Schools: News and Commentary: EdWatch

Common Good's EdWatch is a collection of recent news and commentary illustrating how laws, rules, and regulations are affecting public education.

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Students Who Turn Violent Are Core of Issaquah Labor Dispute
Lynn Thompson, Seattle Times, April 19, 2008

In 2006, a 13-year-old autistic boy in Seattle assaulted his teacher and two assistant teachers. This story is now the heart of a dispute between “educational assistants, who want to retain contract language that lets them opt out of working with students whose behavior poses a safety threat, and the district, which argues that aides and teachers can't choose whom they'll work with.” Chris Svensson, an educational assistant in Issaquah said, “We're seeing more students with serious behavioral issues. The numbers just keep going up." Though few autistic children are overly violent or aggressive, “they and other children with behavior disorders present a serious challenge for the schools that must educate them.” Jill Nichols-Hicks, one of the assaulted aides is herself a mother of two autistic children and she openly admits that, for the small number of autistic students who behave dangerously, "We need help." » article

Discipline Data Report Shows Rise in Disorderly Conduct in Schools
Jennifer Von Reuter, Your4State.com, April 15, 2008

Washington County Public Schools recently released discipline data, revealing a rise in disorderly conduct in elementary, middle and high schools. Office referrals have increased dramatically for incidents involving “classroom disruptions, tardiness, and refusal to obey the school,” and in middle schools, referrals for being disrespectful “almost tripled.”  Not surprisingly, a higher level of tolerance for minor incidents of misbehavior has led to more suspensions in those categories, while “suspensions for fighting and physical attacks dropped.” » article 

DPS Board Reviews New Incentive Plan
Nancy Mitchell, Rocky Mountain News, April 15, 2008

In an effort to grant autonomy to principals in Denver public schools, the school board is reviewing a new incentive system that would “reward schools performing well with more freedom in budgeting, hiring and instructional choice.”  Brad Jupp, DPS senior academic policy adviser, said, “As schools begin to improve, we want to be able to release them.” This new system, along with others in the new “School Performance Framework” will be offered to schools based on whether or not students progress on their exams. Schools who perform below par will endure more regulations, not less. The ultimate goal, however, is for “schools [to] set their own goals and work with DPS leaders to vary implementation of district curriculum.” » article

Expelled, But Not Out
Steve Marcus, Las Vegas Sun, April 14, 2008

In Las Vegas, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find the appropriate setting for expelled students, and there is no real opportunity for behavior reform. Instead, students are shipped—along with their behavior problems—from school to school, like “depot stations, with students arriving and departing on a regular basis.” Because “scant data” exists about the students being shuffled back and forth, the district cannot improve upon its practices. Due to limited space, many new students are denied entrance, and “principals are expected to handle the minor offenders themselves.” This overflow requires the district to “modify a student’s punishment to something less severe than formal expulsion.” Edward Goldman, Clark County School District associate superintendent of education services, said, “You have to use discretion…Every case, every kid, is different. They are entitled to a hearing, and we look at their academic and disciplinary history. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be due process.” And because the nine-week period for expulsion begins at the time of the infraction rather than the expulsion, “If a school administrator lags in submitting the required paperwork, a student may end up spending two weeks at home and seven weeks in the behavior program.” » article

Attack Highlights “Chronic Problem”
Sara Neufeld and James Drew, Baltimore Sun, April 13, 2008

When a Baltimore student  was caught beating her teacher on video, the reality of school violence in the district became impossible to ignore: “This academic year, school police have made about 50 arrests for staff assaults, and the system has expelled students 112 times for assaulting staff members.”  Where is this coming from?  One possible explanation is the limited amount of space available for disruptive students “who are suspended for an act of violence [and] are often sent back to the same school.”  There is also a culture of fear, in which incidents of violence go unreported so that the school can avoid the label “persistently dangerous” under No Child Left Behind standards.   Former Baltimore Public School teacher, Julia Gumminger, writes in an opinion piece for the Baltimore Sun: “A small percentage of our schools' children are persistently disruptive and violent. These few children are being given permission to run amok, and then the larger percentage of the school's population follows suit and joins in the melee.”  Because of this, teachers are “being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder [and]…turning to alcohol, all because of the shell-shocked sense of hopelessness and helplessness being experienced in a chaotic environment that has been described by many as a ‘war zone.’" » article

Related: The High Cost of School Violence

Lawsuit Filed Over Suspension for “Shocking” Camera
Newsday.com, April 10, 2008

A student in New Haven, Connecticut has filed a lawsuit against the school district, challenging his 10-day suspension for manipulating a camera and “zapping people with an electrical charge.”  Though this highly dangerous mechanism justifiably warrants a mere 10 days out of school, one of the unintended consequences of limitless student rights is the ability for students to dispute even the most reasonable of disciplinary responses. » article

Tory Pledge to Restore School Discipline
EPolitix.com, April 7, 2008

Conservative Party leader David Cameron is aiming to “end the right of parents to appeal to an external panel if their child is excluded” from British classrooms.  He is also proposing to stop fining schools who expel their students, a punishment which surely deters schools from making their own discipline decisions. The hope is that these changes will "help put the teacher back in charge of the classroom.”  Cameron said, "I think we do need a restoration of common-sense…Teachers shouldn't have to be looking over their shoulder at the threat of legal challenge when they are taking the steps necessary in order to ensure that their schools are environments where the majority of pupils can learn." » article

Related: Conservatives Outline Plans to Combat Poor School Discipline

Superintendents Oppose School Discipline Proposals
Mike Hasten, Shreveport Times (LA), April 4, 2008

Louisiana school superintendents widely opposed a bill which would give the state the power to control discipline in all school districts. Right now, “each school system set[s] its own policy and enforce[s] it,” which “works well” according to the superintendents. The problem with trying to standardize discipline statewide lies in the many different interpretations of a particular policy, and “Superintendents say they need some leeway and should be able to decide what's best for all students,” rather than applying a one size fits all rule to every school in the state. Superintendent Jones also said that if the bill is upheld, "it will increase litigation and increase the paperwork load," side effects that would severely limit the bill’s opportunity for success. » article

For Little Children, Grown-Up Labels as Sexual Harassers
Brigid Schulte, Washington Post, April 3, 2008

When 6-year-old Randy Castro was caught spanking his fellow classmate, his school notified the police and wrote him up for "’Sexual Touching Against Student, Offensive,’ which will remain on his student record permanently.”   Such cases are proving to be quite common. In Virginia, 255 elementary students were suspended last year for offensive sexual touching. In Maryland, “166 elementary school children were suspended last year for sexual harassment, including three preschoolers, 16 kindergartners and 22 first-graders…” These irrational reactions are, in part, due to confusion about district regulations and, in part, to a fear of legal retaliation from parents, although the “victim’s” mother seems to think that the entire incident was blown out of proportion.  Mary Kay Sommers, president of the National Association of Elementary School Principals, said, "We need to make sure that we follow the letter of the law, so being reasonable sometimes gets lost.” » article

Related: It's Come to This: Calling the Police on a Playful 6-Year-Old

Voices: Excessive Force in Our Schools
Diana Silva, New York Metro, April 3, 2008

A parent whose child was arrested for scribbling on a desk is asking for a wake-up call when it comes to school discipline. The school felt that punishment for such an offense was no longer within their power, so “Procedure prevailed over common sense.” Rather than go directly to the police, the parent proposes, “We need a major overhaul of school discipline practices. Our elected leaders must act to stop the criminalizing of city classrooms. The roles of educators and police in dealing with disciplinary incidents must be clearly defined. Educators should have authority over school discipline.” » article

Washington, D.C. Schools Chief Faces Tough Choices
John Merrow, PBS NewsHour, April 2, 2008

John Merrow recently interviewed D.C. Schools Chief Michelle Rhee, who was as forthright as ever about her intentions for the future of D.C. schools. Merrow pointed out the extreme difficulty in firing “ineffective teachers.” Currently, “a [D.C.] principal cannot simply fire a teacher for being ineffective. He must first implement what's called the "90-day plan," in which teachers are offered help and 90 days to show improvement.” Yet, “Last year, only 18 teachers out of more than 4,000 were placed on the plan,” only one of whom was actually fired. One principal in the interview cited “excessive paperwork and difficult deadlines” as barriers to firing incompetent teachers. Therefore, the district and the union are seeking other ways to rid schools of ineffective teachers, such as the “buyout” option, in which teachers could be offered “as much as $25,000” to leave their post within system.  » article

District Leader Proposes Meeting to Avert Lauderdale Lakes School Lawsuit
Juan Ortega and Akilah Johnson, South Florida Sun-Sentinal, March 28, 2008

The Superintendent of Lauderdale Lakes, Florida school district, James Notter, spoke of the need for discourse, rather than a lawsuit over unequal funding.  His hope is to “improve the city's only public high school instead of spending thousands of dollars fighting the city in court.”  Superintendent Notter said, "What I don't understand is why don't we sit down and find out where this breakdown occurred…It's like with any type of relationship, do you go right to the lawyer for the divorce?"  Not only would the school district suffer from a lawsuit, but taxpayers would surely be angry to learn that their money was used in legal proceedings without any attempt at discussion. » article

Classroom Incident Probed
Melissa Pamer, Pasadena Star-News (CA), March 28, 2008

After students complained that their substitute teacher “assaulted” someone in the class, administrators took immediate action.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t until the teacher was removed and the police investigated that the truth was revealed: “The teacher used the tip of her finger and patted (the student) on the forehead.’”  South Pasadena Unified School District Superintendent, Brian Bristol, defended the school’s actions, although he refused to “confirm details about the alleged forehead-tapping.”  It is clear now that this premature response was based entirely on the fear of legal action, as the district is now “consulting with its legal counsel as to how to proceed.” » article

