Quick Hits

Conn. students have right to a quality education, court rules: Connecticut's Supreme Court ruled Monday that students are entitled to a quality education that will prepare them for college, the workplace and participation in democratic institutions. The ruling stems from a 2005 lawsuit that charged that Connecticut's school funding system creates educational inequalities that doom students to fail. The case returns to Superior Court for a trial, and any changes could be years away. (The Hartford Courant)

History a Flash Point as States Debate Standards: As debate continues around the development and adoption of common standards in English and mathematics, several states are independently wrestling with rewrites of standards in a content area largely absent from that national discussion—social studies—and encountering their own shares of controversy.
Flash points in the social studies debates tend to occur in the teaching of history, from what should be taught to when and how much. (Education Week)

Lesbian gets day in court over nixed prom: Constance McMillen, the Mississippi gay teen who challenged her school district's ban on same-sex prom dates, asked a federal judge on Monday to reinstate the prom the school board called off. "I feel like I had the right to go to the prom just like someone straight," McMillen, 18, testified. The Itawamba County school board canceled the April 2 prom after the American Civil Liberties Union demanded that McMillen be allowed to attend the dance with her girlfriend and be allowed to wear a tuxedo. The ACLU suit seeks a reversal of that decision and a ruling that McMillen's right to free expression was violated. (USA Today)

U.S. reading scores stay flat: Reading proficiency among U.S. students stayed mostly unchanged last year and continues to trail students' performance in math, and experts say the results point to the need for better reading instruction. The National Assessment of Educational Progress report shows eighth-grade reading scores rose one point between 2007 and 2009, while scores for fourth-graders stayed flat. The nation's struggling readers, however, are improving. "Our worst readers are getting better, but our best readers are staying about the same," one expert said. Only in Kentucky did reading scores rise significantly in both grades from 2007 to 2009. (Education Week) (The New York Times) (The Washington Post)

Use formative assessments to gauge student understanding: Teachers should check with their students daily to see if they have mastered the day's lessons, an Oakland, Calif., middle-school teacher writes in this blog post. Elena Aguilar writes that her preferred method to monitor student learning is the formative assessment, which aims to improve teaching through immediate student feedback. Teachers can implement formative assessments in many ways, including asking questions of a group of students or individual students, listening as students talk among themselves and asking students to write down what they have learned at the end of a lesson. (Edutopia)

What does it mean to be college- and career-ready?: The Obama administration's push to make all students college- and career-ready has some wondering how much children's schooling would change. The new goal will force educators to focus more on cognitive skills -- something the draft of the Common Core State Standards has embraced -- in addition to basic subject knowledge. Critics of reform efforts, however, point out that there are no tools to measure how well schools teach analytical skills. (Christian Science Monitor)

Will Texas textbook changes reach other states?: It's not yet clear how Texas' decision to change its social studies curriculum will influence the textbook market in other states. Some argue that as one of the largest textbook buyers in the nation, standards adopted in Texas will naturally seep into all books. Others argue that publishers have become used to providing different books and have found it easier to do so, thanks to technology. (Los Angeles Times)

Fired R.I. teachers speak out on school performance: Teachers who were part of a mass firing at a Rhode Island high school got a chance to defend themselves at a school board meeting Tuesday. The teachers blamed principal turnover -- five in seven years -- and repeated changes in curriculum for the school's low performance. (Providence Journal)

Fla. lawmakers are moving forward on school-reform bills: Republican lawmakers in Florida are moving forward on education-reform measures that would link students' test scores to teacher salaries, eliminate teacher tenure, offer more funding for private schools and require students to pass end-of-course tests. The bills would create some of the most sweeping changes to Florida's education system in a decade and are meeting with stiff opposition from Democrats and teachers unions. (Miami Herald)

School closures becoming more commonplace amid budget cuts: More school districts are closing underperforming and under-enrolled schools in an effort to stem financial losses amid an economy that continues to struggle. Officials in Kansas City, Mo., Detroit and Milwaukee have all risked parent outrage to close schools and the decisions typically send shock waves through communities. (Associated Press)

