Public School Policies

During his time in office, President Barack Obama unveiled his proposal for overhauling the No Child Left Behind Act. This is a move of tremendous importance to public education. The NCLB Act was supported by both Democrats and Republicans in Congress when George W. Bush introduced it in 2001, but many education policy workers and politicians have become critical of the law in the years since its passage.

The law has come under attack for several reasons:

• Encourages Teachers to “Teach to the Test.” Critics say that the law has demoralized teachers and forced them to “teach to the test” rather than making instructional decisions based on the best interests of students.

• Encourages States to Dumb Down Standards. Because the standardized tests which are so important to NCLB are based on state standards, the law created what Secretary of Education Arne Duncan calls a “perverse incentive” for states to make their standards as low as possible, ensuring that a maximum number of students achieve passing scores.

• “Utopian” Goals. The Obama administration, according to the New York Times, has called NCLB’s goal that 100% of public school students will achieve proficiency in reading and math “utopian.”

This video looks at some of the issues with No Child Left Behind.

President Obama’s Proposed Changes

To fix the weaknesses of the No Child Left Behind Act, the Obama administration is proposing several

Forget Adam and Eve or sex education. The latest curriculum controversy surrounds global warming. In fact, South Dakota’s legislature recently passed a resolution that called for the “balanced teaching of global warming.” Global warming, the resolution states, is “a scientific theory rather than a proven fact.”

Some States Mandate That “Both Sides” of Global Warming be Addressed

According to the New York Times, South Dakota is not the only state to have introduced legislation addressing the question of how global warming should be taught in schools. Among the other states that have taken or are considering such steps include:

• Texas - The Texas Board of Education declared in 2009 that public school teachers must present both sides when discussing global warming and evolution.
• Kentucky – A bill recently introduced in the Kentucky legislature encourages teachers to discuss “the advantages and disadvantages of scientific theories,” as the Times reports, including “evolution, the origins of life, global warming and human cloning.”
• Louisiana – Louisiana’s state legislature passed a law in 2008 that says that the state board of education “may assist teachers in promoting ‘critical thinking’” on subjects such as evolution and global warming, according to the Times.

This video from PBS looks at attempts to rein in climate change education.

Why Global Warming and Evolution Are Linked Together

Legislators may be using the question of whether global warming should be taught as a

These days, choice is a word that’s frequently heard in discussions of public education. If parents don’t like the local traditional public school, they can investigate charter schools, private schools, or neighboring public school districts with open-enrollment options. However, all this choice has resulted in hard times for some of the nation’s public schools, which are facing dwindling student populations and subsequently dwindling funds.

In an attempt to fight the tide of dwindling student populations and to prevent more students from leaving, some public schools are putting their efforts into marketing campaigns designed to sell prospective students and their families on the virtues of their neighborhood public schools. Below, we look at this surprising trend.

Why Do Public Schools Need Marketing Campaigns?

Charter Schools

Although school districts can attribute some of their declining enrollment numbers to inter-district transfers or students choosing to attend private schools, the reality is that the explosive growth of charter schools is the main cause of public schools’ enrollment woes.

According to USCharterSchools.org, there are currently more than 3,500 charter schools in the U.S., and more than one million public school students attend a charter school rather than a traditional public school.

Charter schools are very popular with politicians from both sides of the political spectrum, and many state legislatures are pushing to lift caps on the number of charter schools that are allowed. The result is that more and more students are enrolling in charters rather than

The question of whether public school teachers in the K-12 system should be protected by the system of tenure is a highly controversial one. It is also an extremely important question at the present moment. A changing world economy and increased focus on our nation’s education system are bringing teacher tenure into the spotlight, and some say it is a tradition that may be outdated.

The Good: Why Some Argue that Tenure is Important

Protects teachers from being fired for personal or political reasons

As a 2008 TIME magazine article on teacher tenure notes, one of the most significant results of teacher tenure is that it makes firing teachers “a difficult and costly process.” A tenured teacher cannot be fired on the whim of a school administrator; charges will need to be filed, evaluations submitted, and hearings held. Many teachers believe that the job security tenure provides is important because it prevents teachers from being fired for reasons of favoritism or local or district politics.

Gives teachers the freedom to experiment or support controversial causes

Many say that tenure is important for teachers to delve into potentially untraditional topics. A high school social studies teacher, Alan Singer wrote recently for the Huffington Post about how he helped students form clubs which “testified in public hearings against budget cuts in education and in favor of condom availability in schools.” Without the protection that tenure offered, Singer argues, he would not have felt

E-books, some say, are the words of the future. The Kindle, the iPad, and other electronic reading devices are signaling the end of the print era.

Colleges and universities across the country have begun experimenting with using e-textbooks, rather than printed textbooks, to deliver course content. Now, the K-12 public school system is getting on the e-text bandwagon too, as several state legislatures make moves to support the use of electronic textbooks in their state’s public schools.

This video from Fox News reports on ebooks versus physical textbooks.

States Move to Adopt Digital Textbooks

Texas

In Texas, for example, the legislature adopted a bill in 2009 that provided funds for school districts and charter schools to purchase the technology necessary for e-textbooks. This bill also gave school districts and charter schools the necessary flexibility to adopt e-textbooks instead of traditional textbooks.

The bill also allowed school districts to be reimbursed by the state for 50% of the savings they incurred from the switch from regular textbooks to e-texts. As Texas Senator Jeff Wentworth reports in a guest column for the website My San Antonio, school districts may use the reimbursement they receive from the state to purchase educational technology, such as computers, if they choose.

Indiana

Twelve schools in the Indianapolis Public School System will soon be foregoing traditional textbooks as well. As the educational technology publication The