Joel Fights Change in Tenure Law
Fredric U. Dicker and Yoav Gonan, New York Post, March 27, 2008

Chancellor Klein is hoping to incorporate student test scores into the equation for determining teacher tenure in New York City. Klein said, "Legislation that tries to tie our hands...is anti-student and anti-parent.... Before you make a lifetime commitment to someone, you should make a thorough...review."  While UFT president Randi Weingarten disagrees with the measure, “the city Ed. Department wants to reform the tenure process because only 1 percent of teachers are denied after their third year.” » article

Assaults among DPS Kids Decline
Karen Bouffard, Detroit News, March 26, 2008

Detroit parents are taking an active role in responsibility for school discipline, and the results are quite impressive: “attacks on other students declined from 1,186 during the first half of the 2005-06 school year, to 864 during first semester this year.”  In a “new era of community policing,” parents “patrol hallways and major walking routes to schools wearing bright yellow jackets,” and while they “are not allowed to get directly involved in altercations…just their presence can be enough to deter trouble.”  This shows that when parents work hand in hand with the police department to provide resources to students, parents, and the community, the school climate can be dramatically improved. » article

Clashing Rules Block School Aid, GAO Finds
Maria Glod, Washington Post, March 26, 2008

A newfound loophole in No Child Left Behind is the problem of “conflicting requirements,” which are “prevent[ing] states from using” NCLB money “in schools with the most serious problems.” Though states are supposed to “devote 4 percent of the largest pot of federal education funding…to efforts to turn around high-poverty, low-performing schools,” “another overriding rule prevents states from using the full amount in schools with the most serious problems if that means cutting funding from other school systems.” These conflicting rules are just another example of regulations gone awry, resulting in unintended, yet severely negative consequences. » article

Retired Principal Weighs in on Classroom Behavior
Katherine Johnson, Savannah Morning News (GA), March 25, 2008

Voicing her concerns about school discipline issues, former principal Katherine Johnson said, “Students who do not comply with classroom rules and interfere with…the learning of others are a cause of stress and frustration.”  Though there exists a “barrage of inappropriate behaviors that can devastate the learning environment,“ teachers are afraid to report the behaviors for fear of being judged “incompetent” by their administration. In addition, “educators have limited options when working with chronically disruptive students,” because in school suspension programs tend to be ill-equipped due to poor funding and a lack of staff.  So Johnson suggests more support for these programs, while incorporating counseling, tutoring and mentoring. » article

Paperwork Making it Hard for Special Ed Teachers
Robin Beal, KXII News (TX and OK), March 24, 2008

In Oklahoma, “Special education teachers now have more students and more paperwork for each student than ever before,” and, as a result, “some special education teachers are opting for early retirement.” It is very typical for a special education teacher to spend time doing “hours of paperwork” after a full work day, “a job that many say is hard enough already, but it is getting even more challenging because of what so many are having to do at home.” One teacher says that she spends “three to four hours on each Individualized Education Plan…minimum and that’s the short ones,” and “every few years there seem to be more guidelines for her and her colleagues, more rules, and more red tape.” Sadly, the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education reports that, “Roughly a decade ago, there were more than 200 newly degreed Special Education teachers in Oklahoma. Two years ago, there were fewer than half those numbers entering the field.” » article

Spending on Hawaii Schools Outstrips Results
Loren Moreno, Honolulu Advertiser, March 23, 2008

Though money is flowing into Hawaii schools, little has improved in the state’s education system. State Senate Minority Leader Fred Hemmings called the Hawaii Department of Education a "bloated and inefficient bureaucracy." But the department claims that they have to spend most of what they receive.  Particularly expensive are the special education program costs, which have “increased dramatically,” by “more than $400 million since 1994 when the state settled a lawsuit.” This is not surprising, as “special education spending makes up $523 million — 25 percent — of DOE's budget.” Though principals were recently given “the flexibility to spend school-level money,” they still do not receive “enough money and are often forced to cut positions.” » article

Children ‘Over-indulgence’ Slammed
Press Association (UK), March 22, 2008

A great many students are showing up to school, “tired and badly behaved because they are over-indulged at home…Parents who struggle to cope resort to spoiling their youngsters to keep them quiet while teachers offer rewards to encourage pupils to pay attention in class.” A study from Cambridge University revealed that “poor standards of behaviour was one of the biggest causes of stress and extra work for school staff.” Not surprisingly, there has been a “‘noticeable change in the climate of schooling’ over the past six years.” The inability for parents to appropriately discipline their students “spills over into schools, making it more difficult for teachers to cope with youngsters.” The Cambridge study also noted that “even in the early years of primary education,” students have become “reluctant to follow instructions and that a minority could be extremely confrontational, used foul language and could even be physically aggressive.” Though some schools offered rewards for behavior, such as “snacks" or “a day off school,” the study found that “Motivation to listen carefully and courteously to the teacher or one's fellow pupils rests on a desire to win a free can of cola rather than from a growing understanding among class members of their interdependence as human beings.” » article

Principals May Gain Option To Jettison Bureaucrats
Elizabeth Green, New York Sun, March 20, 2008

In an effort to give authority back to schools, “high-performing principals could essentially opt out of the bureaucratic system, saving them thousands of dollars and putting pressure on central administration to downsize, under an idea being considered by the city Department of Education.”  Principals would have the option of “buy[ing] a scaled-down set of [school] services — relying much less on central bureaucrats.” Even better news is that “if scaled up, the idea could lead to a radical downsizing of the role of central administration bureaucrats in a school's daily life — and could also slim down taxpayer budgets.” » article

The New Golden Rule
Zosia Bielski, The National Post (Canada), March 20, 2008

A Canadian parent “sued his son's Grade 2 Montessori teacher, claiming that she ‘purposely and maliciously worked to damage the self-esteem’ of his son over such things as failing to encourage the child's spelling, not sending home a daily homework list and, in one case, displaying an unfinished poem in the school hallway.” Interestingly, it is often the rules and regulations which put pressure on teachers to display student work despite flaws. This “growing trend of parents who, unhappy with their children's education, take their complaints to court” is “a sign of the extended reach of parental meddling.” Walter Olson, a litigation expert and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, said that “the new breed of litigation-happy parents are stigmatizing the teaching industry, and spoiling kids in the process…You send a terrible signal to people who are teaching that we no longer trust your judgment.”  Similarly, David Anderegg, author and professor at Bennington College in Vermont, said, “I think it speaks to parents' tremendous misplaced anxiety that they need to protect their children from adversity of any kind…A little bit of adversity which is overcome is a good thing, rather than having a childhood where you never experience any adversity of any kind." » article

Lawsuit Costs are Hurting Public Schools
John Merchant, Napa Valley Register (CA), March 19, 2008

According to a report released by the Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse, three California school districts have spent “more than $32 million on verdicts, settlements and outside counsel to defend themselves against lawsuits. With more than 1,000 school districts in the state, it’s clear that a full accounting of costs statewide would be astounding.” Because “schools are the ones that suffer when money is spent for legal purposes,” lawsuits have a hugely negative impact not only on educators, but on students as well. “One district “was ordered to pay at least $95,000 in lawyers’ fees under the settlement reached with the families, in addition to paying for its own attorneys.” John Merchant, the chairman of California Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse, asserts that “lawsuits are taking an enormous toll on our education system. Districts’ budgets already fall woefully short of the needs of our children and teachers; we cannot afford to let litigation drain our schools of any more much-needed resources. Our children deserve better. We must demand reform so that our education dollars go to classrooms, not courtrooms.” » article

ACLU Sues School over Poor Graduation Rate
Don Jordan and Christina DeNardo, Palm Beach Post (FL), March 19, 2008

Claiming that the district is “violating students' rights to a high-quality education as outlined in the state constitution,” the ACLU is bringing a suit against the Palm Beach County on behalf of about a dozen Palm Beach County students and their parents. The ACLU alleges that the District is “not providing a uniform, efficient, safe, secure and high-quality education” to its students, as evidenced by the District’s low graduation rate and seeks, among other demands, “An injunction and order mandating and requiring the Defendants to improve the overall graduation rate in the Palm Beach County School District.”  This is yet another example of a “totally misdirected” and “misguided” lawsuit, as school board Chairman Bill Graham labeled it, that unnecessarily involves the courts in education. Though the issue of graduation rates has “never before [been] challenged in the courts,” Chris Hansen, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU, said that the county should view the suit as a “positive instead of a negative” and claims that this will “help focus attention and resources," yet his ideas seem illogical given the “attention and resources” that are more than often stripped from the classroom to respond to such lawsuits.  » article

Bad Pupils to Be Kicked out of Public School
Paul Lampathakis, Sunday Times (Australia), March 15, 2008

Education Minister Mark McGowan of West Australia is looking to make a “drastic cut in the ‘mountains of paperwork' and red tape that surround expulsions.” His hope is to “stop students who have been expelled from shifting to other mainstream schools, where they can continue causing chaos.” McGowan’s plan also includes reforming the current requirement of principals “to provide 12 pieces of documentation to an exclusion panel in order to get rid of a bad student” so that it is “streamlined and simplified.” McGowan said, “Teachers, like other public officers, must be able to do their jobs without the threat of violence or abuse,” and if “expulsion [is] the appropriate form of punishment, then a school should not be frightened to do so because it improve[s] the school environment for everyone else.” » article

Student Suing After Being Awakened by Teacher
Paul Lampathakis, Associated Press, March 13, 2008

In one of the strangest lawsuits of our time, the school district in Danbury, Connecticut is “being sued by a student who was awakened in class by a teacher who made a loud noise.” Once again, rather than claiming responsibility for their child’s misbehavior, the parents claim that their son “suffered hearing damage when his teacher woke him up by slamming her hand down on the boy's desk.”  What’s not clear is how much the child’s learning suffered from his sleeping habit, and why the parents feel they can seek retribution for an act of disrespect initiated by their child. » article

