Author
State School Superintendent Hopefuls Hit Campaign Trail
Georgia School Superintendent Linda Schrenko may have started something in 1994. The Republican upset tradition when voters failed to rubber stamp Democratic Gov.Zell Miller’s pick, Democrat Werner Rogers, and chose her instead. Now, Schrenko’s campaign for governor leaves the post vacant, and observers expect Georgia’s school superintendent race to be the most expensive and competitive […]
Crime Solving Tool Stymied By Lab Backlogs
In the small Cape Cod town of Truro last January, 46-year-old fashion writer Christa Worthington was stabbed to death in her house, shattering the tranquility that winter brings to the Cape. Police have yet to find her killer, but the list of characters in Worthington’s life, including two ex-lovers, the wife of one of her […]
School Board Politics Neither Heated Nor Boring, Survey Shows
Some people hear “school board” and think of controversy, bond issues and politicians with loftier aspirations. But an extensive survey of the nation’s local school boards shows that few boards are riven by conflict. The survey, which was conducted by the National School Boards Association (NSBA), an organization that represents school boards in Washington, DC, […]
Virtual Schools, E-Learning, Sweep The States
The number of online high schools across the country continues to grow with virtual schools now operating in 12 states and five other states working on similar projects, according to Education Week’s annual School Technology Report. The editors of the fifth edition of Technology Counts 2002: E-Defining Education, praised the growth in online classrooms, but […]
Lobbyists Spend Big On Statehouses, Study Says
Special interests spend big money lobbying state legislators — more than half a billion dollars in 2000, according to a new study by the Center for Public Integrity. The study, entitled Fourth Branch, was released Wednesday May 1 in connection with a book called “Capitol Offenders: How Private Interests Govern Our States.” The publications shed […]
On The Record: Former North Carolina Gov Jim Hunt
Although former North Carolina Governor James B. Hunt (D) spent four terms as Chief Executive of the Tar Heel State and one term as Lieutenant Governor, his passion hasn’t been politics -it has been education. Maybe it was because his mother was an English teacher, or because his father taught farmers about conservation that Hunt […]
Pennsylvania To Test New School Management
Over the objections of a coalition of 40 community groups, a Pennsylvania school reform panel has voted to hire several for-profit education management firms to run Philadelphia’s failing schools. The panel hopes these firms will help turn the struggling schools into laboratories of student achievement while cutting costs. The idea is not a new one, […]
On the Record: NASBE President Betty Preston
National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) President Betty Preston joined colleagues from nearly half the states at a Washington meeting recently that focused on the new education bill, President Bush’s budget and the coming reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which funds education for students with physical, emotional and learning […]
Lobbying Season Opens For Special Education
The way the state officials, legislators, and local school board members see it the federal government hasn’t lived up to its 27- year-old promise to fund 40 percent of the total cost of educating children with learning problems and/or physical handicaps. And they came to Washington to change that. “We were very clear with what […]
School Chiefs Meet On New Ed Bill
Two days after President Bush signed new education reforms into law on Jan. 8, US Education Secretary Rod Paige held a meeting near Washington with 30 state school chiefs to build relations with them and talk about how the law should be implemented. “We want to be partners with the states and territories. Our success […]
Ten States Ace Education Survey
Ten states — Connecticut, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma and South Carolina — score highest in Education Week’s sixth annual assessment of the performance of state education systems. The states, which collectively got a mark of “C,” were graded on their standards for what students should learn, how they test […]
States Challenged By Education Bill
President George W. Bush this week signs into law the domestic policy centerpiece of his first term agenda, an education spending reauthorization that sponsors say will bring the most dramatic overhaul of U.S. public schools since the first Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)took effect in 1965. The .5 billion bill won final congressional passage […]