• Education Dept.: States seeking waivers should do more to make sure no student is left behind, Associated Press, January 31, 2012, Washington Post: “In its initial review of No Child Left Behind waiver requests, the U.S. Education Department highlighted a similar weakness in nearly every application: States did not do enough to ensure schools would be held accountable for the performance of all students. The Obama administration praised the states for their high academic standards. But nearly every application was criticized for being loose about setting high goals and, when necessary, interventions for all student groups - including minorities, the disabled and low-income - or for failing to create sufficient incentives to close the achievement gap…”
• Eyebrows raised over initial NCLB waiver bids, By Alyson Klein, January 31, 2012, Education Week: “A pair of Democratic education leaders in Congress have raised red flags about the first batch of state applications for waivers that would give states flexibility from some requirements of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The lawmakers-U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, of Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and U.S. Rep. George Miller, of California, the House education panel’s ranking member-worry that accountability under the law’s current version, the No Child Left Behind Act, will be significantly watered down if many of the applications are approved as submitted. They’re urging U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to adhere to the very high bar he says he’s set for approval, and to work with states to improve their plans…”

State’s student homeless population doubles, By Jessica Anderson, January 22, 2012, Baltimore Sun: “For a few hours after school, Ryan Johnson is just like most 16-year-olds. He lounges on the couch with his favorite Xbox game or checks his Facebook page. But then reality sets in. He decamps from his cousins’ house for the Howard County cold-weather shelter. Dinner is a meal with his father and 20 other homeless people. He goes to bed early, on a green plastic mat next to strangers, who also have no other place to go in one of the state’s wealthiest counties. ‘It has been really hard,’ said Ryan, a junior at Wilde Lake High School in Columbia. ‘I look at it like a detention I have to do every day, even though I didn’t do anything wrong.’ Ryan’s experience is becoming increasingly common. The number of homeless students in Maryland has more than doubled in the past five years, rising from 6,721 to 14,117 last school year, according to the Maryland State Department of Education…”

Oregon seeks OK to judge schools on overall performance, not success with small groups that typically struggle, By Betsy Hammond, January 8, 2012, The Oregonian: “Oregon schools that serve a concentration of low-income students will face a distinctly different accountability system this fall if the U.S. Department of Education approves the state’s plan. Under the federal No Child Left Behind law, Oregon schools that receive federal funds to help disadvantaged students have been judged since 2003 mainly by whether they got enough low-income, special education, minority or limited-English students to pass state reading and math tests. Schools that didn’t — more than 80 in 2011 — faced a series of escalating consequences, such as having to offer students a transfer to another school or free private tutoring. Now Oregon, like many other states, proposes to scrap that system for one that measures success in a whole new way — and offers more flexible consequences to schools whose results are deemed inadequate…”

Growth in prekindergarten slowed in recession, By Kimberly Hefling (AP), January 17, 2012, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “The expansion in public prekindergarten programs has slowed and even been reversed in some states as school districts cope with shrinking budgets. As a result, many 3- and 4-year-olds aren’t going to preschool. Kids from low-income families who start kindergarten without first attending a quality education program enter school an estimated 18 months behind their peers. Many never catch up, and research shows they are more likely to need special education services and to drop out. Kids in families with higher incomes also can benefit from early education, research shows. Yet, roughly a quarter of the nation’s 4-year-olds and more than half of 3-year-olds attend no preschool, either public or private. Families who earn about $40,000 to $50,000 annually face the greatest difficulties because they make too much to quality for many publicly funded programs, but can’t afford private ones, said Steven Barnett, director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University…”

School free-lunch program dogged by abuses at CPS, By Monica Eng and Joel Hood, January 13, 2012, Chicago Tribune: “When a teachers assistant at Chicago’s North-Grand High School handed in her child’s lunch form last school year, it showed that her household made too much money for the child to receive free lunches. So the school’s assistant clerk told the woman to fill out a new one, explaining, ‘She shouldn’t have to pay for lunch,’ and besides, ‘Nobody checks the applications anyway,’ according to an inspector general’s report released last week. Apparently, word had gotten around. At the West Side school, more than a dozen CPS and city employees had submitted false applications for free or reduced-price lunches, according to James Sullivan, Chicago Public Schools’ inspector general. The alleged offenders included teachers, teachers assistants, district employees, a security officer and two people in law enforcement, some of them earning six-figure salaries. The findings led Sullivan to conclude in his report that the National School Lunch Program, meant to provide basic nutrition to needy students, was ‘ripe for fraud and abuse’ because of layers of bureaucracy, incentives for high enrollment, and minimal checks and balances…”

Many high-poverty schools ’shortchanged’ in Central Florida, By Lauren Roth, January 12, 2012, Orlando Sentinel: “At Hiawassee Elementary in Orange County, where nine out of every 10 students lives in poverty, the school district spent about $2,065 per student on teachers and other staff during the 2008-09 school year. By contrast, the county’s Lake Whitney Elementary, where only about 10 percent of the students are poor, spent about $2,710 on staffing per student that year - nearly a third more. Across Central Florida, school districts spend less per pupil to staff many of their highest-poverty schools despite federal rules intended to make sure every poor school gets its fair share, according to an Orlando Sentinel analysis of federal data…”

‘Alarming’ new test-score gap discovered in Seattle schools, By Brian M. Rosenthal, December 18, 2011, Seattle Times: “African-American students whose primary language is English perform significantly worse in math and reading than black students who speak another language at home - typically immigrants or refugees - according to new numbers released by Seattle Public Schools. District officials, who presented the finding at a recent community meeting at Rainier Beach High School, noted the results come with caveats, but called the potential trend troubling and pledged to study what might be causing it. Michael Tolley, an executive director overseeing Southeast Seattle schools, said at the meeting that the data exposed a new achievement gap that is ‘extremely, extremely alarming.’ The administration has for years analyzed test scores by race. It has never before broken down student-achievement data by specific home language or country of origin - it is rare for school districts to examine test scores at that level - but it is unlikely that the phenomenon the data suggest is actually new…”

