Archive for the ‘Federal government’ Category

I have written a lot about the resurgence of segregated schools in the South, not by court order, but by housing choices.

Despite the hopes of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, court-ordered school desegregation never led to full community integration.

“Our nation, I fear, will be ill served by the court’s refusal to remedy separate and unequal education, for unless our children begin to learn together, there is little hope that our people will ever learn to live together, ” wrote Marshall in his dissent of the 1974 Supreme Court decision Milliken v. Bradley.

That decision effectively blocked drawing from heavily white suburbs to integrate city districts with high minority populations. When the Harvard Civil Rights Project looked at race and education 10 years ago, it concluded that metro Atlanta’s suburban residential segregation was the cause of its school resegregation.

School resegregation is occurring at the same time that the United States is …

Continue reading A nation grows more diverse as many of its schools grow less »

Margaret Spellings

Daniel Malloy, the AJC’s reporter in Washington, D.C., sat down with former U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings for an interview at an event in Washington today.  Here are her answers to a series of questions on major education issues:

DM: Cheating scandal call testing into question?

Spellings: I think obviously the vast majority of educators and education leaders take assessment seriously and the integrity seriously and don’t cheat. When it does happen it ought to be addressed and attended to vigorously. Obviously, we saw that exact same thing play out in Atlanta and what encourages me when I think about the Atlanta case study, the business community, as you know, was very engaged, got a little sideswiped by the scandal, a little aggrieved by their engagement that was rewarded with this sort of behavior. I think to their credit they’ve stayed engaged and active and continue to be and are moving forward to the benefit of kids. Often we take our eye …

Continue reading Former U.S. ed secretary on legacy of No Child Left Behind »

What do our young people need to know?

That question was the centerpiece of the second major event that NBC Education Nation sponsored during in its visit to Atlanta this week. In a noon panel today at the Georgia Aquarium Monday hosted by NBC reporter David Gregory, Gov. Nathan Deal, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and U.S. Sen Johnny Isakson tackled the question.

The responses were fairly straightforward and essentially gave each politician an opportunity to tout their own efforts on behalf of education. Deal began by saying that the state has a constitutional obligation to educate its children. (I was surprised no teachers jumped to their feet then to ask if that constitutional obligation included adequate funding.)

The governor’s main theme was that Georgia schools were on their way to offering industry a deep and qualified workforce. He listed the various companies that have chosen to open new facilities in Georgia during his term, in part, he says, because they trust that they …

Continue reading NBC Education Nation: Second event on work skills today »

The pressure is mounting on the U.S. Congress to act to keep down interest rates on federal Stafford loans, which are helping  225,000 Georgia students attend college. A critical vote will be held Tuesday on the interest rate on those loans, which will double if Congress does not intervene.

In a conference call today, Georgia PIRG said the doubling of the interest rate from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent on new student loans — students have to reapply every year for the loans — will push up the college loan debt load, which already exceeds credit card debt in the United States.

The average Georgia student could see an additional $913 in repayment costs if the federal loans carry an interest of 6.8 percent. The average Georgia student graduates with nearly $19,000 in debt now.  (That is less than the national average, which is $25,000.)

“We see students every day with financial need who keep struggling over how they are meeting college expenses,” said Philip E. Hawkins , associate …

Continue reading Pressure mounting on Congress to keep down student loan interest »

The AJC has published the second installment in its major series on test score disparities nationwide. Today’s stories look at the improbable score patterns in some of the nation’s most highly decorated schools, National Blue Ribbon Schools.

AJC reporters included a winning school that even merited a visit from Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Highland Elementary in Maryland.

“This school, just four or five years ago, wasn’t a Blue Ribbon school,” Duncan said that morning in September 2009, according to video of thew award event. “It had the same type of children, same type of families, same type of community — but dramatically different results.” Now, he said, “this school has more students at the advanced level than any other school like it in the state. It’s absolutely remarkable.”

And remarkably unlikely, according to the AJC analysis. It is essential to verify the achievement at these heralded school as they are held up as role models.

