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Defendant-Intervenors Fail to Stop Missouri
Trial
On
the verge of trial in a case filed three
years ago, three members of the Show-Me
Institute, a conservative think tank, recently
intervened on the side of the state defendants
in Committee for Educational Equality
v. State, Missouri’s school funding
lawsuit. In addition to arguing that education
funding is a political question and does
not belong in the court system, these defendant-intervenors
have been instrumental in procuring expert
witnesses to provide testimony that there
is no relationship between school funding
and student achievement. Read
Full Story
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Second
School Funding Lawsuit Filed in Washington
Arguing
that the state fails to fund a basic education
for its children as required by the state
constitution, a broad group of parents,
organizations, coalitions, and school districts
in Washington State filed a school funding
adequacy lawsuit, McCleary v. State,
on January 11, 2007. Plaintiffs claim that
the state’s school funding system
prevents Washington schools from providing
what is needed for learning, including reasonable
class sizes, adequate personnel, facilities
and technology, and programs such as music,
art, and extracurricular activities. Because
resources, personnel and programs are missing,
the complaint asserts, many Washington students
drop out of school and are not prepared
to fulfill their responsibilities as citizens
in a democracy and to compete in the global
economy.
Read
Full Story
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| Looking
at Education "Through a Wider Lens"
Increasingly,
researchers, the media and the general public
are acknowledging that education cannot
be viewed as a series of independent, short-term
goals, separate from a child’s life
either before or after school. The most
recent in Education Week’s
annual Quality Counts report series,
released this month, emphasizes this point
by suggesting that education must be viewed
as a continuous, seamless process that stretches
“from cradle to career.” A focus
on K-12 schooling causes policymakers to
overlook some of the facets of society that
have just as great an impact on education
as schools. Preparing children for academic
success requires looking at education, in
the words of Education Week, "through
a wider lens." Read
Full Story
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| Raising
Community Awareness to "Close the Gap"
in Florida
An
advocacy group fighting to close the achievement
gap in Pinellas County, Florida has launched
a new "Close the Gap" campaign
aimed at putting strong public pressure
on the county’s school district. The
campaign is the newest initiative of the
Concerned Organizations for Quality Education
for Black Students (COQEBS), an organization
that has been pushing the school district,
which serves all of Pinellas County, including
St. Petersburg, to take steps to close the
achievement gap in county schools. Read
Full Story
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Coverage
of Skills Commission Report Overlooks Important
Recommendations
Since
December, followers of education news have
been talking about the report of the New
Commission on the Skills of the American
Workforce. Press coverage of "Tough
Choices or Tough Times" has focused
on some of its "radical" and "controversial"
proposals but mostly ignored its more practical
suggestions, such as universal high-quality
preschool, increased teacher compensation,
and additional programs for disadvantaged
students. The controversial report emphasizes
that implementation and funding of these
programs is vital for the health of the
U.S. economy. Read
Full Story
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