•Are More Charter Schools In The Chicago Schools Future?
Ever since George W. Bush took the oath of president of the United States, he and his administration have instituted many federally mandated changes for public schools across the nation. Now, according to Margaret Spellings, education secretary for the Bush Administration, there may be more that directly affect the Chicago Schools and the state of Illinois. Currently, the states of Illinois, Michigan and New York have the lowest caps on the number of public charter schools allowed. Illinois...
•CEO Bonnie Copeland Leaving Baltimore Schools Cause For Concern
CEO Bonnie Copeland left the Baltimore schools on July 1, 2006. She had been with them for three years, which is a norm for an urban school superintendent. Her leaving, however, was not of her own choosing.
The Baltimore schools board felt she had a low-key management style and did was not a strong enough leader to make the changes needed to reform the Baltimore schools. Their reasoning appears to have been a bit flawed.
During her tenure with the Baltimore schools, Copeland managed a...
•Baltimore Schools Designate Six Schools As Persistently Dangerous With A Warning To Another
The federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act requires that all states report any schools that are considered persistently dangerous. The state of Maryland is only one of six states that have reported having such schools. Some metro areas with similar or worse problems report no dangerous schools at all.
Since each state sets its own suspension limits for reporting, the NCLB provision is inconsistent across the nation with many states ignoring it all together. The state of Maryland, however,...
•Charter Schools In Boston Are Urged To Join Boston Schools System
In an unprecedented move in April, the Boston schools launched an initiative to convert all the charter schools within the city over to their school system as pilot schools. The move was in response to the millions of funding dollars lost each year for the children who attend the charter schools. Converting the schools to pilot schools, under the jurisdiction of the Boston schools, would reclaim future dollars, as well as expand the Boston schools’ portfolio of experimental schools.
The...
•The Los Angeles Schools Bond Measure — Is It Needed?
On November 8th, the voters of who live in the Los Angeles schools district will be faced with their fourth proposition, called Measure Y. The $3.985 bond measure, which will be paid by property taxes, is for more planned expansion within the Los Angeles schools, allowing them to add another 25 elementary schools to the current list of 160 schools that are scheduled to be constructed by year 2012. Some of the money also is slated for other needs, such as new school buses, repairs and charter...
•Chicago Schools Opens Its First Virtual Elementary School
The Illinois State Board of Education has approved the state’s first virtual public elementary school, the Chicago Virtual Charter School. The Board acted against State Superintendent Randy Dunn’s recommendation to disapprove the Chicago schools application, as well as against the opposition of the powerful Chicago Teachers Union, by voting a five-to-four approval.
Though virtual schools already exist in the United States, they usually are high schools. Several states, however, prohibit...
•Dress Code Is New Hot Button For The Houston Schools
School dress codes have been around for decades, but they gained more prominence in schools and are stricter in recent years in response to the permeation of gangs and violence within the schools at all levels. In addition to maintaining modesty within the schools, dress codes now ban gang paraphernalia, colors and symbols; shirts with writing; head coverings; and other such accessories that have been linked to gangs or school violence.
Though all of the Houston schools have dress codes, each...
•Los Angeles Schools Strongly Opposed To Takeover By Mayor Villaraigosa
There is currently legislation AB 1381 in the state legislature that, if passed, will give the okay to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to take over a subset of the Los Angeles schools. Recently, the mayor’s school reform team announced its latest round of changes to the bill in order to sidestep some possible problems to it passing.
Last month, according to the Los Angeles Times’ August 8, 2006 article, Los Angeles Chief Legislative Analyst Gerry F. Miller made certain speculations about the bill....
•California Schools’ Audit Shows Excessive Spending And Overpayments To Chain Of Charter Schools
Superintendent of Instruction for the California schools, Jack O’Connell, initiated an audit more than a year ago into the fiscal concerns of the Options for Youth and Opportunities for Learning (OYO) schools. The OYO is a chain of independent study charter schools within the California schools system, which are privately run but funded by the state.
The OYO California schools serve students who have dropped out of the traditional high schools. They currently have about 15,000 students in 40...
•New Committee Appointed By State To Work With St. Louis Schools
In July, St. Louis schools’ Superintendent Creg Williams abruptly resigned. Since then, many members of the community, government officials, and parents have called for various types of intervention for the St. Louis schools. The law allows for such consideration at different levels of the public school system. Thus, the state has appointed a new committee to oversee, work with, gather information for, and make recommendations to the St. Louis schools and state education officials.
The...
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