Education Week - February 8, 2017 - 5

REPORT ROUNDUP

Nevada Savings Program
Draws Wealthier Applicants
Families in more-affluent neighborhoods in Nevada are still the top applicants for the state's education-savingsaccount program, new data show.
Updated information compiled by
the state treasurer's office last month
indicates that not much has changed
since 2015, though there seems to be a
clear trend emerging: Parents living in
middle- to upper-class neighborhoods
remain much more likely to apply for
the program than those living in lowincome areas.
Nevada's ESA program, the first
of its kind nationwide to be passed
without limiting applicants based
on income, would deposit upwards of
$5,100 in state education funds into a
bank account to be used by approved
families for private school tuition, tutoring, and the like. The program was
put on hold last year after the state supreme court ruled that ESA funding
couldn't come from the coffers of public education, but it could be revived by
lawmakers this year.
-TNS

S.D. Locker Room Bill
Scuttled for Schools
A bill that would have restricted
which locker rooms South Dakota
transgender students could use was
scuttled last week, averting another
bitter fight over the regulation of
school facilities.
The proposal would have required
students to use the locker rooms,
shower rooms, and changing facilities matching their gender at birth.
Schools would have been allowed
to provide alternative accommodations, such as single-occupancy
restrooms.
South Dakota is among at least 11
states where similar bills had been prefiled or introduced for the 2017 legislative session, according to the National
Conference of State Legislatures. -AP

Pro-Prayer Principal Loses
License for 20 Years
A former principal who said prayer
had dramatically boosted test scores
has lost her license for 20 years for
telling teachers and other workers to
correct students' answers.
A state education department
commission voted unanimously
last month to suspend the license of
Lowanda Tyler-Jones, a former principal at Heidelberg Elementary School
in Clarksdale, Miss.
The Mississippi education department investigated after The ClarionLedger reported a dramatic increase
in test scores at Heidelberg in 2013.-AP

CORRECTION
An article in the Jan. 25, 2017, issue
of Education Week misidentified a
company that Betsy DeVos was asked
about in her confirmation hearing to
be U.S. secretary of education. Social
Finance Inc., or SoFi, is a San Francisco-based finance company specializing in student-loan refinancing, wealth
management, and other services. The
story mistakenly identified another
organization with the same name.

www.edweek.org/go/rr

BILINGUAL EDUCATION
"Teacher Talent Untapped: Multilingual
Paraprofessionals Speak About the Barriers to
Entering the Profession"
More than 30 states and the District of Columbia have reported shortages of bilingual, dualimmersion, and English-as-a-second-language
teachers, finds a new report by New America's
Dual Language Learners National Work Group.
The report tracked multilingual paraprofessionals in Minneapolis; Orange County, Calif.;
San Antonio; Seattle; and the District of Columbia who are prime candidates to fill vacancies
related to bilingual education. It found paraprofessionals face bureaucratic, financial, and
linguistic barriers that make it tough to earn
teaching credentials. Moreover, little formal
professional development is available for paraprofessionals, and most reported learning about
teaching pathways mainly via word of mouth.
-COREY MITCHELL

Computer Science Draws Undergrads With Disabilities
"Women, Minorities, and Persons With
Disabilities in Science and Engineering"
Students with disabilities are as likely as typically developing students to enter science and
engineering fields in college, according to new
data from the National Science Foundation.
The finding is part of the NSF's annual study
of students from traditionally underrepresented groups-including women, minorities,
and students with disabilities-in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields.
As of 2012, the most recent year for data,
about 2.4 million of the 21.8 million students
pursuing an undergraduate degree reported
having a disability. That's 11 percent, roughly
on par with the 12 percent of K-12 students
with a disability in U.S. schools. Those with disabilities were significantly older than undergraduates without disabilities; 36 percent were
older than 30, compared with only 24 percent

of those without disabilities. They were also
slightly more likely than students without a
disability to attend two-year rather than fouryear colleges.
The data show students with disabilities
were as likely as other students to enroll in
science fields; they were a little more likely to
study computer science and slightly less likely
to pursue engineering or life sciences than their
nondisabled peers. Students with disabilities
were also equally likely to get financial aid for
college.
However, students with disabilities were less
likely to enroll in graduate school, often needed
for top science careers, the data show. In 2012,
only 7 percent of graduate students reported
having a disability. And once out of college, students with disabilities who do go into science
and engineering fields are as likely as their
nondisabled peers to work in industry or government jobs.
-SARAH D. SPARKS

