Education Week - January 29, 2014 - 1

EDUCATIONWEEK
VOL. 33, NO. 19 * JANUARY 29, 2014
AMERICAN EDUCATION'S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD * © 2014 Editorial Projects in Education * $4
INDUSTRY & INNOVATION
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Graduation
Disparities
Loom Large
Special-Needs Gap at Issue
By Christina A. Samuels
The wide graduation-rate gaps in
many states between students with
disabilities and those in regular education
raise the stakes for next year's
first-ever federal evaluation of how well
states are serving their special education
students.
Kentucky Chamber of Commerce President David C. Adkisson, center, outside the Statehouse in Frankfort, worked with Stu Silberman, left,
of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, and Kentucky education Commissioner Terry Holliday to support the common core.
Business Groups Defend Common Standards
By Michele Molnar
Chambers of commerce in a growing number
of states are casting themselves in the role of
defenders of the common core against increasingly
vocal opposition to the new standards
from some of their traditional Republican allies.
Take Georgia. At a January gathering of the
Georgia chamber's board of directors in Atlanta,
candidates for state superintendent stated their
positions on the Common Core State Standards.
Eight candidates weighed in-seven Republicans
and one Democrat-and most expressed reserva-
tions about, or outright resistance to, the standards
for English/language arts and mathematics.
Objections ranged from the quality of the
standards to the belief that the common standards
represent centralized control from an
overreaching federal government.
"It has become such a divisive issue, particularly
in Republican circles here in Georgia," said Matt
Shultz, one of the GOP candidates for state superintendent,
in a phone interview after speaking at
the chamber session. "If we removed the 'common
core' branding, it would defuse some of the issues."
But defusing those issues may not be as
simple as rebranding the common core, some
experts point out.
"The battle lines are informally drawn nationally
between the business establishment and a
more conservative element, a more politically
motivated element," explained David C. Adkisson,
who chairs the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's
Education, Employment, and Training
Committee and is also the president and CEO of
the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce.
This battle for the "hearts and minds" over
common core is occurring at an "elite" level, atPAGE
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The most recent U.S. Department
of Education data, for 2011-12, shows
a four-year graduation-rate gap that
ranges from a high of 43 percentage
points in Mississippi to a low of 3 percentage
points in Montana.
By 2015, the Education Department
aims to take a closer look at graduationrate
disparities when it evaluates states
on their special education performance.
And that eventually could affect what
states can do with their federal aid for
special education.
"We know there are students with
disabilities who can be achieving much
more," said Melody Musgrove, the director
of the federal office of special education
programs.
Nationally, the largest proportion
of students with disabilities, about 41
percent, is classified as having "specific
learning disabilities," which would inPAGE
8>
Cheating Case
Implicates
Phila. Educators
By Dale Mezzacappa
DIGITAL DIRECTIONS
Ruling Raises Internet-Access Concerns
The court ruled that the Federal Com-
By Sean Cavanagh
Teachers and students count on having
relatively broad access to online academic
content, but a recent federal court ruling has
raised questions about whether the education
community could lose some of its ability to tap
into the vast library of Internet resources.
The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the District of Columbia this month has been
interpreted as giving commercial Internet
providers significantly more power to block
content or set conditions on its delivery before
it reaches customers, including schools.
The ruling struck a blow against the concept
of "net neutrality," the idea that all content
flowing through the online realm should
be treated the same way by providers, regardless
of its source.
munications Commission, the agency that
regulates interstate communication, does
not have the legal authority to prevent
telecommunications providers-such as
Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon-from blocking
the delivery of lawful online content or
discriminating against certain kinds of content
providers.
While predicting the consequences of the
ruling requires weighing a number of hypotheticals,
consumer-rights organizations
worry that it will give telecommunications
companies much greater ability to charge content
providers more to guarantee the faster
delivery of data to consumers, leaving others,
such as schools, with slower delivery.
Additionally, Internet service providers
PAGE 12>
Sizing Up Blended Learning
Sizing Up
EDUCATIONWEEK
A Special Report on Educational Technology > www.edweek.org/go/blended-learning
Schools Expand
Opportunities,
Confront
Shortcomings
This special report is the
latest installment in an
ongoing series exploring
online education. The
stories in the report
examine the potential
benefits, and the persistent questions, that surround
schools' and districts' implementation of blended
learning, the widely used instructional approach
that combines technology-based instruction with
traditional, face-to-face lessons.
See the pullout section opposite Page 14.
Blended Learning
A Supplement to the January 29, 2014 Issue
Vol. 33 * No. 19
Philadelphia Public School Notebook
Schools Expand
Opportunities,
Confront
Shortcomings
A lengthy investigation into cheating
on state tests in Philadelphia came
to a head this month, with more than
130 current and former educators in
that city now implicated for their roles
in the misconduct, according to information
given to the School Reform
Commission.
That district and state education
leaders will move ahead with disciplinary
actions against such a large number
of educators puts Philadelphia in
the company of Atlanta, where widespread
cheating on state exams led last
year to the criminal indictments of 35
teachers, principals, and administrators,
including a former superintendent
of the year.
In the Philadelphia case, sources confirmed
to The Notebook that the state
attorney general has begun a criminal
PAGE 13>
Philip Scott Andrews for Education Week

http://www.edweek.org http://www.edweek.org/go/blended-learning

Education Week - January 29, 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - January 29, 2014