• Michigan’s homeless students: Foreclosure crisis takes toll on 31,000 kids, By Jeff Seidel, December 18, 2011, Detroit Free Press: “Like a silent epidemic, the number of homeless children in Michigan schools is growing. In the 2010-11 school year, more than 31,000 homeless students attended school — 8,500 more than in the previous school year, a 37% spike attributed to the weak economy, loss of jobs and the foreclosure crisis. Overall, the number of homeless students in Michigan has jumped more than 300% in the last four years. Most experts say those numbers are low because many parents are embarrassed to admit they are homeless. And many school districts lack the resources to identify these kids, as required by federal law. Advocates say there’s also a disincentive to find homeless children. Once a district finds them, it has to pay to transport them to school and provide other services — a tough job for many cash-strapped districts. School officials who deal with these children say the numbers are likely to grow next year because of the thousands of families who have lost jobless benefits and other cash assistance…”
• For Michigan’s homeless students, a storage room of backpacks shows community support, By Jeff Seidel, December 19, 2011, Detroit Free Press: “The small cluttered motel room is filled with all their worldly possessions — bags of clothes from a free clothes locker, a fistful of utensils standing up in a Mason jar, a deep fryer, a toaster oven, a Crock-Pot, a box of food donated from a nearby church, and a backpack that links thousands of homeless children across Michigan. The backpack was given to 11-year-old Amber Phillips by the Macomb Intermediate School District because she is a homeless student. She has been living in this motel for two months..”
• Covenant House is a haven for Michigan’s homeless students, By Jeff Seidel, December 20, 2011, Detroit Free Press: “Even before the downturn in the economy, there were thousands of homeless children across the state — kids who ran away from home because of family squabbles or because of abuse or because of myriad other reasons. Some children now might have a new reason to run away. ‘Now, we are seeing kids who leave home because they feel their parents can’t afford them anymore and they feel like, ‘I have to go on my own and spare them paying for me,” said Pamela Kies-Lowe, the state coordinator for Homeless Education at the Michigan Department of Education. ‘They are trying to be magnanimous to their families. They strike out on their own and figure out they can’t make it.’ She said even those who leave for reasons of abuse might have an underlying tie to the economy…”
• Love from new families turns lives around for Michigan’s homeless students, By Jeff Seidel, December 21, 2011, Detroit Free Press: “Traverse City and Adrian are running two of the most unusual programs in the state to help homeless children — families taking in a homeless child for a year so he or she can finish high school. It’s an idea that could be replicated around the state to help agencies already besieged by too many people who need help and not enough money to go around. In both cities, homeless children are placed in mentor homes for the entire school year. Last year, 15 students were in the Traverse City program; all seven seniors graduated. In Adrian, 13 children were in the program last year and all of them also graduated from high school, including two valedictorians. Beth McCullough, who runs the Adrian program, said 87% of the homeless students in the program have gone on to higher education…”

• Report: Child homelessness up 33% in 3 years, By Marisol Bello, December 12, 2011, USA Today: “One in 45 children in the USA - 1.6 million children - were living on the street, in homeless shelters or motels, or doubled up with other families last year, according to the National Center on Family Homelessness. The numbers represent a 33% increase from 2007, when there were 1.2 million homeless children, according to a report the center is releasing Tuesday.  ’This is an absurdly high number,’ says Ellen Bassuk, president of the center. ‘What we have new in 2010 is the effects of a man-made disaster caused by the economic recession. … We are seeing extreme budget cuts, foreclosures and a lack of affordable housing.’ The report paints a bleaker picture than one by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which nonetheless reported a 28% increase in homeless families, from 131,000 in 2007 to 168,000 in 2010…”
• Child homelessness continues to rise, By Lindsay Fiori, December 14, 2011, Racine Journal Times: “Child homelessness has gone up across the nation including in Wisconsin and Racine since the Great Recession began in 2007, according to figures released Tuesday. Nationwide child homelessness went up 38 percent from the 2006-07 school year to the 2009-10 school year, the most recent year for which national data is available. During that same time, the number of homeless children in Wisconsin grew 48 percent, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Center on Family Homelessness. Locally, the number of homeless students attending Racine Unified grew 3 percent between 2006-07 and 2009-10. But 2006-07 had an usually large number of homeless students so a more accurate increase is found by looking at 2005-06 to 2009-10, when the number of homeless students increased by 26 percent, according to district data…”
• Homelessness hits families as shelters feel squeezed, By Annysa Johnson, December 12, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Robyn Greif lay beneath the covers in an Oak Creek motel, the sounds of her small children around her, thinking for the first time in days: ‘We don’t have to rush somewhere. We can feed our kids. We can shower today.’ The family of seven had driven from South Carolina in search of work for Greif’s husband, Sean, but had run out of money. They had spent three nights sleeping in their minivan because the area shelters were full. The Salvation Army paid to house them at the motel, at least through last weekend, and their prospects for permanent housing look good. But the Greifs represent a troubling trend in this time of economic turmoil: the growing number of homeless families - at a time when shelters are filled beyond capacity and state and federal dollars earmarked to run them are being cut…”
• Report: Confusion over ‘homelessness’ can mean less food aid to needy, By Pamela M. Prah, December 13, 2011, Stateline.org: “Many low-income Americans who have lost their homes to foreclosure and are living with friends could be eligible for more food stamp assistance and not even know it, says an advocacy group that is urging states to ask better questions to ensure people get the proper level of assistance. The federal food stamp program allows, but doesn’t require, states to offer a “homeless shelter deduction” that essentially increases the level of benefits for anyone without a permanent residence. Currently 26 states offer the deduction ‘and in those states, very few households claim the deduction,’ says a report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank in Washington, D.C…”

• How some states rein in charter school abuses, By Kathleen McGrory and Scott Hiaasen, December 10, 2011, Miami Herald: “Florida’s charter school law, which makes it easy to open charter schools and difficult to monitor them, has spurred a multimillion dollar industry and a school boom - all while leading to chronic governance problems and a higher-than-average rate of school failure. Nationally, about 12 percent of all charter schools that have opened in the past two decades have shut down, according to the National Resource Center on Charter School Finance & Governance. In Florida, the failure rate is double, state records show…”
• Florida charter schools: big money, little oversight, By Scott Hiaasen and Kathleen McGrory, December 10, 2011, Miami Herald: “Preparing for her daughter’s graduation in the spring, Tuli Chediak received a blunt message from her daughter’s charter high school: Pay us $600 or your daughter won’t graduate. She also received a harsh lesson about charter schools: Sometimes they play by their own rules. During the past 15 years, Florida has embarked on a dramatic shift in public education, steering billions in taxpayer dollars from traditional school districts to independently run charter schools. What started as an educational movement has turned into one of the region’s fastest-growing industries, backed by real-estate developers and promoted by politicians. But while charter schools have grown into a $400-million-a-year business in South Florida, receiving about $6,000 in taxpayer dollars for every student enrolled, they continue to operate with little public oversight. Even when charter schools have been caught violating state laws, school districts have few tools to demand compliance…”
• Profits and questions at online charter schools, By Stephanie Saul, December 12, 2011, New York Times: “By almost every educational measure, the Agora Cyber Charter School is failing. Nearly 60 percent of its students are behind grade level in math. Nearly 50 percent trail in reading. A third do not graduate on time. And hundreds of children, from kindergartners to seniors, withdraw within months after they enroll. By Wall Street standards, though, Agora is a remarkable success that has helped enrich K12 Inc., the publicly traded company that manages the school. And the entire enterprise is paid for by taxpayers. Agora is one of the largest in a portfolio of similar public schools across the country run by K12. Eight other for-profit companies also run online public elementary and high schools, enrolling a large chunk of the more than 200,000 full-time cyberpupils in the United States…”
• New Mexico legislators look to curb charter school costs, By Ben Wieder, December 12, 2011, Stateline.org: “One of Albuquerque’s charter schools, Academia de Lengua Y Cultura, offers a dual-language middle-school curriculum, with teachers in some classes giving lessons in English and Spanish on alternating days. Across town, the Cottonwood Classical Preparatory School, which takes students from sixth grade through high school, emphasizes seminar discussions and offers advanced international diplomas. The Southwest Secondary Learning Center, meanwhile, reinforces math, science and engineering lessons by allowing students to maintain and fly real airplanes. They represent three of New Mexico’s more than 80 charter schools. While some of those schools look and act like private institutions - their leaders have freedom to run them as they see fit as long as students meet state standards - they are part of the public school system, charge no tuition and receive nearly all of their funding from state monies. But unlike other states, where average per-student funding for charters is typically lower than it is for other public schools, a legislative report released last month found that charters in New Mexico receive an average of 26 percent more funding per student than traditional public schools. The report suggested that lawmakers change how schools are funded to address that…”
• Number of charter school students soars to 2 million as states pass laws encouraging expansion, Associated Press, December 7, 2011, Washington Post: “The number of students attending charter schools has soared to more than 2 million as states pass laws lifting caps and encouraging their expansion, according to figures released Wednesday. The growth represents the largest increase in enrollment over a single year since charter schools were founded nearly two decades ago. In all, more than 500 new charter schools were opened in the 2011-12 school year. And about 200,000 more students are enrolled now than a year before, an increase of 13 percent nationwide…”
• More whites drawn to charter schools, By Jennifer Smith Richards, December 12, 2011, Columbus Dispatch: “Charter schools statewide and in Franklin County have become much more racially diverse over the past decade, state enrollment data show. In the 2000-01 school year, when charters still were new in Ohio, 87 percent of the 748 Franklin County charter students were members of minorities. In the 2010-11 school year, roughly 33,000 students attended local charters, and 63 percent were nonwhite. The local shift mirrors one statewide, where the total percentage of black, Latino, Asian, American Indian and multiracial students has dropped from 86 percent to about 60 percent in the past 10 years. The reason for the shift, experts say, is twofold: Parents now have more charter schools from which to choose, which makes the option attractive to a wider range of parents. And many schools now are marketing to suburban families instead of focusing on students from urban districts such as Columbus…”