TEACHERS
"(No) Money in the Bank: Which Retirement
Systems Penalize New Teachers?"
Many new teachers will contribute a portion of
their pay to pension plans that will be worth less
upon retirement than what the teachers contributed while they were in the classroom, according
to a new report by the Washington-based think
tank, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.
The report looks at how long teachers in the
largest district in each state and in the District of Columbia must wait until their pension
value exceeds their own contributions. The
short answer: Teachers in more than half the
51 districts wait 25 years before their retirement benefit is worth more than the total of
what they invested.
That means many teachers never see a benefit, as 72 percent leave the profession before
putting in 20 years on the job, the report found.
That lag time is in part because districts use
new teachers' pension contributions to pay for
existing pension benefits, the report says.

COLLEGE TRACK
New federal data show that students with disabilities accounted for 1 in 10 undergraduate college students
in the United States in 2012. They were more likely than other students to attend a two-year institution.

48% 49

All Undergraduates

41 41

Without Disability
With Disability
SOURCE: National Science Foundation

9
2
4-year

2-year

Less than 2-year

Other or more than
one institution

Type of Higher Education

-BRENDA IASEVOLI

SCHOOL SAFETY
"Economic Insecurity and the Rise in Gun
Violence at U.S. Schools"
School shootings are more frequent when the
unemployment rate rises, researchers at Northwestern University say in a new study in the journal Nature Human Behavior.
The researchers compiled a database of 381
shootings that occurred at K-12 schools and on
higher education campuses between 1990 and
2013, comparing their frequency to various economic indicators. The incidents were not necessarily mass shootings; they included all intentional or
accidental firearm discharges on a school campus
that involved "students or school employees, either as perpetrators, bystanders, or victims."
Researchers found gun violence at schools
increased from 2007 to 2013, and the rates
varied by geographic regions and cities.
In particular, the study found that higher
unemployment rates in particular areas
were associated with higher rates of school
shootings.
"Joblessness is related to lowered selfesteem, diminished status, and detrimental
behavior," the researchers noted, adding that
young people may be affected by added stress
from their parents or family members being
unemployed or from worry that they will
not be able to get a job after graduation. As
a result, the study authors believe that "gun
violence at schools is a response, in part, to
the breakdown in the expectation that sus-

tained participation in the educational system will improve economic opportunities and
outcomes."
That said, gun violence remains extremely
rare in schools, it found.
-EVIE BLAD

SCHOOL CLIMATE

CHARTER SCHOOLS

Middle schoolers' math and reading performance rose and fell with their belief that
their school had a welcoming climate, says a
new study by the Regional Educational Lab
at WestEd.
Researchers looked at 7th graders' reports
of school climate-including feelings of
safety and connection, caring relationships
with adults, meaningful student participation, and low rates of bullying, drug use, delinquency, and discrimination at school-at
1,000 California middle schools, from 200405 through 2010-11. Researchers compared
school climate data to students' test performance in reading and math during that
time.
There wasn't a strong relationship between students' academic performance and
differences in climate among various schools
in the same year. Schools with high overall
school climate, however, had higher average
reading and math scores, and student performance was strongly related to changes in the
social climate within the same school from
year to year.

"Does School Reform Equal Spending Reform?"
New Orleans charter schools have increased
spending on administrators and reduced spending for teachers in the years since charter schools
took over nearly every public school after Hurricane Katrina hit the city in 2005.
That's according to a study by the Education
Research Alliance for New Orleans, based at Tulane University. It found a $706 per-pupil drop in
instructional spending, largely driven by lower
salaries and smaller benefit packages for educators.
Lower teacher pay can be attributed to the fact
that nearly 7,000 educators were fired after Katrina and replaced by a much younger teaching
force, nearly all of whom work in nonunionized
charters.
But lower salaries just explained a third of the
drop in instructional spending. Retirement benefits accounted for half the difference. Instead of
using the Teachers Retirement System of Louisiana, most New Orleans charter schools use
401(k)-style retirement plans. -EMMANUEL FELTON

"How Are Middle School Climate and Academic
Performance Related Across Schools and Over
Time?"

-SARAH D. SPARKS

EDUCATION WEEK | February 8, 2017 | www.edweek.org | 5

http://www.edweek.org/go/rr http://www.edweek.org

Education Week - February 8, 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - February 8, 2017