Bad Teachers Urged to Cash In
Yoav Gonen, New York Post, March 11, 2008

In an effort to rid New York City of incompetent teachers, the Center for Union Facts is seeking out the “10 worst unionized instructors to receive $10,000 rewards if they agree to step down.” The organization hopes to “expose teacher unions as obstacles to school reform and as shields for incompetent educators.” Because “only 10 of 55,000 tenured teachers were removed for incompetence during the 2006-07 school year,” those outside of the stifling bureaucracy are constantly looking for other ways to improve teaching.  Whether or not this program is successful, it's certainly a clear sign of discontentment over the difficult processes that prohibit bad teachers from being fired. » article

Related: Wanted: A Few Bad Teachers

Lima Suspension: Zero Tolerance, Zero Sense
Editorial, LimaOhio.com, March 9, 2008

After bringing a knife to carve an apple at school, a 17-year old from Lima, Ohio was suspended.  Though it “shouldn’t be too much to ask the district to enforce such rules with common sense,” zero tolerance has once again taken its toll.  Apparently, “the girl threatened no one, but, per the district’s policy, Principal Doug Kent suspended her. The problem with zero tolerance is that “every rule violation is different. Just as a judge has latitude in punishing criminals, school officials ought to look at the factors in each case individually rather than imposing blanket sentences for every infraction. Schools now are teaching students they have only one response to every problem, large or small.” It is clear that in this particular case, “taking the knife and delivering a stern lecture to the girl and her parents would have been enough.” » article

Parents of Suspended Student File Lawsuits against District 70
Gayle Perez, The Pueblo Chieftan (CO), March 7, 2008

Zach Fillmore, a junior at a Colorado high school, was expelled for violently assaulting another student. His parents have since filed a lawsuit claiming that the school district is “obstructing their son's right to an education.” The Fillmores hope “to have the 365-day expulsion set aside and Zach Fillmore be allowed immediately to return to [school]” and “also are seeking to recoup attorney fees and other court costs related to the case.” How about the compensation for Zach’s victim, who “suffered a broken jaw and had several teeth knocked out”?  It seems that if the student was “charged…with third-degree assault,” he should also be punished at school. Instead of contesting Zach’s behavior, however, the Fillmores are much more interested in complaining about the expulsion procedures, claiming that Zach’s “rights under state law have been breached and not protected by the school board.” According to the suit, Zach “suffered and will continue to suffer irreparable harm unless he is returned immediately to school,” an action that would undoubtedly bring a great deal of harm to his victim and the rest of the student body that will see this behavior go unpunished. » article

Kissing at School a Crime?
Jeff Kass, Rocky Mountain News, March 6, 2008

Though “public officials called it ‘nutty’ and ‘foolishness’” and are asking “whether SWAT teams would now descend on teenagers kissing at school,” the Denver district attorney calls [kissing] a crime. Apparently, “[T]he difference between a kiss, and a crime, centers on the requirement that Denver Public Schools employees ‘make a report if child abuse or neglect reasonably is suspected.’” The commonality of threatening legal responses to such minor behavior is causing “a climate of fear among DPS employees, [which] is spurring an unwarranted increase in abuse and neglect referrals.” Councilman Doug Linkhart, who chairs the Safety Committee, said, “It's just getting to the point of ridiculousness where we're prosecuting kids for kissing.” Some believe that the reason the DA “served Skinner Middle School principal Nicole Veltze with a misdemeanor summons for failure to report an unlawful sexual contact,” is because the “police and the district attorney are making an example out of Veltze because they believe DPS is underreporting crimes.” The truth? “In February, Human Services said it received 251 referrals from DPS. Previously, the monthly average was 142, Samuels said. That's a 76.7 percent increase.” » article

Principal Who Pushed Student, Intimidated Teacher Gets to Keep His Job
Erin Einhorn, New York Daily News, March 4, 2008

Anthony Aldorasi, a Queens' middle school principal is able to “keep his job despite city efforts to fire him.” Unfortunately, “as a tenured principal with 26 years in the school system, Aldorasi had a right to appeal.” Though “Aldorasi was found guilty on two counts of intimidation and one count of corporal punishment,” the school system told him that “he could get his job back after paying a $6,000 fine and serving a 10-day suspension without pay.”  The unfair practice of providing long-time, inept educators with permanent job security is the result of tangled school bureaucracy. As Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers, asked, "What prevents this person from being a recidivist?" » article

States Eye Looser Rein on Districts
Linda Jacobson, Education Week, March 4, 2008

A new wave of decentralization is sweeping the nation and will “give school districts greater operating flexibility…as states seek to spur innovation that will help raise student achievement.” J. Alvin Wilbanks, the superintendent of Gwinnett County schools in suburban Atlanta, said, “We’ve been saying all along that we’re in the school business, and we should know best how to provide instruction.”  Unlike “site-based management, a trend in the late 1980s and early 1990s” that was unsuccessful in giving schools “control over education spending,” “states are looking for ways to loosen the regulatory reins and give districts more leeway in making decisions.” According to Donald R. McAdams, the president of the Center for the Reform of School Systems, “You won’t stimulate innovation, and you won’t have much impact, when you’re too prescriptive.” In California, rather than holding “schools accountable for the results of pupil performance,” without giving them “the resources and flexibility to allocate them to achieve those results,” districts have entered into a new partnership “that will free administrators there from some restrictions attached to school funding, with the understanding that they are working on specific priorities.” Michael E. Hanson, the superintendent of the Fresno, California district, said, “If we’re going to go after these [priorities] we’re going to need some relief and flexibility.” » article

ACLU Challenges Unlawful Strip Search Over Ibuprofen Allegation In School
Press Release, ACLU, March 3, 2008

A San Francisco middle school student was “strip searched by school officials” after another student accused her of possessing ibuprofen. Like many school-based issues, strip searching has mistakenly come under the jurisdiction of the courts who “ruled the search constitutional on September 21, 2007,” a decision that “will now be reviewed by the full Ninth Circuit.” Any sensible school official would have stopped searching when nothing was found in the student’s possessions, but the school “maintains a zero-tolerance policy toward all prescription medicines, including prescription-strength ibuprofen.” It’s no surprise, then, that a situation demanding legally-driven nonsensical responses “failed to uncover” the item being searched. Daniel Pochoda, Legal Director of the ACLU of Arizona said, “This type of overreaction on the part of these school officials is simply indefensible…It’s a clear example of how the so-called war on drugs trumps common sense in our schools.” » article

Lawyer Challenges School Expulsion
Amanda Falcone, Record-Journal (CT), February 24, 2008

Attorney Ramiro Alcazar is hoping to block the expulsion of a student arrested for marijuana possession on the way to school, claiming that “expulsion hearings for students arrested in connection with off-campus incidents violate their right to due process.” Though such hearings were invented to protect the rights of students, apparently “students who try to defend themselves during expulsion hearings are at risk of self-incrimination.” Perhaps “student rights” are so drowned in law that they no longer make sense. Because “the definition of due process varies depending on the proceeding,” it seems as though school leaders—who know their students best—should have the authority to make these decisions without court involvement. However, Mr. Alcazar claims that “the district has too much information.” This notion seems slightly backwards, and as Board of Education President Mark Hughes said, “We can't hand [common sense decisions about self-incrimination issues] over to the police department or the courts.” » article

Goin: Schools Need Relief
Patty Miller, The Edmond Sun (OK), February 23, 2008

During Congresswoman Mary Fallin’s tour of the Edmond, Oklahoma school district’s special education program Friday, she learned that the district spent “$15.4 million in 2006-07 for services mandated by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act — more than four times the amount provided by the federal government through the program.”  David Goin, superintendent of Edmond Schools, says that the district is “diligent in fulfilling [their] responsibilities to provide all students with an appropriate education,” but “the costs of providing services required through IDEA are extraordinary, as are the unending paperwork and documentation requirements, and federal regulations related to student behavior and the ever-present threats of litigation that surround IDEA programs.”  » article

Parents of 5-year-old Handcuffed in School Will Sue City for $15M
Carrie Melago, New York Daily News, February 21, 2008

Not surprisingly, the handcuffing of 5-year-old Dennis Rivera has turned into a lawsuit of “$15 million over psychological damage” filed by Dennis’ parents. The parents claim that the boy “suffered wrist injuries as well as psychological and emotional damage when he was cuffed and hauled off to Elmhurst Hospital Center's psych ward following a tantrum,” that, according to the school, involved “knock[ing] items off a desk.” Additionally, “the day before the handcuffing, Dennis punched an assistant principal on the head and broke glass in a door, but his parents deny it.” Perhaps if the parents were not in denial and could do their part in managing their son’s behavior, schools, rather than the courts or the police, would have the power to properly and sensibly discipline misbehaving students. » article

Student’s Father Files Lawsuit Over Suspension
Nancy Mitchell, Newsday.com, February 14, 2008

A father is filing suit in the New York Supreme Court against the Three Village school district, claiming that his son’s suspension “after using abusive language toward a teacher…and allegedly threatening him” is “arbitrary and capricious.”  Though the father claims that there was no “informal conference with the principal,” and that the “initial suspension in October was issued improperly,” Three Village Superintendent Frank Carasiti stated that these rules were, in fact, followed. One would hope that after “four disciplinary incidents in his sophomore and junior years, at least two of which resulted in suspension,” the student’s parents would understand the need for appropriate discipline. However, the father claimed that “the incidents were not significant and that his son earned high grades in school and does volunteer work.” But these virtues can’t undo the damage done to the demoralized teacher and the students witnessing the outburst. » article