According to the series:

The …

Continue reading AJC cheating series: National Blue Ribbon Schools that may be red-faced at these revelations »

Many students around the country have marched for the Dream Act, which remains in limbo. (AP Photo)

A modified version of the Dream Act is being pushed by a Republican senator from Florida who’s been mentioned as a possible candidate for vice president. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio wants to break the logjam around the controversial legislation that would give children of illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.

The bill faces resistance from the GOP, but it is an election year and the Hispanic vote may be critical.

According to The New York Times:

The compromise would grant students who are the children of illegal immigrants a new kind of nonimmigrant visa that would let them live in this country legally for a period of time. They could work, drive and pay taxes. He would also grant nonimmigrant visas to the graduates of colleges and trade schools, enabling them to stay here and work.

The proposal would not grant them green cards, giving them permanent residency, which sets it …

Continue reading Could a modified Dream Act pass GOP muster in an election year? »

President Obama said for the first time Americans owe more debt on their student loans than they do on their credit cards.

I thought I would share President Obama’s weekly address as it deals with college education and student debt.

This week, I got the chance to sit down with some impressive students at Lorain County Community College in Ohio. One of them was a woman named Andrea Ashley. Two years ago, Andrea lost her job as an HR analyst. Today, she’s getting certified in the fast-growing field of electronic medical records. Before enrolling at Lorain, Andrea told me she was looking everywhere trying to find a new job. But without a degree, she said that nobody would hire her.

Andrea’s story isn’t unique. I’ve met so many Americans who are out there pounding the pavement looking for work only to discover that they need new skills. And I’ve met a lot of employers who are looking for workers, but can’t find ones with the skills they’re looking for.

So we should be …

Continue reading President Obama: “In America, higher education cannot be a luxury.” »

Congratulations to Renfroe Middle School in Decatur, Lakeside High School in Evans, Ga., and Walton High School in Cobb. The three schools are the Georgia finalists in the Energy Department’s National Science Bowl Finals.

From the White House:

Demonstrating the Obama Administration’s commitment to improving the participation and performance of America’s students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced the list of 113 regional middle and high school finalists that will compete in the Energy Department’s National Science Bowl Finals in Washington, D.C., at the end of April.

Since January, nearly 14,000 students have competed in regional tournaments in which teams of four or five students were tested via a fast-paced Jeopardy-style format on a range of science-related topics including biology, chemistry, earth science, physics, astronomy and math.

“Congratulations to the finalists of our 22nd annual science …

Continue reading Congrats to Renfroe Middle in Decatur, Walton High in Cobb and Lakeside High in Evans for science prowess »

The folks at FairTest have been raising the alarm about excessive testing and its impact on education long before most people.

Here is a response to the AJC investigation into nationwide disparities in test results from Robert Schaeffer, public education director of FairTest: the National Center for Fair & Open Testing

By Robert Schaeffer

Across the U.S., the politically mandated misuse of standardized tests is damaging public schools and the children they serve. The Atlanta Journal Constitution’s investigation of suspicious test scores around the nation is just the latest example. Experts may debate the methodology, but there is no question that cheating on standardized exams is widespread. In just the past three academic years, FairTest has documented confirmed cases of test score manipulation in 33 states plus the District of Columbia.

These scandals are the predictable result of over-reliance on test scores. As the renowned social scientist Donald Campbell concluded more …

Continue reading High-stakes testing cheats children out of a quality education »

In the Washington Post Answer Sheet blog, Gary Miron, professor of education at Western Michigan University, questions whether the AJC investigation into test score disparities nationwide considered student mobility.

Reporter Heather Vogell, a member of the AJC investigative team into test scores, responds here to that concern:

By Heather Vogell

Some school district officials and education consultants have raised the issue of whether high student mobility would lead a district to be highlighted in our analysis even if they had no cheating problem.

A high rate of mobility is a characteristic of virtually all inner city high-poverty districts. If it were true that our methodology just flagged mobility instead of potential cheating, then you would expect all urban districts with high mobility to be flagged.

This was not the case. For example, Cleveland schools, with a better than 30 percent mobility rate, had an average 4 percent of classes flagged by our analysis in …

Continue reading AJC addresses question over whether its national test score investigation considered student mobility. It did. »