• Students in big-city schools show gains in latest NAEP ‘report card’, By Amanda Paulson, December 7, 2011, Christian Science Monitor: “Students in America’s largest cities are making gains in math, in many cases faster than students in the nation as a whole. Reading scores in those large cities - just as in the nation - have largely remained flat for the past two years. And in some cities - including Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles, and Houston - students have made particularly striking gains over the past eight years, while in other cities progress has lagged…”
• D.C. schools have largest black-white achievement gap in federal study, By Lyndsey Layton, December 7, 2011, Washington Post: “D.C. public schools have the largest achievement gap between black and white students among the nation’s major urban school systems, a distinction laid bare in a federal study released Wednesday. The District also has the widest achievement gap between white and Hispanic students, the study found, compared with results from other large systems and the national average. The study is based on the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress, federal reading and math exams taken this year by fourth- and eighth-graders across the country…”
• DPS ratings on national report card rise, but still among worst big cities in reading, math, By Chastity Pratt Dawsey, December 7, 2011, Detroit Free Press: “The Detroit Public Schools scores on the Nation’s Report Card have inched up, but the district continues to rank worst among large cities in reading and math, results released today show. DPS fourth- and eighth-grade students were among those in 21 cities that took the rigorous National Assessment of Educational Progress tests this year as part of the Trial Urban District Assessment…”
• Some New York City scores drop in U.S. student tests, By Winnie Hu, December 7, 2011, New York Times: “New York City students scored slightly lower on federal math tests this year compared with 2009, according to scores released Wednesday morning, even as scores of their counterparts in other big cities inched upward. The results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the nation’s report card, showed that the city’s fourth-grade math average dropped 3 points to 234 (on a scale of 500) from 2009, the last time the exams were taken. While federal education officials cautioned that the changes were too small to be significant, that dip diverged from the trend nationally and for other large cities. In 2011, the average fourth-grade math score rose by one point nationally, and two points for cities with populations of 250,000 or more…”
• Baltimore students remain in bottom third on test vs. other cities, By Liz Bowie, December 7, 2011, Baltimore Sun: “Baltimore’s scores on a rigorous national math and reading test were in the bottom third of other large urban school districts across the country, though students showed some progress in math. The scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress were released Wednesday morning at a press conference at City Springs Elementary and Middle School in Baltimore…”

Lines grow long for free school meals, thanks to economy, By Sam Dillon, November 29, 2011, New York Times: “Millions of American schoolchildren are receiving free or low-cost meals for the first time as their parents, many once solidly middle class, have lost jobs or homes during the economic crisis, qualifying their families for the decades-old safety-net program. The number of students receiving subsidized lunches rose to 21 million last school year from 18 million in 2006-7, a 17 percent increase, according to an analysis by The New York Times of data from the Department of Agriculture, which administers the meals program. Eleven states, including Florida, Nevada, New Jersey and Tennessee, had four-year increases of 25 percent or more, huge shifts in a vast program long characterized by incremental growth. The Agriculture Department has not yet released data for September and October…”

• Rising child poverty rates could be a ‘taste’ of what’s ahead, By Ron Scherer, November 29, 2011, Christian Science Monitor: “In a troubling snapshot of the declining finances of Americans, considerably more school-age children are living in poverty than in the pre-recession year of 2007, the US Census Bureau reported Tuesday. Of all 3,142 counties in the US, 653 counties saw significant increases in poverty for children ages 5 to 17, according to the 2010 Census Bureau survey. Only eight counties saw a decrease. Nationally, 19.8 percent of schoolchildren qualify as poor - and one-third of all counties now have child poverty rates above that threshold. About one quarter had child poverty rates significantly lower than the national average…”
• More schoolchildren in Central Texas living in poverty, By Juan Castillo, November 29, 2011, Austin American-Statesman: “About 1 in 4 school-age children in Travis, Bastrop and Caldwell counties lived in poverty in 2010 - higher than the national average - and the poverty rate for schoolchildren has risen since the recession began in 4 of 5 counties in the Austin metro area, according to census estimates Tuesday reflecting the effects of the weakened economy…”
• Wisconsin schools see more children in poverty, By Erin Richards and Ben Poston, November 30, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “More than four out of 10 school-aged children in Milwaukee are living in poverty, a jump of nearly 10 percentage points from 2007, according to new estimates released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau that underscore another effect of the Great Recession. The percentage of children in poverty residing in the Milwaukee Public Schools district rose to 41% in 2010 from 32.4% in pre-recession 2007, according to the bureau’s 2010 income and poverty estimates for all counties and school districts…”
• Alabama struggles with number of children living in poverty at 27.4%, By Kim Chandler, November 30, 2011, Birmingham News: “More than one in four Alabama children live in poverty — a figure that has jumped since the recession began in 2007, the U.S. Census Bureau said Tuesday. In 2010, 27.4 percent of children age 18 and under in Alabama lived in poverty. The percentage was 23.6 percent in 2007…”
• Poverty rate soars among S. Florida kids, By Donna Gehrke-White, Dana Williams and Cara Fitzpatrick, November 30, 2011, South Florida Sun-Sentinel: “The poverty rate for school-age children skyrocketed in South Florida from 2007 to 2010 with thousands of parents thrown out of work during the Great Recession. In Broward and Palm Beach counties, about one in five children ages 5 to 17 live in poverty, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday. In Miami-Dade, nearly one in four children fall below the poverty level. The huge increase in poverty among school-aged children places the three South Florida counties in the nation’s top 20 percent of counties experiencing the steepest jump in child poverty, according to the Census Bureau data…”
• Fresno County has state’s highest poverty rate, By Kurtis Alexander, November 29, 2011, Fresno Bee: “Soaring unemployment has pushed California’s poverty rate up for three straight years — but nowhere higher than in Fresno County, according to new Census data. The nearly 250,000 county residents living in poverty in 2010 gives Fresno County claim to the state’s highest poverty rate, at 26.8%. Almost 70,000 more people lived in poverty last year than in 2007 when the recession began. Statewide, 15.8% were impoverished, the census data show, up 3.4 percentage points from three years ago…”
• Poverty rates varied greatly among Oklahoma counties in 2010, By Chris Casteel, November 30, 2011, The Oklahoman: “Poverty rates jumped in some of the poorest and richest counties in Oklahoma in 2010, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures released Tuesday that show Okfuskee County had the highest rate last year, with 27 percent of its residents in poverty…”