Two DPS Schools Gain Freedom in Hiring
Nancy Mitchell, Rocky Mountain News (CO), February 13, 2008

The Denver Classroom Teachers Association and Denver Public Schools have finally reached a “compromise that will grant historic freedoms in hiring, staffing and scheduling for two city schools that sought to break free of union and district rules.” Though the teacher’s union was initially hesitant to grant freedoms from their contract, they have since agreed with Bruce Randolph principal Kristen Waters that granting schools more autonomy is “great for the kids” and “for the teachers.” Some of the new freedoms allowed to the schools include the ability to “post job vacancies and hire at will,” “work on annual contracts, meaning they can be asked to reapply for their jobs every year,” “select their own summer school teachers and deviate from the contract pay rates for summer and evening work,” and “decide their own school calendars.” » article

Lawsuit Challenges State Special Education Hearings
Scott Marshall, North County Times (CA), February 11, 2008

An unhappy San Diego family is attempting to combat special education due process problems with more legal action. Claiming that the “state officials who decide disputes between parents and school districts over special education services are unqualified, inadequately trained and side with districts too often,” the family filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the state department of education. Though many feel that greater legalization will somehow improve California’s over-legalized system, some parents recognize the need for toning down the legality of such processes. Jennifer Ruiz of Team of Advocates for Special Kids believes that “asking for and going through a due process hearing is ‘always really hard’ emotionally and financially on parents.”  In fact, “while a due process hearing is pending, the child has to remain in the same school setting and may continue to fall behind or show other behaviors, leaving a parent feeling ‘helpless,’ Ruiz said.” » article

Managers Help Principals Balance Time
Christina A. Samuels, Education Week, February 11, 2008

A recent study that shadowed principals in their daily routines revealed “a crush of managerial duties allowed them to spend only a third of their day—or less—on tasks that involved interaction with students and teachers.” This realization spawned the idea of hiring “school administration managers” (SAMs) to “take over the managerial tasks that are important to a smooth-running school but have little to do directly with learning.” This way, a principal’s nearly impossible workload is relieved and focus is returned to “being good instructional coaches.” Even discipline problems are “diminished because the students see principals more often.” Mark Shellinger, a former principal and the national SAMs expansion coordinator called a principal’s job “interrupt driven,” because “instead of focusing on one task for an extended period, principals are expected to supervise lunch shifts, manage transportation, deal with parents, dole out discipline, handle budgets, and juggle a number of minor crises that may arise.” Therefore, principals welcome a lighter load. » article

Common Sense: There’s a Difference between Breaking the Law and Making a Mistake
Editorial, Beaver County Times & Allegheny Times (PA), February 6, 2008

A Pennsylvania student who accidentally left a broken pellet gun in his truck may be subject to expulsion under a zero-tolerance law. Unfortunately, many schools no longer have the authority to handle these issues on their own because “reasonable action[s] [are] no longer within the purview of local officials.” Though superintendents “[have] the power to recommend a discipline other than expulsion,” the inability for the school to make its own disciplinary decision over a clear accident is proof that “American society has gotten to the point that kids can’t make a mistake without having the hammer dropped on them. There’s a difference between breaking the law and making a mistake.” » article

Team Effort Needed to Bring Order to Schools
Ronnie Smith, Edinburgh Evening News, February 6, 2008

The General Secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland, Ronnie Smith, is concerned that “indiscipline remains a real concern for teachers in Scottish schools.” One reason for this growing problem is the implementation of “policies of inclusion and the presumption of ‘mainstreaming’ pupils with, for example, behavioural difficulties…” Though many argue for the “rights” of such students, Smith asserts that “teachers have the right to teach and that young people have the right to learn in a safe environment.” Though most “pupil indiscipline takes the form of persistent low level disruption…dealing with this is exhausting for teachers and frustrating for other pupils. The people who lose out most are the other pupils in the class whose rights are ignored and whose learning is inevitably damaged.” Some of Smith’s solutions include supporting teachers and providing “firm yet fair discipline policies…backed up by effective sanctions, including the right to exclude pupils for persistent poor behaviour.” » article

Goff School Bill Offers Flexibility
Jeremy P. Meyer, Denver Post, February 1, 2008

Colorado Senate President Peter Groff introduced a new bill called the "’Innovation Schools Act of 2008,” that would allow schools to cut through loads of red tape. Rather than being mandated to follow “state statutes regarding teacher pay and hiring” and the “laundry list of things that impairs and impinges innovation,” schools would be granted the autonomy to make a number of decisions on their own. While drawing opposition from the teacher’s union, Senator Josh Penry commended Groff’s bill stating: “The idea of giving these schools broad flexibility to get kids to where they need is a fight worth picking." The bill would create ‘innovation zones,’ providing schools freedom over such issues as their budget, hiring decisions, graduation requirements, and length of the school day, while still being held accountable for student achievement through the state’s accountability system. Several schools in Colorado have already attempted to be granted such autonomy in order to be freed from rules and regulations that they believe are “holding them back.” » article

Related: Bill Encourages Schools to Seek Autonomy

U.S. Education Chief Says L.A. Due Aid for Troubled Schools
Will Sentell, Advocate Capitol News Bureau, February 1, 2008

Recent “complaints that [No Child Left Behind] has bogged down teachers in excessive paperwork,” are prompting leaders to ask for more simple procedures under the law. As in most states, Louisiana teachers “already face lots of [paperwork] because some of Louisiana’s accountability rules.”  Louisiana State Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek requested that Margaret Spellings “streamline the process to minimize paperwork for teachers,” so that, “teachers can meet paperwork requirements one time, send it to the state and let state officials direct it to any other stops.” Recognizing the need for change, “Spellings noted that there are lots of federal, state and local paperwork requirements in education,” and she said “Louisiana has a strong education data system, which could help ease federal requirements for teachers.” » article

Social and Emotional Learning: Educating the Whole Child
Jeff Franklin, Southern Illinoisan, January 29, 2008

One way to improve school climate is to teach “social and emotional development or learning (SEL),” which is proven to be “foundational to children's success in school, work, and life.” Not only does this method of teaching “prepare students to learn, but also increases their capacity to learn.” Recently added to Illinois state learning standards are the five SEL competencies of “self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, interpersonal skills and responsible decision-making skills,” all skills that could significantly improve school culture state-wide.  The goal of this program is the “creation of a safe, caring and highly participatory learning environment,” by recognizing that “feelings, thoughts and actions are interrelated.” » article

Bureaucracy's Effect on Educators

15 States Want Tougher Penalties for Abusive Teachers
Robert Tanner, Associated Press, January 28, 2008

Due to “too many legal loopholes [that] let [sex] offenders stay in the classroom,” many states are working on legislation that will cut down on “lengthy hearings” and other troublesome procedures. The practice of “passing the trash,” or “allow[ing] a teacher to quietly leave a school, or fail to report problems to state authorities, or fail to check with state authorities before hiring a teacher, among other glitches,” has become commonplace, as many school officials attempt to avoid the legalistic challenges involved in firing a teacher.  One legislator working to combat this fear is Michael Gibbons, the Missouri state Senate president pro tem, who said that schools oftentimes “don't get the whole truth about [a dismissed teacher’s] background.” Gibbons is hoping to pass legislation that will require “school employees and districts to share all information about job-hunting teachers, including whether those educators sexually abused their students, by granting administrators civil immunity from lawsuits.” » article

Union Waiver Stalled for School
Jeremy P. Meyer, Denver Post, January 23, 2008

In a disappointing decision by the Denver teacher’s union, Bruce Randolph School was denied “autonomy from district and union rules, saying constraints on time, staffing and the school calendar hinder student achievement.” Many, like Superintendent Michael Bennet, were confused by the reasoning behind the decision. Bennet said, "The Bruce Randolph proposal seemed to me to be a great idea for our kids, for the district and for the union."  While the union said it will grant some of the requested waivers, they want to work out “a framework with the district on how autonomy will look for other schools,” before allowing Bruce Randolph its full freedoms. Not surprisingly, Bruce Randolph staff is frustrated.  Even the school’s union representative said, “They want us to move back to square one, and that is unacceptable." » article

Districts Discharge Unwanted Faculty Through ‘Buyouts’
Bess Keller, Education Week, January 22, 2008

“Teacher Buyouts” or the practice of paying teachers to “leave their job” is common practice in many school districts mostly because without them, “proponents say, districts would use far too many resources—in money, time, and morale—shedding tenured teachers they don’t want.” John Bukey, the general counsel for the California School Boards Association said, “Settlements before judgment are a feature of the overburdened American legal system in general,” which makes sense, seeing as “the New York State School Boards Association survey found that the most recent average cost of a disciplinary case in the state, excluding New York City, was $129,000, and that the length of time needed for a decision was 520 days.” In addition to lawyer’s fees, the district must also account for "substitute teachers' pay when a teacher is removed from the classroom and lost time on the job for witnesses such as a principal.”  Because of the “elaborate job protections that make firing so costly,” settlements are oftentimes the only logical reaction. » article

Educators Worried about Changes
Joanna Miller and Keighla Schmidt, The Savage Pacer (Savage, MN), January 14, 2008

The Minnesota Department of Education is likely to add more rules for Special Education teachers that would most likely “make their work more cumbersome…with more time spent on paperwork.”  For example, “behavioral-intervention rules increase the paperwork required when behavior situations occur.”  A task force on Special Education may prove that “educators may already be…meet[ing] or exceed[ing] state or federal expectations.”  Stephanie Corbey, individualized student services coordinator for the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage School District, said, “If the task force finds Minnesota to be above and beyond already, the new rules could be counter productive.” Many teachers are leaving the profession “because of the rigors of paperwork,” so it is crucial that new regulations are not added to “a situation [that is] already regulated quite a bit.” Corbey’s concerns about the new rules are that they are “too detailed” and that they make it “more difficult to implement things…there are more forms, there are more processes and there are more procedures to be in compliance with the new rules.” » article

