Access News from August 11 - August 15,
2008
Daily news stories about education funding
litigation, education funding policy, cost studies,
advocacy and No Child Left Behind.
(Some links go to pages that require subscriptions)
August 15, 2008
State Roundup
CA test scores higher, but higher federal targets put
schools at risk.
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more…
FL property tax reform plan taken off November ballot.
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more…
IN Governor asks lawmakers to dedicate $5 million a
year to expand the Woodrow Wilson Indiana Teaching Fellowships
program to educate people willing to teach math and
science in urban or rural schools.
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more…
SC Education Superintendent will spend the next ten
days traveling throughout the state gathering grassroots
support for reforming the state’s school funding
formula.
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more…
TX—Texas Taxpayers and Research Foundation releases
study indicating that property tax bills would have
been $7 billion higher had the Legislature not revamped
the school funding system and cut the maximum school
property tax rate by a third.
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more…
August 14, 2008
School Funding/Litigation
AR House and Senate education committees endorse subcommittee’s
report recommending up to $58.8 million in additional
funding for public education.
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more…
FL judge questions wording of Amendment 5 tax ballot.
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more…
GA Board of Education scheduled to approve budget cuts
to several of Governor’s education initiatives.
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more…
GA judge rules that lawsuit filed by 50 Georgia school
districts over education funding can be heard. The
Consortium for Adequate School Funding v. State
is scheduled to go to trial Oct. 21.
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more…
State Roundup
NY teachers union withholds support from more than three
dozen state senators who back legislation to place a
cap on annual property tax increases.
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more…
August 13, 2008
School Funding/Litigation
AR House and Senate education committees review draft
report on amount of funding needed to provide an adequate
public school education—report criticized by some
for being too vague.
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more…
CA schools will need an additional $3.1 billion annually
- $2,100 more for every middle school student - to implement
governor's new eighth-grade algebra testing requirement.
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more…
NC Governor signs $21.4 billion state budget that includes
$7.8 billion for public education for fiscal 2009, up
about 1 percent from fiscal 2008.
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more…
NC judge rules that the state owes local school districts
nearly $750 million because state agencies wrongly withheld
civil penalties for nearly 10 years.
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more…
TX district judge on Monday denied Texas State Teachers
Association's request that the state be temporarily
prohibited from giving state money to three nonprofit
organizations for dropout recovery program.
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more…
TX officials likely to appeal a federal court order
telling the state to change programs for English-language
learners in grades 7-12 and improve monitoring of programs
for ELLs in all grades.
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more…
Other News
Opinion poll conducted by the Program on Education Policy
and Governance at Harvard University indicates that
Americans express less confidence in the nation’s
public schools and less support for the renewal of the
No Child Left Behind Act than they did a year ago.
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more…
August 12, 2008
School Funding/Litigation
GA Department of Education trying to determine how to
cut up to $171 million from the state's K-12 budget.
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more…
State Roundup
MI Merit Exam results released for the class of 2009.
Results are mixed.
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more…
NY Department of Education reports that, for the first
time, more than half of New York City’s high school
students are graduating on time, according to 2007 graduation
figures.
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more…
Federal/NCLB
U.S. Education Secretary announces that Alabama, Arkansas,
Tennessee, and Utah will be allowed more flexibility
under NCLB. These states will join a list of seven other
states that had previously been granted this flexibility.
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more...
Other News
The Council of the Great City Schools releases detailed
data on the business performance of the nation’s
largest school districts.
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more…
Report released by the National Center for Research
on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing at the
University of California, Los Angeles urges states to
provide comprehensive guidelines for school districts
on how to use accommodations with ELLs.
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more…
August 11, 2008
School Funding/Litigation
CA appellate court rules that parents may legally home-school
their children even if they lack a teaching credential.
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more…
NY Senate approves Governor’s property tax plan,
including school tax cap. Plan rejected by some Democrats
but passed with support from all Republican senators.
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more…
State Roundup
CT Department of Education announces that state schools
are facing a shortage of science, math and foreign language
teachers for the upcoming school year.
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more…
MI Joint Committee on Administrative Rules hearing set
for Wednesday. Legislative hearing will determine whether
controversial proposed changes to special education
rules will proceed.
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more…
OH Governor holds fifth public forum on state public
education.
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more…
Federal/NCLB
ID Board of Education identifies 15 school districts
that have not made adequate yearly progress in seven
years based on statewide testing under NCLB. Failing
schools face sanctions.
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more…
ID--School officials in two, southern Idaho districts
announce that they have decided not to be bound by the
federal benchmarks set by the NCLB.
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more…
Letter to the Editor regarding NYT article, “Education
as a Civil Rights Issue.” (editorial, Aug. 1)
which asserted that civil rights organizations support
the strengthening of NCLB.
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more…
Other News
Editorial: A call for Congress to undertake a fair assessment
of the D.C. voucher program.
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more…
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