New attention paid to homeless youth and families, By Meribah Knight, November 3, 2011, New York Times: “More than 10,000 homeless students are enrolled in Chicago’s classrooms this fall, a 16 percent increase over last year and a record high, according to Chicago Public Schools data for September. The school district’s numbers reflect a trend seen by service providers around the city: Chicago’s homeless population is becoming younger. More families are living on the street, and the number of homeless youths on their own has grown exponentially. With a lack of affordable housing, a rising number of foreclosures and a state unemployment rate higher than the national average, the increase in homeless youths and families is putting stress on a social support system that is facing sharp cuts in budgets and programs…”

• Since 1990s, U.S. students’ math has sharpened, but reading lags, By Sam Dillon, November 1, 2011, New York Times: “Elementary and middle school students have improved greatly in math, but their reading skills have stagnated over the last two decades, federal officials said on Tuesday. The officials, who oversee the largest federal standardized testing program, used the release of scores from nationwide math and reading exams to highlight the contrasting long-term trends…”
• Nation’s report card: Kids showing a bit of improvement in math, but many still not proficient, Associated Press, November 1, 2011, Washington Post: “Some progress. Still needs improvement. The nation’s report card on math and reading shows fourth- and eighth-graders scoring their best ever in math and eighth graders making some progress in reading. But the results released Tuesday are a stark reminder of just how far the nation’s school kids are from achieving the No Child Left Behind law’s goal that every child in America be proficient in math and reading by 2014. Just a little more than one-third of the students were proficient or higher in reading. In math, 40 percent of the fourth-graders and 35 percent of the eighth-graders had reached that level…”
• Education report card: Flat reading scores are ‘deeply disappointing’, By Amanda Paulson, November 1, 2011, Christian Science Monitor: “America’s fourth- and eighth-graders are inching ahead in their performance in math, but their reading scores are largely stagnant. That’s the verdict from the latest round of data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), otherwise known as the ‘nation’s report card,’ which regularly measures students’ performance on a variety of subjects. The best news from the 2011 test was in math, where scores have risen steadily since 1990. The scores posted a small increase from 2009, the last time the test was given. For fourth-graders, the average math score was 241 on a 500-point scale - 28 points higher than in 1990 and 1 point higher than in 2009. Students at all percentiles except the lowest one increased…”

Ill. elementary school achievement gap narrowing, Associated Press, October 31, 2011, Chicago Tribune: “Illinois’ latest standardized test results show that the achievement gap among elementary school students is narrowing, largely because of gains among black, special education and low-income students, the Illinois State Board of Education announced Monday. The board also said that nine schools flagged for improvement under the decade-old federal No Child Left Behind Act were taken off that status because they made adequate yearly progress for two years in a row. The improvement came even as the state’s proficiency benchmarks rose 7.5 percent over the past two years…”

After-school tutoring likely to end as dozens of states pursue No Child Left Behind waivers, Associated Press, October 30, 2011, Washington Post: “Dozens of states intend to apply for waivers that would free their schools from a federal requirement that they set aside hundreds of millions of dollars a year for after-school tutoring, a program many researchers say has been ineffective. The 2002 No Child Left Behind law requires school districts that repeatedly fail to meet its benchmarks to set aside federal money to pay for outside tutors. But studies released in the past five years have found mixed results, at best, from the program. They say it has suffered from participation rates as low as 20 percent, uneven quality among tutors, a lack of coordination between tutors and teachers, poor oversight by the states and a prohibition against giving the lowest achieving students priority. Also, they say, there has been no connection between students’ success and tutors’ paychecks…”

Already financially hurting school districts brace for more cuts ahead, Associated Press, October 24, 2011, Washington Post: “Educators are bracing for a tough reality: As difficult as budget cuts have been on schools, more tough times are likely ahead. Even in a best-case scenario that assumes strong economic growth next year, it won’t be until 2013 or later when districts see budget levels return to pre-recession levels, said Daniel Domenech, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators in Arlington, Va. That means more cuts and layoffs are likely ahead. ‘The worst part is that it’s not over,’ Domenech said. Already, an estimated 294,000 jobs in the education sector have been lost since 2008, including those in higher education…”

Poverty touches more Sioux Falls students, By Josh Verges, October 12, 2011, Sioux Falls Argus Leader: “The state’s largest school district has added 515 students since this time last year, but the number of students from low-income families is growing even faster. When the Sioux Falls School District’s year ended in May, 46.8 percent of its elementary students were eligible for free or reduced-price meals, up from 43.7 percent the year before. Districtwide, the number of students in the program increased by about 900 in one year…”

Schools hit by expense of transporting homeless, By Kathy McCabe, October 6, 2011, Boston Globe: “The white van with a yellow school bus sign on top stopped at the front door of a hotel on Route 1. A young girl with a heavy backpack stepped off, waving to her mother, who came to meet the bus. Two other children exited the bus and pushed the glass door to enter the lobby. Hotels are a regular stop on public school bus routes north of Boston, where hundreds of homeless families are temporarily living because the state’s 2,000 family shelter units are full. As of Monday, there were 1,437 families living in motels and hotels across Massachusetts, according to the state Department of Housing and Community Development. More than 300 families are living at hotels in Burlington, Chelmsford, Danvers, Haverhill, Malden, Saugus, Tewksbury, and Woburn, according to state data. But since August, when a new program started to place homeless families in permanent housing, the number of families living in hotels has dropped by about 20 percent, or by 341 families, including 30 that moved from Danvers hotels…”

N.J. ranks 46th nationally for participation in the National School Breakfast Program, By Nic Corbett, September 30, 2011, Star-Ledger: “A bowl of cereal, a cup of milk and some graham crackers can help a student start the school day off right, but New Jersey ranks 46th in the nation for participation in the National School Breakfast Program. Only 28 percent of New Jersey children eligible for free- or reduced-price meals were served breakfast at school last year through the federally funded program, according to a report by the nonprofit Advocates for Children of New Jersey using data from the New Jersey Departments of Education and Agriculture. Executive Director Cecilia Zalkind said it’s difficult for students to concentrate on a reading assignment or solve a math problem without eating in the morning…”

• State educators: Michigan accreditation system ‘no longer has relevance’, By Dave Murray, August 15, 2011, Grand Rapids Press: “Michigan’s school accreditation system ‘no longer has relevance’ state educators say, as every school in the state has met state criteria despite sliding backward on federal testing goals. The state Education Department released announced Monday that 79 percent of Michigan’s public school buildings and 93 percent of the school districts made federal testing goals - called ‘adequate yearly progress’ - for the 2010-11 school year. That’s down from 86 percent of schools and 95 percent of districts making AYP the previous school year…”
• Income gap can be bridged, starting with expectations, educators say, By Dave Murray, August 15, 2011, Grand Rapids Press: “It’s not that children from poor families can’t do well in school, Northview Superintendent Mike Paskewicz says. But they might not be as prepared when they arrive in kindergarten, so schools need to find ways to help them. ‘Parents might not be able to spend time reading with their kids at night when their priorities are trying to get food on the table or a roof over their heads,’ he said. A Press study of U.S. Census figures shows school districts with the lowest reading and math test scores often have the highest poverty rates. The most affluent West Michigan districts - including East Grand Rapids and Forest Hills - have six-figure family incomes and test scores well above the state average. Those with the highest rates of poverty, Godfrey-Lee and Grand Rapids Public Schools, also have the lowest average achievement on the 2011 Michigan Merit Exams given to high school juniors. A family’s income can explain academic struggles, but should not be an excuse, Paskewicz and other educators say. All students have needs, and districts both rich and poor are working to meet them…”