Bureaucracy, Red Tape Threaten Mentor Program
Editorial, InsideBayArea.com, January 7, 2008

The California mentoring program, a well-intentioned effort to train new teachers, is now “bogged down in counterproductive paperwork and bureaucracy.” The program was instituted when researchers found that “nearly one-quarter of new California teachers quit in their first four years,” mostly because of “inadequate support and bureaucracy.” A large portion of bureacratic burden comes from an “overwhelming amount of unproductive record-keeping and other tasks,” and many are advocating for “reducing paperwork and eliminating redundant requirements” in order to “keep what could be a productive program from being strangled by red tape.” » article

Charters Struggle with Special Education
Sarah Carr, Times-Picayune, January 6, 2008

The legal maze associated with implementing special education poses great problems for the emerging Charter School movement in New Orleans. Roslyn Johnson Smith, president of a New Orleans charter school board points out that it is extremely difficult to find an administrator “who knows the technicalities of complicated special education laws.” In addition, charter schools are having difficulty due to teacher shortages, a lack of classroom space, missing records, parents that won’t disclose their children’s disabilities, and the sheer cost of special education: “about $1,900 to conduct a full evaluation of a child,” and “about $38,000 to evaluate as many as 5 percent of its students.” Cornelia Koniditsiotis, a coordinator of special education services, says she feels like she’s turned “part attorney” in her struggle to understand confusing processes. » article

Schoolhouse Rock
Collin Levy, Wall Street Journal, December 22, 2007

D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee recently succeeded in passing legislation that granted her “authority to fire nonunion employees in the central office.” Passing this legislation was merely one obstacle Rhee faced while “jousting with the dinosaurs in the city's education bureaucracy.” Rhee’s efforts have created “a political firestorm,” yet she continues to persuade critics that “protecting an ossified bureaucracy isn't in anyone's best interests.” Another one of Rhee’s steps toward reform involved organizing the district’s best principals and surprising them with her praise and support: “You're the unsung heroes,” she told them. “This place creates such a bureaucracy that you can't get stuff done efficiently. Be creative, tell me what you want to do." Perhaps Rhee’s courage comes from the fact that she is able to “make every single decision in a way in which [she] think[s] is in the best interests of the kids -- without the politics, without owing people, just with that in mind." » article

Review of Teacher Duties is Important
Editorial, Daily Advertiser, December 18, 2007

In LaFayette, Louisiana, School Board Member Greg Awbrey speaks out against the “time- and energy-consuming activities” required of teachers that are “beyond what should be expected of them.” Awbrey recommends “a review of job descriptions for teachers and counselors” that “could help ensure that teachers have time to do what matters most: Educate our children.”  Based on his review, Awbrey expects to compile a “listing of the many tasks that face teachers - plus suggestions for easing the load.”  Another approach for easing teachers’ workloads could be to minimize their role in discipline issues: “Teachers should not be so deeply involved in discipline problems that they are assaulted, verbally or physically, by students. Yet it seems to happen on a fairly regular basis.” Because of the frequency of such disruptions, “educators must take time away from their basic mission to deal with unruly kids.” » article

Teachers Draft Reform Plan
Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times, December 11, 2007

A new proposal by the Los Angeles teacher’s union has been dubbed an “education nirvana,” in which “teachers would decide what to teach and when” and “teachers and parents would hire and fire principals.” While understanding that “instructors must teach the skills and facts the state requires,” the Union is merely asking that a “school's staff and individual teachers decide how to accomplish that.” Allowing educators more autonomy is a priority that UCLA professor and education reform researcher, Bill Ouchi completely understands: "They've observed for 30 years the failure of the management of the LAUSD. You can understand why the teachers say, 'Those people have amply demonstrated that they are incapable of running a school, so let us run it.'" » article

Why Not Detention?
David Yassky, New York Sun, November 21, 2007

City Councilman David Yassky gets right at the heart of Common Good issues in a New York Sun editorial: “[O]ur schools do have [a] problem with disorder. Ask most parents what they are unhappy with in their children's school, and out-of-control classrooms will be near the top of their list.” Yassky goes on to refute the misconception that gangs and violence in schools are our biggest problems, when in fact the real issues arise from “troublemakers and unruly kids,” and “these discipline problems should not be confused with criminal problems.” “The real solution,” he asserts, “is to give more authority to teachers and principals,” rather than succumb to the “burdensome bureaucracy [that] means that misbehaving students continue to disrupt classes when a simple disciplinary measure could have solved the problem.” Yassky believes that the problem is rooted in teachers who are “inadequately trained for discipline” and schools that “lack the space and the resources to give teachers the practical ability to remove students from the classroom when necessary.”  Yassky concludes on this note: “Our current approach to school discipline is both too lenient and too harsh. Schools need to implement specifically delineated policies on discipline and to toughen the day-to-day authority of teachers and principals.” » article

A New Effort to Remove Bad Teachers
Elissa Gootman, New York Times, November 15, 2007

In an effort to remove unsatisfactory teachers from New York City public schools, the Bloomberg administration is working to “amass the documentation necessary” in the firing process. Chancellor Klein complains of the frustrating procedure: “When action must be taken, the disciplinary system for tenured teachers is so time-consuming and burdensome that what is already a stressful task becomes so onerous that relatively few principals are willing to tackle it.”  In fact, because of this lengthy bureaucratic procedure “only about one-hundredth of 1 percent of tenured teachers are removed for ineffective performance.” » article

State Teachers Vent Their Frustrations During Forum at Civic Center
Davin White, Charleston Gazette, November 11, 2007

West Virginia state leaders listened as teacher complaints rang loudly at an open forum. One teacher insisted that someone “eliminate all the nonsense paperwork and let [teachers] teach.” In addition to the overwhelming workload, teachers argued against maddening discipline procedures that allow “unruly, often dangerous students to impede their ability to teach” on a regular basis. Another teacher candidly described the way that students are responding to their due process rights and the lack of teacher authority in the classroom:  “They’re playing us. They’re working the system.”  While some exchanged anecdotes of frustrating discipline procedures, others questioned the absence of state and local representatives. West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin responded favorably by maintaining that “teachers should not have to decide between teaching or defending themselves.” Many community members also concur that parents should take more responsibility in their child’s education. » article

D.C. Schools Chief Wants Power to Fire Ineffective Teachers
Theola LabbÃ, Washington Post, October 13, 2007

D.C. public schools hope to place more power into the hands of principals by allowing them “more authority to fire underperforming teachers.”  This legislation proposal would remove the protections enjoyed by non-unionized teachers so that “they could be terminated at any time for non-disciplinary reasons because they would be serving at the chancellor's discretion.”  D.C. Schools Chancellor, Michelle Rhee, “said she has started negotiations with the Washington Teachers' Union and is looking to ‘reward and recognize’ high-performing teachers while weeding out instructors who are not serving children well.”  In hopes that this legislation will streamline the 90-day process required in the city to fire an incompetent teacher, Rhee asserts, "We have to be able to remove ineffective teachers from their positions…absolutely.”  Ms. Rhee also investigated an incident in which “the school system was paying nearly $500,000 to educate two special education students outside the District,” an exorbitant cost doubtlessly affecting hundreds of other students. The reason?  Inefficient bureaucracy in the District’s central office.

School Disciplinary Hearing Process Must Undergo Change
Timothy G. Kremer, Observer-Dispatch, October 2, 2007

Timothy Kremer, Executive Director of the New York State School Boards Association, explains the “hard reality” of the “long, expensive process” school board members can face when disciplining public school employees. The article points out some alarming data gathered by the New York State School Boards Association:  “The average tenured teacher disciplinary proceeding under the education law that wasn't settled and went to a full hearing took over 500 days from the date charges were brought to the date a decision was issued” In addition, “the average hearing cost $128,000.”  He argues that instead of taking the time to hire new, competent teachers, “most of that money goes to pay the charged teacher (who, in most cases, is suspended with full pay while the hearing is held), and to pay the substitute hired to take that teacher's place.”  Kremer suggests a number of solutions to speed up these procedures, and while recognizing teacher’s rights, he asserts, “when undue delays and prohibitive costs impede a district's ability to address insubordinate or incompetent employees, it only makes good sense to re-assess the hearing process to look for ways to reduce costs and delays as well as protect our students.” » article

Stressed Teachers: Lighten the Load
Tia Mitchell, Florida Times-Union, October 2, 2007

The teachers in Duval County, FL are suffering from dangerously low morale. According to Tia Mitchell writing for the Florida Times-Union, the stress of mountains of paperwork, constant assessments, and micro-management are making it harder for teachers to actually teach. In a recent School Board meeting, one local teacher said that "I spend all of my time like many other teachers doing documentation, doing assessments, documenting those assessments, placing them in five different places and basically compiling data for someone's use…Tell me what I have to teach and then let me do the teaching.” Another teacher at the meeting warned that, because of the unnecessary stresses of the job, “we're getting ready to have a lot of people disappear. Especially our young teachers.” Teachers are not hired to be clerks or data entry specialists. Teachers are there to educate and help students grow. Instead, they’re drowning in bureaucracy.  » article

BUREAUCRACY'S EFFECT ON EDUCATORS, continued »

Educators' Voices

Ex-teacher Makes Theatrical Lemonade from 'Lemons'
Beth Shuster, Los Angeles Times, August 7, 2007

