Public School Policies

Public schools have faced a myriad of challenges during the current economic slowdown, with budget cuts forcing everything from firing faculty to cutting programs. To help alleviate the financial pinch, some schools are turning to commercialism to make ends meet. By selling advertisements on scoreboards, school buses, and even student lockers, school districts are able to gain enough income to make up for some of their budget shortfalls. However, this practice is a controversial one, as parents and community members ponder whether advertising in and around schools is sending the right message to students. We’ll take a look at both sides of this heated issue.

A History of School Advertising

Selling advertising on school buses began nearly two decades ago in Colorado, and it quickly spread to other states like Texas, Arizona, and Massachusetts. According to a report in the New York Times, Utah became the latest state to allow the practice, signing a bill to allow school bus advertising just one month ago. New Jersey also joined the pack this year, signing a law in January. The ads on buses can generate a significant amount of revenue, with advertisements in the prominent location selling for as much as $150,000 to $250,000, according to the Ad Nauseum blog posted by the New York Law School.

Although school bus advertising has been revving for some time, it is not the first bout of commercialism to hit public schools across the country. Advertising in yearbooks

School choice has been an ongoing debate in districts across the country, but one Colorado district has been getting plenty of attention on this subject of late. Douglas County, located in the southern part of the Denver metro area, has unanimously approved a voucher program that provides state funding to parents who want to enroll their children in private schools. The measure was approved by the Douglas County school board in March of this year, but the fight is just beginning over the constitutionality of such a move. We’ll take a look at both sides of this potentially explosive issue to determine whether the use of taxpayer dollars to fund private schooling should be allowed under the law.

The History of the Voucher Program

The “Choice Scholarship” pilot program due to launch in Douglas County during the 2011-2012 school year was the brainchild of Milton and Rose Friedman. These two economists established the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation in 1996, with the purpose of advancing an education system based on free choice. This couple firmly believes that the most effective way to raise the bar on the quality of education in this country is to provide free choice to parents and students that promotes healthy competition with the educational framework.

School vouchers are a controversial issue. In this video, NPR Ed correspondent Cory Turner offers a primer on how private school vouchers work and the arguments for and against them.

Buckling under the performance pressures placed by some standardized test scores, teachers and administrators are allegedly backed into corners where they either alter test results or lose funding for their schools. The problem has been seen in Washington D.C., and now Atlanta schools may be joining the ranks of school districts caught in the act. Allegations of widespread cheating that have plagued the Atlanta school system for the past year are not showing any signs of going away, as new accusations have recently come to light from a former school district official. The latest news suggests that the former superintendent for Atlanta Public Schools may have known about the problem – and even taken steps of her own to cover up possible indiscretions.

A History of the Atlanta Cheating Scandal

During the summer of 2008, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution launched its own investigation into the validity of standardized test results from some of the schools in the district. Of particular interest was Deerwood Academy, which showed “suspiciously large gains,” according to a later report in the Journal-Constitution. When the publication questioned school officials about the improvements made at Deerwood, as well as a handful of other school districts, reporters were assured that the gains were “valid and defensible.” School officials saw no reason to pursue an investigation of test results at that time.

However, questions about Deerwood began brewing again a few months later, when a state investigation was initiated in response

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” This amendment has protected the right of young American students to express themselves throughout history, even if what they have to say is not complimentary or even popular.

However, free speech has become muddied waters since the advent of online forms of expression. A court in Pennsylvania has proven that fact with two rulings that suggest the discussion is not over in regards to off-campus speech conducted over the Internet. We’ll take a look at both of these cases that have garnered much publicity in recent months, as well as the most recent rulings by the court. We’ll also consider the questions that were not answered by these landmark cases that leave schools and students unsure of how to move forward in the era of online expression.

What the 3^rd U.S. Court of Appeals Decided

According to a report in Wired, the Philadelphia-based 3^rd U.S. Court of Appeals heard two long-running cases this month involving the freedom of students to express their opinions online. Both of the students involved in these cases posted content on MySpace that mocked their principals. The students were both suspended by their schools for the content and

Many schools around the country are failing to live up to academic expectations. Some are finding that the training of the teacher makes the difference in the quality of the education their students receive. Enter Teach for America – the education industry's equivalent of "boot camp" for aspiring teachers, providing the training and experience they need to succeed in even the most challenging academic environments. But is Teach for America really the knight on the white horse or a way to take the community out of the education process? This article will take a look at the pros and cons of this teacher training program.

This video explains the admissions process for Teach America.

What is Teach for America?

Teach for America started as an undergraduate thesis for Wendy Kopp during her studies at Princeton University. According to the organization's website, Kopp believed numerous college students would be willing to assume teaching positions over more lucrative careers if the proper training corps was in place to prepare them. During its inception year in 1990, Teach for America trained 500 men and women to teach in six low-income communities around the United States. Today, that number has grown to 28,000, making Teach for America the largest provider of teachers to low-income areas.

The approach taken by Teach for America is to train up a corps of teachers from over-achieving college students,