Poverty, academic achievement intertwined, census figures show, By Lynn Moore, August 12, 2011, Muskegon Chronicle: “Many of those who don’t live there - who don’t walk in parents’ and students’ shoes - don’t have a problem beating up on Muskegon Heights schools, especially its high school. Just read the online comments left on stories about the high school’s struggles with academic achievement. Plenty of blame is heaped on parents, students, teachers and administrators. But would they have the same opinion if the topic was the poverty plaguing those families and schools? We’re not talking poor people, but desperately poor. Nearly half of children in the Muskegon Heights school district live in poverty. That would include, for example, a child living with a parent and sibling in a home with an income of no more than $17,285 a year. The question is raised because new data shows academic achievement and poverty are intertwined - not just for Muskegon Heights, but in communities throughout the state. The trend is undeniable when the poverty rates of school districts recently released by the U.S. Census Bureau are placed next to student test scores…”

California reports eighth-grade dropout rate for first time, By Howard Blume, August 12, 2011, Los Angeles Times: “An overlooked corner of the dropout problem became more visible Thursday when state officials for the first time released the dropout rate for eighth-graders. Statewide, about 3.5% of eighth-graders - 17,257 in all - left school and didn’t return for ninth grade, according to the state count now available with a system for tracking students individually. The California Department of Education released the new dropout and graduation rates, the first such report based on unique identification numbers for every public school student. It looked at eighth-graders in the 2008-09 academic year and students who started high school in 2006 and should have graduated four years later…”

• States can apply for waivers on school testing required by No Child law, By Michael Alison Chandler, August 8, 2011, Washington Post: “School leaders in Virginia and Maryland said they are likely to seek exemptions for the most stringent requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind law after an announcement Monday that the Obama administration will offer flexibility to states willing to modernize their accountability systems. Education Secretary Arne Duncan is exercising rarely used executive authority by inviting states to apply for legal waivers. The move comes after efforts to update the federal law stalled in Congress this year, frustrating educators across the country…”
• Overriding a key education law, By Sam Dillon, August 8, 2011, New York Times: “Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has announced that he will unilaterally override the centerpiece requirement of the No Child Left Behind school accountability law, that 100 percent of students be proficient in math and reading by 2014. Mr. Duncan told reporters that he was acting because Congress had failed to rewrite the Bush-era law, which he called a ’slow-motion train wreck.’ He is waiving the law’s proficiency requirements for states that have adopted their own testing and accountability programs and are making other strides toward better schools, he said. The administration’s plan amounts to the most sweeping use of executive authority to rewrite federal education law since Washington expanded its involvement in education in the 1960s…”

• Education takes a beating nationwide, By Stephen Ceasar and Teresa Watanabe, July 31, 2011, Los Angeles Times: “After a particularly brutal budgeting season this summer, states and school districts across the country have fired thousands of teachers, raised college tuition, relaxed standards, slashed days off the academic calendar and gutted pre-kindergarten and summer school programs. Slashed budgets are nothing new for educators, but experts say this year stands out. Last year, K-12 budgets were cut $1.8 billion nationwide. According to estimates by the National Assn. of State Budget Officers, cuts to K-12 for the new fiscal year may reach $2.5 billion. A year ago, higher-education budgets across the nation were trimmed $1.2 billion. The expected cuts this year: $5 billion…”
• Poor schools hit hardest by budget cuts in Pennsylvania, Associated Press, August 7, 2011, Patriot-News: “Cutbacks in state aid for public schools hit Pennsylvania’s poorer school districts the hardest, slashing nearly three times as many dollars in aid per student compared with wealthier districts, according to an analysis of state data. All told, the poorest 150 school districts, or 30 percent of the state’s total, lost $537.5 million in five key program lines. That works out to $581 per student, the analysis found. The wealthiest 150 school districts, as measured by the number of children who qualify for subsidized school lunches, lost $123 million, or $214 per student. Of the remaining money in the programs, almost $3 per student went to the 150 poorest districts for every $1 per student that went to the 150 wealthiest…”

• New Orleans public school achievement gap is narrowing, By Andrew Vanacore, August 7, 2011, New Orleans Times-Picayune: “For as long as records have been kept, black students in New Orleans’ public schools have lagged far behind the city’s white students on the annual exams that Louisiana uses to track student achievement, reflecting wide income disparities and other factors. What’s more, black students in the city have traditionally fallen behind their black peers in the rest of the state, where the so-called achievement gap has historically been less pronounced. That second metric changed this year for the first time. State data show that 53 percent of African-American youngsters in New Orleans scored at grade level or better on state tests this spring, compared with 51 percent of black students across Louisiana. Just four years ago, only 32 percent of black students in New Orleans had achieved grade level, compared with 43 percent statewide…”
• Huge achievement gaps persist in D.C. schools, By Bill Turque, August 6, 2011, Washington Post: “The gulf in academic achievement separating public schools in the District’s poorest neighborhoods from those in its most affluent has narrowed slightly in some instances but remains vast, an analysis of 2011 test score data show. Children in Ward 7 and 8 schools trailed their Ward 3 peers in reading and math pass rates by huge margins - from 41 to 56 percentage points - on this year’s D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System exams. The tests are given annually to students in grades 3 through 8 and 10…”

• Arizona schools fail to hit test targets in record numbers, By Pat Kossan and Ryan Konig, July 27, 2011, Arizona Republic: “A record number of Arizona schools failed to meet benchmarks for academic progress this year, which likely means the state will fall short of the nation’s goal of having all students proficient at their grade level in three years. A record 814 Arizona schools, or 42 percent, failed to get students to make “adequate yearly progress” in the 2010-11 school year, compared with 563 schools, or 29 percent, the previous year. Schools will have to notify parents of the deficiency, and more schools could experience intervention by the state…”
• More Georgia schools, districts fall short of goals as expectations rise, By D. Aileen Dodd, July 22, 2011, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Facing tougher requirements, the number of Georgia public schools placed on a Needs Improvement list set under the No Child Left Behind Act rose by 24 percent in 2011. Sixty-three percent of Georgia school districts achieved student performance goals, down from 71 percent the previous year. The list of schools designated as Needs Improvement — campuses that have failed to meet the federal Adequate Yearly Progress goals for two consecutive years — must offer free tutoring to students and offer the option of transfer to higher-performing schools. This year, the list grew by 74 schools, to a total of 379…”

Innovation schools catch on, By James Vaznis, July 11, 2011, Boston Globe: “A growing number of school districts from Boston to Western Massachusetts are embracing a new kind of school to pursue educational innovations and compete more aggressively with charter schools. About a dozen ‘innovation schools’ are expected to open this fall, while another dozen should arrive a year later. The movement follows the launch of the state’s first three innovation schools this past school year. ‘It’s really catching fire,’ said Paul Reville, the state’s education secretary. ‘I would predict innovation schools in a relatively short period of time could surpass the number of charter schools in the state if the growth continues at the rate we’ve seen recently.’ Innovation schools - a cornerstone of Governor Deval Patrick’s overhaul of public education - are part of the state’s efforts to create schools that operate with more autonomy than traditional public schools…”

