for about an
hour a day in an after-school program had better brain
function and were more focused in class than students who
didn't get much physical activity, according to a study published
last week in the journal Pediatrics.
In the nine-month study of 7- to 9-year olds, researchers
at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign randomly
assigned 221 students to either a two-hour, afterschool
fitness program or to a waiting list for the program.
All the children were tested before and after the period of
the study on such cognitive and executive-control tasks as
memory, multitasking, and ability to resist distractions. In the
after-school program, students took part in moderate to vigorous
activities, such as tag, soccer, or dribbling a basketball
through an obstacle course, while wearing heart-rate monitors
and pedometers.
The researchers found that the program students improved
twofold compared with the wait-listed students
in their accuracy on cognitive tasks. The authors also saw
changes in students' brain function-as well as improvements
in fitness and school attendance.
-KATHRYN BARON
ENGLISH-LANGUAGE LEARNERS
"The Correlates of Academic Performance for English
Language Learner Students in a New England District"
English-language learners in special education programs
in one district had significantly lower English-proficiency
scores than the average for all ell students, a study found.
The study, issued in August by the Regional Education
Laboratory Northeast and Islands, focused on the relationships
among 2010-11 ell student characteristics, ell
programs, and achievement in an urban Connecticut district
where more than 10 percent of students were English-learners.
It noted challenges to ell students in special
education-such as the risk of remaining in ell programs
indefinitely-and called for more research on the relationship
between English proficiency and special education.
-MADELINE WILL
State Charter Systems Given Rankings
"Health of the Charter Sector"
The District of Columbia and Louisiana have the "healthiest"
charter school systems, while Oregon and Nevada have the weakest
sectors, according to a report released last week by the National
Alliance for Public Charter Schools.
The inaugural edition of the report ranks 26 states based on
the levels of growth, quality, and innovation in their charter sectors.
The napcS already ranks states annually based on its view
of the strength of their charter laws, but this is the first time the
Washington-based advocacy organization has judged states on
their implementation of the laws.
To be ranked, a state had to meet two criteria: At least 1 percent
of its public school population had to be enrolled in charter
schools, and the state must have participated in the 2013 Center
for Research on Education Outcomes' National Charter School
Study. That study enabled the state-to-state comparisons.
Factors that helped distinguish the District of Columbia were:
*The city's charter schools served a higher percentage of racialand
ethnic-minority students than Washington's regular schools.
*Charter students showed greater academic growth than peers
in schools run by the school system.
*A significant proportion of charters reported using one of several
innovative practices tracked by the organization, such as extended
days or a year-round calendar.
*The rate of charter closures was high enough to prove that the
city shuts down poorly performing schools, but low enough to show
it has adequate authorizing standards.
-ARIANNA PROTHERO
EDUCATION WEEK | October 8, 2014 | www.edweek.org | 5
Education Week - October 8, 2014

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