Though an unlikely setting for a frustrated teacher, Karen Kay Woods literally takes out her dissatisfaction with the Los Angeles public school system on stage. The Los Angeles Times describes Ms. Woods’ play, “The Dance of the Lemons”: “In 70 minutes, Woods takes her audience through more than a year of nonsensical rules and regulations, poor administration and mostly helpless teachers.” The title of her play refers to “the practice of shuffling administrators from one school to another,” yet her anger stems not only from incompetent administrators, but also from a limited supply of necessary resources, overwhelming paperwork, and endless faculty meetings. “Overall, Woods said Los Angeles Unified's entrenched bureaucracy needs to be reorganized, and teachers need more support.” article »

Wyoming, City Students Find Common Ground
Sarah Garland, New York Sun, April 23, 2007

Sarah Garland of the New York Sun reports on an exciting event hosted by Common Good Chair Philip K. Howard. Students from Cody, Wyoming and Brooklyn, New York joined their teachers – Deb White of Cody and Zach Jones of Brooklyn – at Howard’s apartment for a wide-ranging discussion of education issues. “Mr. Howard had gathered the group… at a moment when a national debate over the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act is ramping up, and as local factions are battling over restructuring the New York City public schools.” Over a dinner of pizza and brownies, “the little group set out to tackle issues that have flummoxed education experts and politicians for decades.” Participants noted that “standardized testing constricts the creativity of teachers” and “school bureaucracy often has little to do with the reality,” and touched on issues of school administration and teacher pay, performance, retention and tenure.  As Howard concluded, “People matter, leaders matter, and teachers have to care.” article » 

Gov. Sebelius Says Teachers Need Support
Jack Ventimiglia, Kansas City Community News, April 18, 2007

Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius spoke recently with Kansas “Teacher of the Year” Josh Anderson on the effect of poor teaching conditions and time-consuming testing on educators, Jack Ventimiglia of the Kansas City Community News reports.  “Teachers will tell you they are tired of being in a classroom where the working conditions they see are oppressive…” Governor Sebelius said.  “It’s a huge cost to student achievement.”  Anderson agreed and focused in particular on the burden of mandatory testing under the No Child Left Behind Act.  “The amount of time that we spend preparing for state assessments,” he said, “sometimes means that we are not preparing them for more advanced learning.”  Anderson also emphasized that the individuality and flexibility of teachers makes for successful learning in the classroom:  “It is a function of innovation, creativity and design that allows us to simultaneously be prepared for the state assessment and be prepared for the future.” article » 

Letter: A Teacher’s View
Karen Gorla, Trentonian, April 2, 2007

A recent letter to the editor by Karen Gorla, a third grade teacher at the Klockner School in Hamilton, New Jersey, highlights the burden of legal mandates on teachers. Ms. Garla, who has “been a teacher for close to 20 years,” points to “testing and workload” as the “two other main reasons why teachers are opting out of the classroom,” in addition to pay. “I can say that since the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) has been the program of the nation, my creativity in the classroom has been gradually stifled,” she continues. “The children are sick and tired of preparing for and taking tests-- and I’m sick and tired of giving them.  Teachers are constantly doing paperwork, and this takes away time that could be spent more creatively.”  Ms. Karla also compared education in the United States to education in China and India, where “[t]eachers are revered and respected. And children are actually disciplined-- something that’s becoming a foreign concept here.”

EDUCATORS' VOICES, continued »

International Perspectives

Bring Back Discipline in Schools
John Snobelen, Cornwall Standard Freeholder (Ontario, Canada), January 24, 2008

Former Ontario Minister of Education John Snobelen reflects on “the breakdown in discipline,” in Ontario schools, which “isn't just a problem when it results in a tragic death or the horrific rape of a student,” or “when weapons are brought into a school.”  The ignoring of minor discipline problems is, in fact, worsening the problem: “When educators abandon discipline they abandon one of the principle reasons schools exist. Knowledge and skills are meaningless without the habits and discipline to put them to work.” Snobelen explains that the force behind poor discipline is “a culture of silence that prevents students and teachers from taking action to stop criminal behaviour in…schools.” In other words, because it is “easier to ignore chaos than it is to instill discipline,” “the hallways and lunchrooms are given over to criminals and gangs.” Snobelen believes that the only true solution to this problem rests not in the hands of the school district or the Ministry of Education, but rather in the hands of “the teachers, principals, parents and students.” “The real difference never gets made in a boardroom,” advises Snobelen, "it happens in a classroom.” » article

Just Let Us Teach, Says Head
Abbie Wightwick, Western Mail, October 5, 2007

Sue O’Halloran, the new head of the National Association of Head Teachers Cymru (Wales) has committed to helping her union’s members “resist unreasonable demands of bureaucracy.” According to Abbie Wightwick’s article in Wales’ Western Mail newspaper, Ms O’Halloran wants to see “[a] move away from the crippling bureaucracy which is currently plaguing schools and which diverts valuable resources and energy from teaching and learning.”  She wants “greater freedom for school leaders to concentrate on their core responsibilities of leading teaching and learning.” It is good to see the support behind Ms. O’Halloran in Wales, and it is important that American educators who are fed up with fighting a constant battle against red tape get equally strong support. » article

School Made to Apologise after Disciplining Boy
Telegraph.co.uk, September 7, 2007

A British school in Hatfield, Hertfordshire was forced to write a letter of apology for disciplining a disruptive student with special needs. The 11-year-old boy with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) was disciplined for behaviors including running away and locking himself in the bathroom and throwing pencils around the school library. As punishment, the school took away some of his sports and field trip privileges, fairly typical disciplinary actions for disruptive behavior. Yet, the parents of the boy “took St. Philip Howard Catholic primary to a tribunal and won their case. The school in Hatfield, Herts, must now apologise and staff and governors are being put on a training course, teaching them about hyperactive children.” According to the governor’s spokesman, “The governing body and the head teacher tried to act in the best interests of all of the children throughout.” In addition to exposing the burden of law on school discipline, this case also highlights the lack of authority teachers and school leaders have when it comes to disciplining students, especially students with special needs. article »

Don't Add Burdens--Help Teachers Educate
Akihiko Ogawa, Asahi.com, August 24, 2007

While the Japanese government is attempting to revise education laws, one critic is questioning the practical implementation of these well-intentioned changes. Ogawa asserts, “While that goal  [revised teacher licensing law] may be fine, in reality, these requirements don't seem to reflect understanding of the many problems facing educators in this country.” Ogawa argues that the system has “in effect robbed teachers of time they used to spend helping students...” as they are forced to work under mounting bureaucratic pressures. “Teachers are kept busy outside of classroom hours. They have mountains of paperwork dealing with classroom management and administration, and must spend time on student extracurricular activities. They are also responsible for giving counseling and guidance to students with behavioral problems as needed… So they don't have much time leftover to help the underachievers.”  Instead of placing more time constraints on teachers, Ogawa provides a number of suggestions ranging from refining current teacher training programs to emphasizing parental relationships. article »

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES, continued »

Legal Fear in Schools

Real Reform of Education Needed, Not a Think Tank
Jodi Tymeson, Demoines Register, October 29, 2007

Rather than undergo onerous lawsuits, Jodi Tymeson recommends taking a more sensible approach to education reform in her home state: “Iowa doesn't need to spend taxpayer money to fight a lawsuit in order to define ‘adequate’ education - a purely subjective measurement.” Urging Iowans that, “[t]he last thing Iowa needs is for the courts to define education and dictate remedies,” the article continues by listing the kind of reforms Tymeson feels are practical and necessary, all of which can be accomplished without court involvement.  She concludes by reminding her audience of the worthlessness of spending public money on school lawsuits, “This discussion should be about the success of students and raising expectations, not money. Spending more taxpayer money without increasing the expectations is the agenda of special-interest groups - spending more for more of the same.” » article

Legal Fears Put School Officials on Hug Alert
Stella M. Chavez, Dallas Morning News, October 19, 2007

Is telling a fellow student that her bra strap is visible considered sexual harassment, bullying, or adolescent immaturity?  Does the answer really matter if the consequences are the same anyway?  Zero tolerance policies are not only taking a toll on students, but also on “teachers and administrators [who] have become too fearful of lawsuits and have stopped letting kids be kids.”  And their fears are validated:  “Recent precedent-setting lawsuits have made it clear that school officials must respond to complaints of student-on-student sexual harassment or face possible court action.”  "I think it's the kind of world we live in today, but you would hope that common sense would prevail," said Jeff Horner, a Houston attorney who represents school districts. In an effort to avoid such legal entanglements, some are choosing to address these issues in the classroom by creating “a curriculum for teachers that deals with harassment as well as bullying.” One teacher said, “I believe you can do this in the classroom in a non-panicked, age-appropriate way.” » article

Queens High School Staff Told to Forget 911 in Emergency
Erin Einhorn and Carrie Melago, New York Daily News, October 15, 2007

Even after being exposed for not calling an ambulance while a student suffered a stroke in April, Jamaica High School issued yet another incriminating memorandum. The first memo, which forbade any school personnel from calling 911, was followed by this new memo that orders “all school personnel to follow four complicated steps” before calling 911.  The memo, according to some staff members, is an attempt by school administrators to protect the school’s reputation so that it won’t be placed on the city's "impact list" of dangerous schools again this year.  Rather than use common sense, the pressures of being placed on such a list has led to situations in which, “’a teacher and even the school nurse still must follow a chain of command before exercising their own judgment to call 911, which could waste valuable time.” » article

Stop Suing Schools
Eugene W. Hickok and Todd Lamb, Washington Times, October 5, 2007