As budgets are trimmed, time in class is shortened, By Sam Dillon, July 5, 2011, New York Times: “After several years of state and local budget cuts, thousands of school districts across the nation are gutting summer-school programs, cramming classes into four-day weeks or lopping days off the school year, even though virtually everyone involved in education agrees that American students need more instruction time. Los Angeles slashed its budget for summer classes to $3 million from $18 million last year, while Philadelphia, Milwaukee and half the school districts in North Carolina have deeply cut their programs or zeroed them out. A scattering of rural districts in New Mexico, Idaho and other states will be closed on Fridays or Mondays come September. And in California, where some 600 of the 1,100 local districts have shortened the calendar by up to five days over the past two years, lawmakers last week authorized them to cut seven days more if budgets get tighter…”

For San Diego schools, a fear that larger classes will hinder learning, By Michael Winerip, June 26, 2011, New York Times: “Many in the forefront of what is called the education reform movement - like Bill Gates, the philanthropist, and Arne Duncan, the nation’s education secretary - have attended private schools with small class sizes. Others, like New York’s mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg, and its former schools chancellor Joel I. Klein have sent their children to private schools with small class sizes. Imagine if the poorest public school children had the same opportunity. That is what has been happening for several years in this urban district of 130,000 students. Using state money and federal stimulus dollars, San Diego has held class size to 17 in kindergarten through second grade at its 30 poorest schools. ‘Small class size is the most important priority for us,’ said Richard Barrera, the school board president. ‘These children are behind when they enter kindergarten. If they’re on grade level by third grade, most will be fine.’ Mr. Barrera believes that the rise in the district’s state test scores - to 56 percent proficient in English from 45 percent three years ago - is due, in part, to smaller classes. However, in San Diego, 17 could soon become 30. Federal stimulus money has been spent. California’s governor and Legislature, after several years of budget cuts, are deadlocked over whether to cut again. All around the state, districts have developed worst-case budget plans…”

Some schools will serve free meals to all, thanks to new federal program, By Monica Eng and Tara Malone, June 20, 2011, Chicago Tribune: “Any school in Illinois where at least 40 percent of students are needy will be able to serve free meals to all children, regardless of family income, starting this fall as part of a pilot program offered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Across Illinois, 125 districts have at least one school that is eligible, and the program could affect up to 1,235 schools in all, according to preliminary numbers from the Illinois State Board of Education. Districts can decide whether to participate on a school-by-school basis. In Chicago, home to the state’s largest district, the vast majority of schools would qualify for the universal free meals. But officials said Monday that they haven’t determined if they will participate, saying they don’t yet know how the program would affect the bottom line in a district with a $712 million deficit…”

Many needy California schoolchildren not taking part in subsidized summer meal programs, By Alexandra Zavis, June 16, 2011, Los Angeles Times: “Fewer than 1 in 5 of the children who relied on free or reduced-price lunches during the 2009-2010 school year in California received subsidized meals last July, according to a new report. That represents a 15% drop in participation in summer meals programs from the year before at a time when enrollment in other federal nutrition programs is increasing because of the lingering effects of the recession. The report by California Food Policy Advocates blamed cuts to the state’s education budget, which caused many school districts to eliminate summer learning and enrichment programs. That reduced the places where needy students received breakfasts, lunches and snacks during the summer months…”

Rich schools, poor schools: N.C.’s gap may be growing, By Jane Stancill, June 20, 2011, Charlotte Observer: “North Carolina’s 1.5 million public school children depend on the state to pay the majority of their educational costs, but that long-held tradition may be changing. What started as the state’s promise during the Great Depression has eroded during the Great Recession. Lawmakers, facing gaping state budget shortfalls in the past two years, began to force cuts onto local school districts. That so-called discretionary reduction was $225 million two years ago and $305 million last year, both actions taken by a Democratic-led legislature. Now the state’s budget reduction has grown to $429 million for public schools and charter schools - with the Republican-led legislature cutting another $124 million. The cuts were contained in the budget that passed last week after a lengthy political fight over education spending with Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue. The GOP-controlled legislature overrode the governor’s veto, and the $19.7 billion budget plan became law…”

Utah: ‘Not even close’ to closing the poverty gap, By Sara Lenz, June 17, 2011, Deseret News: “April Hadley remembers the day she took her oldest daughter Amelia, now 8, to kindergarten at Club Heights Elementary. Her daughter’s teacher commented that it was nice to have a student who came from a two-parent home in her class. ‘It broke my heart,’ Hadley recalled. Over the last few years, the parent of four has questioned her decision to send her children to a school with that dynamic. Eighty percent of the students there qualify for free or reduced lunch, a measure of poverty, and about one in four students at Club Heights is considered a limited English speaker. Many of Hadley’s neighbors have chosen to send their kids to a charter school or another public school. The reason - high poverty schools with a high minority population often don’t perform as well as low poverty schools, and Utah schools are no exception…”

Education Secretary may agree to waivers on ‘No Child’ law requirements, By Sam Dillon, June 12, 2011, New York Times: “Unless Congress acts by this fall to overhaul No Child Left Behind, the main federal law on public education, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan signaled that he would use his executive authority to free states from the law’s centerpiece requirement that all students be proficient in reading and math by 2014. The Obama administration has been facing a mounting clamor from state school officials to waive substantial parts of the law, which President Bush signed in 2002, especially its requirement that states bring 100 percent of students to proficiency in reading and math by 2014 or else face sanctions. In March, Mr. Duncan predicted that the law would classify 80,000 of the nation’s 100,000 public schools as failing this fall unless it was amended. But his efforts to address the problem have gained little traction on Capitol Hill, where several attempts since 2007 to rewrite the sprawling school accountability law have failed…”

Federal program helps feed low-income children during summer, By Kim Archer, June 2, 2011, Tulsa World: “Children in the Tulsa area don’t need to go hungry just because school’s out for the summer. A little-known federal program to ensure that low-income children get proper nutrition during summer months will kick off at Tulsa-area schools, churches and community centers next week. ‘Just because the lunch lady isn’t there to make sure you eat, it doesn’t mean you have to go hungry,’ said Corbin Anderson, spokesman for Tulsa Public Schools’ Summer Café. The Summer Food Service program was created as part of a larger pilot project in 1968, becoming separate in 1975. The U.S. Department of Agriculture funds the program, and in Oklahoma, the state Department of Education manages it…”

• Improved tax collections can’t keep pace with states’ fiscal needs, survey finds, By Michael Cooper, June 2, 2011, New York Times: “Half the states plan to cut spending on higher education, and nearly a third plan cuts to elementary and high schools. Public assistance and transportation face cuts. Eighteen states have proposed slashing aid to struggling cities and local governments. Some states will raise taxes or fees. Others plan to lay off workers, or cut their salaries or benefits. Although state tax collections are picking up after several brutal years, a new survey by the National Governors Association and the National Association of State Budget Officers found that states still expect to collect less tax revenue and spend less money in the coming fiscal year than they did before the Great Recession began. At the same time the cost of Medicaid, the biggest single portion of state spending, has been rising, driven up by higher enrollment as many people have lost their jobs and their health insurance…”
• Education, social services are big losers in state budget, By Ray Long and Monique Garcia, May 31, 2011, Chicago Tribune: “Education and social services are the losers under a state budget lawmakers put the finishing touches on Tuesday. The $33.2 billion spending plan is about $2 billion less than what Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn wanted. Spending less was on the minds of many lawmakers after they approved a 67 percent increase in the income tax rate in January that was billed as mostly temporary…”

