Education Week - January 18, 2017 - 4

NEWS IN BRIEF
Louisiana Court Rules
Against Charter Funding

high school; Sydney Chaffee, a high
school humanities teacher at a Boston
charter school; Athanasia Kyriakakos,
a high school art teacher in Baltimore;
and Chris Gleason, a middle school
instrumental-music teacher in Sun
Prairie, Wis.
-MADELINE WILL

A Louisiana appeals court last
week ruled that the funding of more
than 30 of the state's 148 public
charter schools is unconstitutional.
The schools in question were
granted charters by Louisiana's
state board of education. But they
were funded through a state education formula that distributes money
to individual local school districts.
Some districts and a teachers'
union claimed it was unconstitutional
to fund the state-chartered schools
with money meant for local systems.
With an estimated $80 million in
question, state officials said they
would appeal.
-ASSOCIATED PRESS

Ferguson Retains Voting Rule
For Upcoming Election

A Detroit school board with the
power to direct Michigan's largest
school system has been seated for
the first time in seven years.
The seven Detroit Public Schools
Community board members were collectively sworn in last week. After the
ceremony, the board approved temporary bylaws, set a meeting schedule,
and elected officers.
The 46,000-student district was
created by the legislature as part of
a bailout of the Detroit district.
Several governor-appointed emergency managers began controlling
the district in 2009.
-AP

Tribal Students Sue Feds
Over School Conditions
Nine children from an Arizona
tribe are suing the federal government, alleging that they and other
children in Bureau of Indian Education schools have been routinely denied the right to a basic education.
The children, ages six to 15, are
members of the Havasupai tribe
based in and around the Grand
Canyon's South Rim. The complaint,
filed in U.S. District Court in Arizona, names the Bureau of Indian
Education and the U.S. Interior Department as defendants.
According to the lawsuit, the
K-8 Havasupai Elementary School
shuts down for weeks at a time
because there aren't enough teach-

Lake Fong/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP

Local Board Takes Control
Of Schools in Detroit

ROBOT WATCH
Oleg Hartman, left, and
Evan Moncheck of
Providence Heights Alpha
School in McCandless, Pa.,
keep a close eye on their
robot's performance at
the Western Pennsylvania
First Lego League grand
championship tournament,
which hosted hundreds of
elementary and middle
school students.

ers. The school also lacks textbooks
and a functioning library, and only
teaches students math and reading
when open.
According to the complaint,
Havasupai Elementary is among
the worst-performing schools in the
nation. The federal civil rights complaint, filed by the Native American
Disability Law Center, also alleges
that the school has failed to properly
evaluate and educate students with
disabilities, with some spending as
little as three hours per week in
school.
-COREY MITCHELL

tually every category-test scores,
graduation rates, attendance, and
financial performance.
The state-appointed board is to remain in place until June 2019.
Just 56 percent of students were
graduating in 2007, and the district
was $24 million in debt. Today, the
district has a 72 percent graduation rate despite a high percentage
of students living in poverty and a
budget surplus of $19 million. -AP

Reaccreditation Restored
To St. Louis District

Banking giant JPMorgan Chase
& Co. has awarded $20 million in
grants to 10 states to build comprehensive career and technical education systems in collaboration with
industries in their states.
The grants, announced last week,
are part of New Skills for Youth, a
$75 million JPMorgan Chase initiative aimed at improving career and
tech-ed programs. The Council of
Chief State School Officers and Advance CTE are working with JPMorgan Chase to evaluate states' plans
and support them.
The winning states are Delaware, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma,
Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Wisconsin.
Chris Minnich, the CCSSO's executive director, said the grants are
part of a major project undertaken
by more than 40 states to modernize career education so that every
student can graduate from high
school well prepared to pursue a
career.
-CATHERINE GEWERTZ

Missouri's board of education last
week restored full accreditation to
the St. Louis school district, citing a
significant turnaround in the decade
since poor academic and financial
performance forced the state to seize
control.
Chris Neale, an assistand commissioner, told board members that the
district "has been on a significant
upward trend," improving in vir-

Pam Panchak/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP

SWING TIME

4 | EDUCATION WEEK | January 18, 2017 | www.edweek.org

Bless Freeman and Deja
Lindsay, students at
Pittsburgh's Urban
Academy, show their stuff
in a swing dancing
competition. Students
from 11 of the city's
schools took part in the
recent dance competition.

10 States Win $20 Million
For Career Ed. Upgrades

Schools Chief Group Names
Teacher of Year Finalists
The Council of Chief State School
Officers last week announced finalists for National Teacher of the Year.
They are Megan Gross, a special
education teacher at a San Diego

A school district that includes
students from Ferguson, Mo., will
continue its long-held method of
electing board members at large in
April, despite a lawsuit claiming the
process is racially biased.
The lawsuit that the American
Civil Liberties Union filed in 2014
on behalf of the Missouri NAACP
seeks a process for the FergusonFlorissant district known as cumulative voting. It would allow people
to vote multiple times for a single
candidate, depending on how many
seats are up for grabs.
U.S. District Judge Rodney Sippel
ruled in favor of the NAACP. But he
decided in December to allow the district to hold off on cumulative voting
while it appealed. A three-judge appellate panel this month refused to
overturn that decision.
The suit alleges that the district's
practice of selecting board members
at large has made it more difficult
for black candidates to win.
-AP

No Charges Filed Against
Threatening Principal
The Allegheny County district attorney's office has declined to charge
a Pennsylvania high school principal whose threats toward a student
were secretly recorded.
A letter to Woodland Hills Superintendent Alan Johnson last week
called Kevin Murray's actions "inappropriate." A spokesman for the
district attorney's office said it
would be best to defer to district officials to address Murray's behavior
rather than charge him criminally.
The Woodland Hills High School
principal was suspended after a
recording surfaced in November in
which he can be heard threatening to punch a 14-year-old student
in the face. The teenager who recorded Murray is facing a juvenile
charge of violating state wiretapping laws in an unrelated incident
also involving a secret recording in
school.
-AP

Miss. Lawmaker Wants Fines
For Schools That Skip Pledge
A Mississippi legislator has sponsored a bill that levies a $1,500 fine
on any school that doesn't recite the
Pledge of Allegiance within the first
hour of class each school day.
Rep. William Shirley's update
to the Mississippi Code of 1972
would tack on the fine for any "violation" of the code, although the
Republican's bill says "any student
or teacher who objects to reciting
the oath of allegiance shall be excused from participating without
penalty."
School districts found in violation would be required to pay

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Education Week - January 18, 2017

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