Former U.S. Under Secretary of Education Eugene W. Hickok and Todd Lamb cite a 2004 Common Good poll in a recent Washington Times editorial highlighting the intensely litigious climate inside America’s public schools.  Hickok and Lamb write, “…too many teachers feel forced to teach ‘defensively’ because of a concern for legal consequences and too many administrators look at playgrounds and see courtrooms.”  The authors argue that the nature and quality of education is changing as teachers and principals fear their every decision: “Fear of lawsuits means teachers are being told what they can't say or do or even think when it comes to classroom management and conduct. It used to be that discipline was a part of getting a good education. Now, it seems, disciplining a student opens up a teacher to all sort of horribles coming from parents and their lawyers…when a fear of litigation stops good men and women from doing good work it is a sure sign things have gone too far.” Hickok and Lamb also remind us that, “because it is public education, the taxpayers foot the bill; not only for the education (as troublesome as it might be) but for the lawyers,” and conclude by openly warning parents that, “some percentage of a teacher's time is spent worrying about being sued rather than that of their core mission — educating the next generation. These are your schools and your kids — and increasingly it is your money going to fight a legal system that's quickly getting out of control.” » article

LEGAL FEAR IN SCHOOLS, continued »

Miscellaneous

No Hugs Allowed at Ill. Middle School
Associated Press, October 2, 2007

"If you need a hug," the Associated Press reports, "you won't get it at Percy Julian Middle School" in suburban Chicago.  That is because Principal Victoria Sharts banned the activity, arguing that "students were forming 'hug lines' that made them late for classes and crowded the hallways."  The fact that "some hugs could be too long and too close" also factored into her decision.  "'The goal is always to promote safe and orderly hallways where everybody can get by, be safe, and be on time,'" Sharts wrote to Percy Julian parents, explaining the ban.  But Emil Steiner of the Washington Post sees an unintended benefit of the new policy.  He writes: "Not only will the hug-ban improve punctuality and assist in crowd control, but it will also reduce youthful exuberance, which can encourage intimate friendships instead of studying.”  article »  read more »

Quinn, Mayor at Odds Over Cell Phone Ban
Staff Reporter of the Sun, New York Sun, September 11, 2007

Student rights collide once again with a school’s authority, as the cell phone ban controversy in New York City schools escalates to a potential lawsuit against Mayor Bloomberg. As the Sun reports, “City Council Speaker Christine Quinn refused to rule out the possibility that the council would sue Mayor Bloomberg to force compliance with a new law that says students have the right to carry cell phones to and from school.” What should be a common sense decision-making process by parents, schools, and safety officials about how to run their schools has turned into hyper-compliance with laws that impede student learning at worst and cause great confusion at best: “Mr. Bloomberg said yesterday that students have always had the right to take a phone to and from school ‘you just don't have the right to bring it into the school, and that's not changing.’”  article »

Mike’s Timely Veto
Editorial, New York Post, August 13, 2007

Mayor Bloomberg recently vetoed a law which, if passed, would give students the “…‘right’…to carry phones to and from school.” A recent editorial in the New York Post praises Bloomberg for his stance against cell phones in schools. Though many parents view cell phone possession as a safety measure, this writer warns that such a law could allow students even more rights in the way of cell phones. Though the controversy is heated, “this kind of legal roulette is no way to make education policy, regardless of what one thinks of the ban itself.”  The writer adds that the presence of cell phones is directly related to the lack of order in schools: “The cell phone issue must be understood within the broader context of public-school discipline - which, despite progress, remains atrocious.” article »

MISCELLANEOUS, continued »

No Child Left Behind

Money Left Behind
Lincoln Elementary is among a small number of U.S. schools turning down Title I funds—and gaining independence
Susie Pakoua Vang, Fresno Bee, January 20, 2008

Though Lincoln Elementary school has chosen to give up nearly $250,000 in Title I funding under No Child Left Behind, the school has “gained something its teachers considered even more valuable: more independence.” This new “flexibility” is a victory for Lincoln’s teachers who, under Title I funding, spent “too much time…on paperwork, when time could be better spent on more innovative teaching efforts." “Now, Lincoln's staff will use creative student programs that teachers would not have had time for under provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act,” and they are recognizing the value gained when “local educators [are able] to dictate what is best for students.” » article

Get Congress Out of the Classroom
Diane Ravitch, New York Times, October 3, 2007

Education expert and Common Good advisory board member, Diane Ravitch, firmly decries the current status of No Child Left Behind.  Ravitch argues that “The main goal of the law — that all children in the United States will be proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014 — is simply unattainable” and that the basic strategy of testing students in grades three through eight every year “has unleashed an unhealthy obsession with standardized testing that has reduced the time available for teaching other important subjects.”  Due to considerable flaws in its design and implementation, Ravitch suggests that NCLB be “radically overhauled, not just tweaked.”  She recommends a role reversal between the state and federal governments, since “states and school districts, being closer to the schools, teachers and parents than the federal government, are more likely to be flexible and pragmatic about designing reforms to meet the needs of particular schools.”  According to Ravitch, distant politicians are not suited best for this sort of decision-making: “Under current law, Congress now decides precisely which sanctions and penalties are needed to reform schools, which is way beyond its competence. The leaders of the House and Senate Education Committees are fine men, but they do not know how to fix the nation’s schools.” » article

How Queens School Failed Student After Stroke
Carrie Melago, New York Daily News, September 10, 2007

The pressures that No Child Left Behind place on educators certainly do not stop at onerous paperwork or over-testing. The threat of NCLB labels, such as “persistently dangerous” school, scare school administrators into decisions that completely lack common sense. An article in the Daily News examines why teachers failed to call for emergency help when one student, Mariya Fatima, was having a stroke at a Queens school. Fatima's school, which was placed on the city's impact list of dangerous schools due to a high rate of reported incidents (as required by No Child Left Behind), issued a memo to teachers stating, "No Deans are permitted to call 911 for any reason."  The memo “shed[s] light on the lengths some educators will go in order to improve crime statistics and avoid harsh penalties.” As a result, Fatima has serious injuries and was nearly paralyzed after a stroke. “A month after Mariya collapsed, the same assistant principal sent out another memo, flip-flopping and telling the deans it was okay to call 911, but instructing them to downplay assaults.” The school’s efforts to reduce crime statistics failed last year, and they could face ramifications under the No Child Left Behind Act. article »

Extreme Makeover: NCLB Edition
Frederick M. Hess and Chester E. Finn Jr., American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, August 17, 2007

Both sides of the ongoing No Child Left Behind debate are presented in this article by education scholars Frederick Hess and Chester Finn, who is also a member of the Common Good Education Advisory Board. The writers comment on the ability for this law to work, provided there are major alterations: “This law could be reauthorized in a way that preserves its virtues while addressing its flaws. But doing so requires a retreat from posturing, pretense and overreaching.” Hess and Finn also address the discrepancy between educators and lawmakers: "While nobody doubts that the number of 'proficient' students should increase dramatically from today's woeful level, no educator believes that universal proficiency in 2014 is attainable. Only politicians promise such things. It's as if Congress opted to fight crime by declaring that all cities will be crime-free by 2014." Due to the impracticality of accomplishing these goals, many educators evade the law, which often proves to be even more damaging: “If workers know they are unlikely to succeed, the goal becomes avoiding trouble when they fail. By making failure practically inevitable, utopian goals perversely focus employees on band-aids and actions that mask their inability to attain those goals.” article »

Not by Geeks Alone
Chester E. Finn and Diane Ravitch, Wall Street Journal, August 8, 2007

Education experts and Common Good Education Advisory Board Members Chester E. Finn and Diane Ravitch assert that STEM, the new initiative to increase funding for “science, technology, engineering, and math” fails to address the need for “literature, art, music, history, civics, and geography” in public schools. Finn and Ravitch remind us that, “True success over the long haul…depends on a broadly educated populace with flowers and leaves as well as stems.” The authors identify many prominent American figures whose backgrounds relied heavily on these literary fields of study. Finn and Ravitch believe that standards for teachers and students need to be broadened. “We're already at risk of turning U.S. schools into test-prepping skill factories where nothing matters except exam scores on basic subjects. That's not what America needs nor is it a sufficient conception of educational accountability.”  This caution, along with a gloomy prediction regarding the effects of abandoning the liberal arts on low-income groups, is quite convincing. article »

Teachers Say NCLB Has Changed Classroom Practice
Debra Viadero, Education Week, June 20, 2007

A three-year study conducted by the RAND Corporation highlights the mixed effect No Child Left Behind has had on teaching and learning, Debra Viadero of Education Week reports. Although “majorities of elementary and middle school science and math teachers… report in surveys that they are making positive changes in the classroom,” “sizable percentages of educators are also spending more time teaching test-taking strategies, focusing more narrowly on the topics covered on state tests, and tailoring teaching to the ‘bubble kids’—the students who fall just below the proficiency cutoffs on state tests. As a result, teachers “worried that high-achieving students were not receiving ‘appropriately challenging curriculum or instruction.’”  Likewise, educators complained that “staff morale had declined” as a result of NCLB and that “state tests were misaligned with the curriculum.” article »

Teachers Need Time to Teach, Panel Says
Beverly Creamer, Honolulu Advertiser, April 28, 2007

“Teachers need to be protected from non-essential duties that interfere with teaching to reduce the amount of extra, unpaid time they work,” a committee of Hawaii’s state education officials and teachers union representatives concluded from a large survey of teachers.  “Teachers have complained,” Beverly Creamer of the Honolulu Advertiser reports, “that they are required to do excessive amounts of paperwork and data entry to comply with mandates for the federal No Child Left Behind Act… teachers spread their work over evenings, weekends, holidays and vacations, working thousands of unpaid hours every year.”  As Karen Shindo, a committee member from Waiakea Elementary, said:  “All these mandates and initiatives have come down on us. It's a dilemma.”  The survey elicited 800 teacher responses. article »