‘Perfect storm’ ahead for summer youth programs, By Mary Ann Zehr, May 30, 2011, San Antonio Express-News: “With widespread cutbacks around the country in public funding for both summer school and summer-jobs programs, youths in some cities, such as Los Angeles and Washington, may have plenty of time on their hands in the coming months. Many jobs programs for young people are facing a funding cliff now that federal stimulus money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 has run out. School districts face their own funding cliff with the phasing out of stimulus funds channeled to them through Title I of the No Child Left Behind Act. In addition, the slashing of state budgets has affected both jobs programs and districts’ summer school offerings…”

• N.J. high court’s Abbott ruling means other school districts will still be short funding, By Jeanette Rundquist and Jessica Calefati, May 25, 2011, Star-Ledger: “Tuesday’s Supreme Court ruling means the state’s 31 poorest districts get to share $500 million in additional state aid.  But it also means some 550 districts will go without. ’Once again, districts like Woodbridge and Piscataway have been left out in the cold,’ said John Crowe, the superintendent in Woodbridge. He said it is ‘disheartening to think a student who is born into poverty in Woodbridge somehow requires less assistance than a student born into poverty in another district.’ Crowe, along with other suburban superintendents, said Tuesday’s ruling short-changed their district despite the fact they, too, may educate at-risk children…”
• Tracing the history of rulings on school funding in poor N.J. cities, By Jeanette Rundquist, May 25, 2011, Star-Ledger: “In 1875, in an effort to get control of a patchwork public school system, the New Jersey state Legislature amended New Jersey’s constitution and made it the state’s responsibility to provide a ‘thorough and efficient system of free public schools.’ For more than 100 years since, the state’s courts and elected officials have wrestled with those eight words.  The participants and dollar amounts have changed over the years, but the issue has largely been the same: how to give children in New Jersey’s poorest cities the same level of education as those in its wealthiest communities.  The state Supreme Court took another stab at the issue Tuesday, ordering the state to increase school funding to poor districts by $500 million. Here is a look back at decisions leading up to Tuesday…”
• N.J. high court orders more school funding, By Rita Giordano, May 25, 2011, Philadelphia Inquirer: “New Jersey’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the state to come up with $500 million more to aid certain poor and largely urban school districts next year, finding that the state did not enforce its own law or live up to promises made to the court. However, the justices, in their highly anticipated decision, declined to restore the full amount of the state’s aid shortfall - about $1.6 billion - that could have benefited many districts, including others with low-income children. The strongly worded, 3-2 ruling requires the additional funds for only the 31 former Abbott districts, which through more than two decades of corrective court orders had come to receive a large share of state aid. They still do, but the state funding formula, enacted under Gov. Jon S. Corzine, sought to spread money more evenly to other districts with poor children…”

Indiana lawmakers OK broadest voucher plan in U.S., By Deanna Martin (AP), Indianapolis Star: “Indiana will create the nation’s broadest private school voucher system and enact other sweeping education changes, making the state a showcase of conservative ideas just as Gov. Mitch Daniels nears an announcement on a 2012 presidential run. The Republican-controlled state legislature handed Daniels a huge victory today when the GOP-led House voted 55-43 to give final approval to a bill creating the controversial voucher program. It would allow even middle-class families to use taxpayer money to send their children to private schools. Unlike other systems that are limited to lower-income households, children with special needs or those in failing schools, Indiana’s voucher program will be open to a much larger pool of students, including those already in excellent schools. Families would have to meet certain income limits to qualify, with families of four making up to about $60,000 a year getting some type of scholarship…”

Homeless, but finding sanctuary at school, By Micael Winerip, May 1, 2011, New York Times: “The bus ride from the homeless shelter to Fern Creek Elementary School was, as usual, raucous. A hundred times, Doretha Brown, the bus driver, had to yell for everyone to sit down. ‘This noise is what holds us up every morning and evening!’ Ms. Brown shouted, although the Collins girls - Brianna, 8; Tamara, 7; and Sydney, 6 - could barely hear her above the din. A first grader and a second grader got into a fight on the 15-minute ride, and someone else threw up. Brianna, Tamara and Sydney paid no mind. As their father, James Collins, says, ‘To get by at a shelter, you have to focus yourself.’ This is the sisters’ second stay at a shelter, so they are becoming accustomed to being homeless. Roxanne Schreffler, a kindergarten teacher, was struck by Sydney’s arrival at Fern Creek in February. ‘She walked into kindergarten in the middle of the day and sat right down,’ Ms. Schreffler said. ‘She’d immediately adapted to her new situation. There was no time integrating her into the class; she was ready to go…’”

• JCPS schools search for success against poverty’s stacked deck, By Chris Kenning, April 23, 2011, Louisville Courier-Journal: “It was just before 7:30 a.m., and youth-resource coordinator Lekiesha Davis was standing by Shawnee High School’s front entrance, exchanging hellos and handing out hugs to the students streaming into the hallway. But her task extended beyond the friendly morning welcome. Davis eyed each child closely for signs of exhaustion, dirty clothes or sullen, depressed glances that might signal a night of sleeplessness, domestic turmoil, or lack of food, electricity or supervision - problems that kids cart around every day in one of Louisville’s poorest neighborhoods, piling on to a lifetime of disadvantages that have already left them years behind their middle-income peers academically…”
• Solutions to high-poverty schools may lie outside the classroom, By Chris Kenning, April 23, 2011, Louisville Courier-Journal: “The solution to achieving success in America’s high-poverty schools must reach beyond the classroom, most educators say. That’s why several urban districts have turned their focus to finding their students social support -such as counseling, nutrition and after-school care -to help turn around their failing high-poverty schools. So far, however, many of those efforts have resulted in mix results - with no clear formula for lasting success, experts say…”
• Cincinnati’s Oyler Elementary finds winning formula to fight poverty, By Chris Kenning, April 23, 2011, Louisville Courier-Journal: “In the late 1990s, many of Cincinnati’s urban public schools were sliding into decline: Enrollments had shrunk, poverty had risen, achievement had fallen and voters were rejecting higher tax levies. Perhaps nowhere was that decline felt more than Oyler Elementary, tucked into Lower Price Hill, a poverty-stricken industrial neighborhood along the Ohio River built in the 1800s as factory housing by German immigrants. More than 80 percent of Oyler’s students never made it to tenth grade. It’s parents weren’t involved, and resources were scarce…”

Student homelessness tests families, schools, By Lisa Pemberton, April 3, 2011, Tacoma News Tribune: “Last fall, Desiree Lee of Lacey held a huge yard sale, packed family photos and other keepsakes into a storage unit and checked into an emergency shelter with her husband, David, and four children, ages 11, 8, 5 and 1. The couple couldn’t find work, and her parents had been helping them with bills. But then her mother died last summer, and Lee’s dad could no longer afford to help pay their rent. They walked away from a home that they had lived in for four years. For six weeks, the family lived in limbo - sleeping quarters were first-come, first-served; weekly showers were a luxury; and the laundromat wasn’t just a place to wash clothes, it was a warm, dry, safe place to hang out until the shelter opened. Lee, 28, said she slipped into survival mode. Things that would normally be important no longer showed up on her radar. For example, she missed an appointment with school officials about an education plan for one of her children who has a learning disability. And homework? ‘I couldn’t help them with their homework - I didn’t have time,’ Lee said. ‘I was more concerned about getting to the shelter in time and getting dinner…’”