How VIPs lobbied schools - Duncan's office tracked politicians and others: While many Chicago parents took formal routes to land their children in the best schools, the well-connected also sought help through a shadowy appeals system created in recent years under former schools chief Arne Duncan. Whispers have long swirled that some children get spots in the city's premier schools based on whom their parents know. But a list maintained over several years in Duncan's office and obtained by the Tribune lends further evidence to those charges. Duncan is now secretary of education under President Barack Obama. The log is a compilation of politicians and influential business people who interceded on behalf of children during Duncan's tenure. It includes 25 aldermen, Mayor Richard Daley's office, House Speaker Michael Madigan, his daughter Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, former White House social secretary Desiree Rogers and former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun. Non-connected parents, such as those who sought spots for their special-needs child or who were new to the city, also appear on the log. But the politically connected make up about three-quarters of those making requests in the documents obtained by the Tribune. (Chicago Tribune)

Report finds urban students improve in math, reading: Students in city school districts are making gains in math and reading proficiency on state and national tests, at times even besting the scores of peers who live elsewhere, according to a report by the Council of the Great City Schools. The gains are "not as far as we like, but the trend lines continue to point in the right direction," said the council's executive director. (Education Week)

Pittsburgh rolls out teacher-evaluation system: Pittsburgh schools are rolling out an evaluation model for teachers called the Research-Based Inclusive System of Evaluation. The system, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, includes classroom observations and several meetings between the school principal and the teacher to discuss teaching style, lesson plans and how best to promote student learning. The model has been tested in more than one-third of the city's schools. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Dallas textbook-selection process is under scrutiny: Dallas school officials plan to buy 500,000 new reading and literature books, but some are concerned about irregularities in the district's process for textbook purchases. An internal probe and documents obtained by the Dallas Morning News found several areas of concern, including: Two publishers were missing from voting ballots; teachers voted for one company but were overridden by the textbook-selection committee; and that the committee's recommended publisher could have been disqualified for breaking selection rules. (Dallas Morning News)

Many Texas high-school graduates lack skills for college: Despite having passed statewide exams, thousands of Texas high-school graduates need remedial courses in reading, writing and math before they're ready for college-level work. The number of students needing extra help has fallen in recent years, but about 40% of high-school graduates still must play catch-up through remedial courses offered by colleges at a price tag to taxpayers of more than $80 million a year. (Dallas Morning News)

Albany, N.Y., teachers lose jobs as charter schools grow: The Albany, N.Y., school district is slashing 100 jobs, most of them teachers, as charter schools continue to cut into student enrollment at public schools. The district serves 8,400 students, down from about 10,500 in 1999, when the first charter school opened. Albany school officials laid off 113 people in 2009. (Times Union)

Report - Bias plagues women in science, math fields: Bias continues to impede women working in science and math fields, according to a report from the American Association of University Women and the National Science Foundation. The report looked at decades of research and found, for example, that postdoctoral female applicants had to publish three more papers in prestigious journals before they were viewed as being as productive as their male peers. In a separate survey, women reported that while in college, they were often discouraged from going into math or science fields. (The New York Times)

Alternative Schools and Programs for Public School Students At Risk of Educational Failure: This First Look report presents data from a recent district Fast Response Survey System (FRSS) survey about alternative schools and programs available to students during the 2007-08 school year. Alternative schools and programs are specifically designed to address the educational needs of students at risk of school failure in a setting apart from that of the regular public school...

* In the 2007–08 school year, 64 percent of districts reported having at least one alternative school or program for at-risk students that was administered either by the district or by another entity. Forty percent of districts reported having at least one district-administered alternative school or program, and 35 percent of districts reported using at least one alternative school or program administered by another entity in the 2007–08 school year.

* There were 646,500 students enrolled in public school districts attending alternative schools and programs for at-risk students in 2007–08, with 558,300 students attending district-administered alternative schools and programs and 87,200 students attending alternative schools and programs administered by another entity.

* Sixty-three percent of the districts reported having a policy that allowed all students enrolled in alternative schools or programs to return to regular school, and 36 percent of the districts reported having a policy that allowed some of the students to return to a regular school. Among the factors these districts reported as very important in determining whether a student was able to return were: improved attitude/behavior (78 percent), student motivation (77 percent), approval of alternative school or program staff (60 percent), and improved grades (58 percent). (NCES)