Reform Proposals in Schools

Baltimore’s ‘Innovation Schools’ Yield Higher Test Scores
Greg Toppo, USA Today, December 19, 2007

An effort to allow schools more autonomy is proving to be quite successful. By turning “Baltimore's big high schools into smaller, more autonomous schools,” the city has made extraordinary leaps on state exams, earning scores “higher than those of students in larger comprehensive schools, neighborhood schools and other schools, even after controlling for skill levels before entering high school.” Other positive elements in the structuring of these schools are “more supportive environments” and the fact that “students go to school 16 to 40 days more a year than other students.” Administrators are proving that their schools are capable of great gains once freed from the bureaucracy of outside control. For example, Principal of Baltimore Talent Development High School, Jeffrey Robinson said, "One of the reasons innovative schools tend to perform higher is directly related to our autonomy to tailor our programs to match the needs of the majority of our students." » article

School Wants to Set Own Course
Jeremy P. Meyer, Denver Post, December 6, 2007

In an effort to avoid the stifling school bureaucracy, one Denver middle school hopes to gain “autonomy from union and district rules, asking for control over the school's budget, staff, time and incentives” in a new proposal.  Even the school’s union representative said, “We don't see this as radical. We see this as common sense. We want to be released from this bureaucratic entanglement that will allow us to do better."  Rather than succumbing to useless procedures mandated by forces outside of the school, “many of the decisions would be made by a leadership team that would be comprised of the principal, assistant principal and key faculty members.”  Denver School Board President Theresa Peña agrees:  "They are not saying, 'Let it be a charter school.  They are saying, 'Let us be a DPS school without the obstacles. It's courageous leadership saying here are policies that don't work for us. If you can relieve us of those, this is what we can do.'" » article

Related: Common Good Colorado, our state affiliate, produced a focus group study, The New Three R's, examining the many bureaucratic rules and regulations that impact schools across Colorado.

Students in Boston’s ‘Pilot’ Schools Outpacing Others
Kathleen Kennedy Manzo, Education Week, November 9, 2007

It is not surprising to learn that an ideal school setting is one that enables teachers and administrators to use their own judgment. The “pilot school” experiment, which has proven to be very successful in Boston, allows the school to hire and fire their staff “without regard to seniority so they can build a faculty with a common vision.” According to student commentary, the result is a team of wholly committed teachers. The Executive Director of the Center for Collaborative Education notes that giving schools the control they deserve in regards to budgeting, curriculum planning, and hiring produces extraordinary outcomes. Rather than follow “district mandates and union-negotiated rules” principals can “hire teachers who are committed to a school’s mission…”  Such flexibility also results in a more rigorous curriculum that holds students to higher expectations and succeeds in motivating them to achieve. » article

Principals to Get More Power
Darran Simon, The Times-Picayune, October 22, 2007

Efforts to increase principals’ authority continue to spread across the country.  In New Orleans,  “education leaders [are] pushing power out of the administration and into the schools” as Superintendent Paul Vallas hopes “to give principals authority to hire their own teachers and administrators, along with more control over their budgets, starting next school year.”  This reform is significant because in pre-Katrina New Orleans, the “central office typically played a lead role in hiring and assigning teachers and had to comply with union contracts governing seniority and other employment rights.”  Vallas ensures that principals will be supported in making their own decisions: "We want the principals to understand that if you've got a vacancy, we want you to decide who will fill that vacancy," he said. And the resulting changes will hold schools even more accountable for their performance. “With the increased power comes increased demands for performance -- and fewer excuses.” » article

A Simple Plan for School Testing
Robert Pondiscio, New York Sun, September 18, 2007

While recognizing the many flaws of testing-centered instruction, Robert Pondiscio, a 5th grade teacher in New York City, is careful to point out that “testing is not the problem.” Instead, he believes that the implementation of testing is what brings down schools. He calls on society to pay more attention “to how those [testing] results are achieved—and what is lost in the bargain.” Rather than face the downfalls of yearly standardized testing, such as student apathy and the overemphasis on teacher proctoring, Pondiscio advises, “if we want children to be truly educated, we need an accountability system that cannot be gamed, designed with the law of unintended consequences factored in.”  His common sense suggestion for improving school accountability is random testing, because he thinks “the pressure to turn class time into test prep would disappear.” » article

Teacher Tenure Hot Topic: Buckhorn Case Spurs Bill to Alter Appeals Process
Steve Doyle, Huntsville Times (AL), May 30, 2007

A bill backed by the Alabama Association of School Boards highlights how endless appeal procedures have made it almost impossible for school boards to remove incompetent employees. “The case of former Buckhorn High School cheerleading coach Laura Wilson, still being paid by the Madison County school system two years after she was fired,” Steve Doyle of the Huntsville Time reports, “has helped inspire a proposal to change the state's teacher tenure rules.” Sally Howell of the Association of School Boards says that “arbitration has made it increasingly tough for school boards to get rid of problem employees.”  Likewise, as school board president Kenny Johnson states, “We've had employees make the remark, 'Go ahead and fire me, I'll sit home and draw my money’…Employees now know that they can do almost anything and not be fired.”  The new Alabama bill would “immediately remove terminated school employees from the public payroll” and “calls for appeals to be heard by Alabama lawyers familiar with education law, rather than by federal arbitrators.” article »

Public School Discipline Code Said To Need Private Tutoring
Sarah Garland, New York Sun, May 11, 2007

A full-length article in the New York Sun takes up Common Good’s ideas about school discipline in New York City.  “Common Good, which advocates more common sense in applying the law, is pushing for the elimination of legal processes now specified by the code that it says get in the way of effective discipline,” Sarah Garland writes.  “The changes the group supports would give teachers and principals more freedom to eject and suspend unruly students from classrooms... In place of the current oversight procedures, Common Good proposes creating parent panels to mediate complaints from students or parents who think a punishment is unfair.”  As Common Good Chair Philip K. Howard states in the article, “Over the past few decades, educators have lost the freedom to deal with the misbehaving students. It's become a bureaucratic morass.”  A Department of Education spokeswoman, Dina Paul Parks, says the department is “in dialogue with Common Good.” article »

NCLB Dramatically Increased the Bureaucratic Paperwork in Education
Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), Human Events, April 3, 2007

U.S. Congressman Tim Walberg (R-MI) tells the story of his daughter-in-law, a teacher who “actually considered quitting due to the massive amount of paperwork required and the ‘teach to the test’ mentality she was forced to adopt,” in a recent column suggesting revisions to the No Child Left Behind act.  Walberg notes that it “has been estimated that teachers and school officials have spent an additional 6.7 million hours completing the cumbersome paperwork required by NCLB -- valuable hours that hinder them from spending time with students.”  He criticizes NCLB for “empower[ing] Washington officials and bureaucrats, not parents and teachers,” and suggests an alternative which “provides teachers and schools with greater and much-needed flexibility.” As Walberg concludes, “A recent study revealed that 15-year-old American students rank 21st out of 28 major countries in mathematical aptitude and 16th in science aptitude. We must do better as a nation to successfully compete in the global economy and ensure our students show results and have the necessary skills to compete in the 21st century.” article »

REFORM PROPOSALS IN SCHOOLS, continued »

Special Education

No End in Sight for TPS Suit by Student’s Family
Ignazio Messina, Toledo Blade, November 5, 2007

In Toledo, Ohio, the public school system has been “embroiled for more than a year in a lawsuit with a West Toledo family over the care of their disabled daughter - and it's already cost taxpayers more than $100,000 in legal expenses.”  It quickly becomes apparent just how complicated and adversarial the special education process can be, as this “case has dragged through the Lucas County court, an appeals case, state due-process requests, and at least six canceled TPS individualized-education program meetings.”  In contemplating how this extensively over-priced debacle has gone on for so long, Toledo Public School Board member Jack Ford says, "From my perspective, both sides have dug in their heels, and of course the lawyers keep billing, and once you get to $100,000, I think if you don't have it resolved, there is something amiss.”  The mother of the disabled child, “Mrs. Horen, a lawyer who has represented her daughter, admits their case is ‘convoluted.’ Even after 17 months of litigation, she had trouble Wednesday articulating what they now want from the school system.” » article

Special Ed Parents Lobby for Their Rights
Chris Dornin, Seacoast Online, October 14, 2007

New Hampshire is making great headway in removing much of the bureaucratic burden that special education laws place on teachers. More than 70 parents of special education students attended a packed meeting on a 126-page proposed special education rule. The goal of the new rule is to “ease the paperwork, red tape, budgetary and time pressures on special education teachers and teams.” Special education rights advocates and parents are wary of the proposed rule’s effect on students since “the law also frees staff from making frequent progress reports on the short-term objectives for every special needs youngster.” But Dr. Robert Lister, superintendent of Portsmouth and a former special ed teacher, supports the rule, because he is “very worried about the time teachers have to spend on paperwork and not kids.” » article

School District Grapples with Special Education
Stephanie Bertholdo, The Acorn (CA), June 21, 2007

An article in the Acorn highlights the costly legal battles that often arise under special education laws. “Obtaining services for children with special needs is a process parents must navigate with persistence, patience, aplomb -- and sometimes a trip to court,” Stephanie Bertholdo reports. “Last year, the Las Virgenes Unified School District spent close to $1 million in court fighting special education cases. Critics charged the taxpayer money could have been put to better use in the classroom.”  The “heart wrenching” and “highly expensive” fight also creates distrust in school communities, as “the struggle to make all sides happy has created a rift among parents, administrators and attorneys.” article »

Legal Victory for Families of Disabled Students
Linda Greenhouse, New York Times, May 22, 2007

A ruling from the Supreme Court is likely to increase the number of special education lawsuits in America’s schools.  “A Supreme Court decision on M