Bennet introduces bill to close loophole in how feds fund high-poverty schools, By Yesenia Robles, April 1, 2011, Denver Post: “In an attempt to close funding disparities between high- and low-poverty schools, a bill introduced in Washington, D.C., on Thursday would force districts to be more detailed in reporting school-by-school funding, closing a longtime loophole. The bill, introduced by Sens. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., and Thad Cochran, R-Miss., targets districts that collect federal Title I funding for high-poverty schools…”

• 41% of state students eligible for meal subsidies, By Amy Hetzner, March 11, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “About two of every five Wisconsin school children now qualify for federally subsidized meals because of low family incomes, according to data released Thursday by the state’s education agency. The proportion of students who qualify for free and reduced-price lunch has rapidly increased over the past seven years, climbing from 29.5% in the 2003-’04 school year to 41.4% this school year. The rising number of children who meet the standard for subsidized meals reflects increasing economic hardships among Wisconsin families as well as a push among schools to have qualifying students registered for the lunch program, which often is used to calculate government grants. In a news release announcing the new figures, the Department of Public Instruction noted that 95 of the state’s 424 school districts now have at least half their students receiving subsidized lunches. Milwaukee Public Schools had the second highest percentage of students in the state qualifying for free and reduced-price lunch at 82.6% in the 2010-’11 school year. The Lac du Flambeau School District had 90.3% of its students qualify for subsidized meals…”
• Number of Green Bay students living in poverty rises, By Patti Zarling, March 10, 2011, Green Bay Press Gazette: “More than half the schoolchildren in the Green Bay School District qualify for free or reduced-price meals - an indicator of poverty - and that number is growing. Figures released Thursday by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction show 56.5 percent of Green Bay students qualify for the special meal prices this school year, up from 52.9 percent for the 2009-10 school year…”

• When test scores seem too good to believe, By Greg Toppo, Denise Amos, Jack Gillum and Jodi Upton, March 6, 2011, USA Today: “Scott Mueller seemed to have an uncanny sense about what his students should study to prepare for upcoming state skills tests. By 2010, the teacher had spent his 16-year career entirely at Charles Seipelt Elementary School. Like other Seipelt teachers, Mueller regularly wrote study guides for his classes ahead of state tests. On test day last April, several fifth-graders immediately recognized some of the questions on their math tests. The questions were the same as those on the study guide Mueller had given out the day before. Some numbers on the actual tests were identical to those in the study guide and the questions were in the same order, the kids told other Seipelt teachers. The report of possible cheating quickly reached district officials, who put Mueller on paid leave. He initially denied any wrongdoing. Ultimately, investigators concluded that Mueller had looked at questions for both fifth-grade math and science tests in advance - a violation of testing rules - and then copied them, sometimes word for word, into a school computer to develop his study guides…”
• When test scores don’t add up: 32 metro Detroit schools show improvements too good to be true, By Peggy Walsh-Sarnecki, Chastity Pratt Dawsey and Kristi Tanner-White, March 6, 2011, Detroit Free Press: “Each year, millions of children in Michigan and across the nation take state standardized tests that impact everything from a school’s reputation to how teachers will be evaluated to whether schools will even survive. The pressures to perform, experts say, tempt some school administrators and teachers to cheat. The Free Press, as part of a nationwide investigation with USA TODAY and other partners, analyzed millions of test score results and found that 34 schools across Michigan — 32 of them in metro Detroit — showed test score gains over a one-year period that experts say are statistically improbable. More broadly, the analysis found 304 schools in six states and the District of Columbia that had test scores so improbable, they should be investigated. Besides Michigan, the states were Arizona, Colorado, California, Florida and Ohio…”

• Nebraska schools: More minority students, more meeting poverty standard, By Margaret Reist and Mark Andersen, March 6, 2011, Lincoln Journal Star: “Linda Baumert, who has taught first-graders in Schuyler Community Schools for 27 years, was there when the first hints of change squeezed into a desk in her classroom. The first Hispanic student in the district walked into Baumert’s room in the mid 1980s during her first few years of teaching, a harbinger of things to come. Drawn by a meatpacking plant 4½ miles west of town, the district’s Hispanic population grew slowly until about 10 years ago, when a trickle became a torrent. From 2005 to 2010, the district’s Hispanic population grew 533 percent, from 201 students to 1,272. Today, 89 percent of the K-3 elementary school is Hispanic, 68 percent of the high school. For reasons that go beyond race, 73 percent of Schuyler’s students are enrolled in the federal free and reduced-price lunch program. Free and reduced-price meal counts are the commonly accepted method for determining poverty in public schools across the country, Nebraska Department of Education spokesman Betty Vandeventer said. Schuyler is an extreme example of two long-term trends in Nebraska’s public schools: increasing diversity and a growing number of students who meet the districts’ poverty standard…”
• LPS student trends mirror those statewide, By Margaret Reist, March 6, 2011, Lincoln Journal Star: “Lincoln Public Schools mirrors two statewide student enrollment trends over the past 15 years: more minority students and more students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunches. This school year, the percentage of K-12 students qualifying for the lunch program — a schools standard for measuring poverty — hit 43 percent, surpassing 40 percent for the first time, according to LPS statistics. In elementary grades, nearly 46 percent of students today meet the poverty standard. Those percentages are even higher when students attending LPS’s federally funded preschools are included. Last year, according to the Nebraska Department of Education, 42 percent of all LPS students from pre-K to 12th grade met the poverty standard…”

City eyes new tactic for failing schools: The turnaround, By Fernanda Santos, March 8, 2011, New York Times: “The Bloomberg administration’s signature strategy for low-performing schools has been to shut them down, a drastic move that often incites anger and protests from teachers, parents and neighborhood officials. Since the beginning of the mayor’s first term, more than 110 schools have been shuttered or are in the process of closing. The administration is now thinking of testing another approach at two schools in the Bronx: replacing the principals and at least half of the teachers, but keeping the schools and all of their programs running - a strategy known as a turnaround. The plan would bring together unlikely partners: the New York City Department of Education, the teachers’ union and the founder of a charter school network who is best known for turning around one of the toughest high schools in Los Angeles. There are benefits and risks for each side. The city would be departing from its philosophy of closing large schools and opening smaller ones in their space. But it could cause less political blowback…”

Tight budgets mean squeeze in classrooms, By Sam Roberts, March 6, 2011, New York Times: “Millions of public school students across the nation are seeing their class sizes swell because of budget cuts and teacher layoffs, undermining a decades-long push by parents, administrators and policy makers to shrink class sizes. Over the past two years, California, Georgia, Nevada, Ohio, Utah and Wisconsin have loosened legal restrictions on class size. And Idaho and Texas are debating whether to fit more students in classrooms. Los Angeles has increased the average size of its ninth-grade English and math classes to 34 from 20. Eleventh- and 12th-grade classes in those two subjects have risen, on average, to 43 students. ‘Because many states are facing serious budget gaps, we’ll see more increases this fall,’ said Marguerite Roza, a University of Washington professor who has studied the recession’s impact on schools. The increases are reversing a trend toward smaller classes that stretches back decades. Since the 1980s, teachers and many other educators have embraced research finding that smaller classes foster higher achievement…”