Author: Patsy Crawford | Posted: 6. May 2011 02:27
The 2002 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) mandates all U.S. students to be proficient in reading and math by 2014. As the deadline draws near, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan is under increasing pressure from school leaders to provide some relief from some of NCLB’s stringent requirements, [More]
Author: Patsy Crawford | Posted: 29. April 2011 02:29
Under the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) U.S. public schools and school districts must make adequate yearly progress (AYP) as determined by the percentage of the schools’ or districts’ students that score proficient on state-specified tests and other performance indicators. [More]
Author: Patsy Crawford | Posted: 15. April 2011 02:54
On April 8, 2011 the U.S. Department of Education (ED) Secretary issued a press release announcing awards from the $546 million School Improvement Grants (SIG) program to eleven states. The grants are intended to facilitate each state's efforts to turnaround is persistently lowest-performing schools. [More]
Author: Patsy Crawford | Posted: 5. April 2011 01:50
The Council of Great City Schools (CGCS) held its Legislative and Policy Conference on March 19 – 22, 2011. CGCS, with 66 large urban school district members, hosts the annual conference to provide participants with updates on major federal legislative and policy issues that may impact urban school districts’ operations and finances. Two key issues this year were: The reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), and the 2011 federal budget for the U.S. Department of Education (ED). [More]
Author: Patsy Crawford | Posted: 11. March 2011 20:22
On March 9, 2011 Education Secretary Arne Duncan gave testimony before a Congressional committee and warned that, next year, more than 80% of U.S. schools could fail to meet education goals set by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). In his testimony, as posted on the ed.gov website, he told the committee that NCLB is “fundamentally broken and we need to fix it this year.” Although the Secretary credited NCLB with highlighting the achievement gaps between poor and minority students, students with disabilities, English language learners, and their peers, he stated that the law has created dozens of ways for schools to fail and very few ways to help them succeed. [More]
Author: Patsy Crawford | Posted: 5. March 2011 02:17
On February 28, 2011, under the umbrella of Monitoring Progress: RTI’s Promise and Pitfalls, Education Week published online a series of articles on Response to Intervention (RTI) and its impact on student achievement. Use of the RTI educational framework was initiated in federal law by the Early Reading First Program included in the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). RTI was further encouraged by specific language in the 2004 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Since then, the use of RTI has significantly increased. According to Education Week, 25% of U.S. school districts were using some form of RTI in 2007 and, by 2010, the rate had grown to 61%. The article also stated that RTI has been credited as a factor in the decline in the number of students diagnosed with specific learning disabilities (LD), one of the key goals of RTI. [More]
Author: Patsy Crawford | Posted: 18. February 2011 00:09
February 17, 2011 marks the two-year anniversary of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009 (ARRA). ARRA allotted $814 billion in an economic stimulus package aimed at addressing the nation’s worst economic recession since the Great Depression. Approximately $100 million of the stimulus funding was allotted to education programs, and on February 12, 2011 Education Week published at www.edweek.org a series of articles to assess the actual impact of this one-time expenditure on education programs and initiatives. [More]
Author: Patsy Crawford | Posted: 16. February 2011 21:05
Although the federal budget for the 2011 federal fiscal year, which began on October 1, 2010, has not yet been approved by Congress and remains under heated debate, on February 14, 2011 President Barack Obama released his administration’s budget proposal for federal fiscal year (FY) 2012. The proposal includes a request for Congress to allocate $77.4 billion for education funding, which is about a 4% increase over the FY 2010 education budget. According to documents available from the Office of Management and Budget, the FY 2012 budget proposal for education includes, among other things: $900 million for a new K-12 Race to the Top competitive grant program – this time for individual school districts rather than states; a $280 million increase for programs for children and infants with disabilities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) [More]
Author: Patsy Crawford | Posted: 28. January 2011 15:39
... [More]
Author: Patsy Crawford | Posted: 28. January 2011 15:26
... [More]
