Education Week - February 19, 2014 - 1

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EDUCATIONWEEK
VOL. 33, NO. 21 * FEBRUARY 19, 2014
AMERICAN EDUCATION'S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD * © 2014 Editorial Projects in Education * $4
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Placement
Of Teachers
Gets Scrutiny
By Michele McNeil
The U.S. Department of Education is
developing a 50-state strategy that may
finally put some teeth into a key part
of the No Child Left Behind Act that
has been largely ignored for the past
12 years: the inequitable distribution of
the nation's best teachers.
Central to the federal strategy will be
a mix of enforcement and bureaucratic
levers to prod states into making sure
that poor and minority students are not
taught by ineffective and unqualified
teachers at higher rates than their peers.
Among those levers, according to the
PAGE 26 >
Christasia Springs, right, 11, gets a
hug from teacher Courtney Sowell in
a class with fellow students Josiah
Crudup, left, 10, and Zyonna Austin,
11, at Ashley Park Pre-K-8 School
in Charlotte, N.C. The school is part
of a district project to better deploy
the best teachers.
DIGITAL DIRECTIONS
Pa. Approvals
For E-Charters
Getting Tougher
Governance Is a Concern
By Sean Cavanagh
& Benjamin Herold
In rejecting a recent group of applications
to open cyber charter schools
in Pennsylvania, state officials cited
a litany of shortcomings, and one
overriding concern: Who, ultimately,
would be running the show?
All six plans to open new online
schools were denied, and, in five of
those cases, the state raised concerns
that the schools' governing boards
would not act independently of the
organizations they planned to hire to
provide services to students. Those organizations
in some cases were identified
as for-profit companies.
The issues raised by the Pennsylvania
education department last month
underscore a long-standing worry
about charter schools, voiced most
often by their strongest critics: that
the nonprofit boards charged with
overseeing them are often too quick
to cede control over their finances and
operations to third parties whose primary
focus is profitability.
In Pennsylvania, cyber charters
have come under a wave of scrutiny,
PAGE 20 >
'Platooning' on Rise in Early Grades
By Catherine Gewertz
At Sharpstein Elementary School, 2nd
graders are getting used to a routine that
most American children don't learn for four
more years: Several times a day, they line
up and switch classrooms and teachers by
subject.
They spend the morning with one teacher
for reading and writing, breaking in the
middle for music, library, or physical education
classes. After lunch, they head to
another room for math and science. Then
students return to their original teacher for
social studies. Sharpstein's 3rd, 4th, and 5th
graders have similar schedules.
The school in Walla Walla, Wash., is one
of a small but growing number that are
adapting for elementary schools a practice
that has long defined middle and high
schools: departmentalization. Also known as
specializing or "platooning," the model has
been used in limited ways in the lower
grades for years, with children leaving
their main classrooms for math or reading
instruction. It grew in popularity after the
2002 No Child Left Behind Act increased
pressure on schools to raise test scores.
Now, as the Common Core State Standards
require new kinds of skills from younger children,
some schools are expanding the model
by asking teachers to drop their traditional
roles as generalists and serve instead as experts
in one or two content areas. Most commonly,
they're trying it in grades 3-5, but
PAGE 16 >
Common-Core Tensions
Cause Union Heartburn
By Andrew Ujifusa
& Stephen Sawchuk
From the early days of the Common Core State Stan-
dards, the two national teachers' unions have been
among the initiative's biggest boosters, helping to make
the case to the nation's 3.5 million teachers for the
tougher expectations and putting significant money into
the development of aligned curricula and tools.
But in some union quarters, that support is starting
to waver-the product of flawed implementation in
states, concerns about the fast timeline for new testing
tied to the standards, and, in at least one instance, fallout
from internal state-union politics.
The unions' evolving positions raise new questions
PAGE 29 >
STEM Academy's Reach Spans Illinois
By Liana Heitin
Aurora, Ill.
The prestigious Illinois Mathematics
and Science Academy, a residential public
high school here, serves a small slice of
the state's students-650 carefully selected
10th through 12th graders who have demonstrated
talent in math and science. However,
the school's impact goes well beyond its contained,
suburban campus.
The state-funded academy runs a growing
number of outreach initiatives, including
after-school, summer, and professional-de-
velopment programs, which school leaders
say reach more than 10,000 students across
the state every year.
In fact, it now operates three field offices,
in Chicago, Belleville, and Rock Island.
The offices provide local support to schools
administering the outreach programs, and
hold workshops and summer programs
themselves.
One of IMSA's best-known initiatives is
the FUSION after-school program, in which
top-performing middle school students,
mainly in underresourced areas, get a
PAGE 18 >
Sarah Leahy,
a student at the
Illinois Mathematics
and Science
Academy, is poised
to catch the lid
from an exploding
film can after
mixing water and
Alka-Seltzer inside.
The students are
participating in a
training program
that prepares them
to lead inquirybased
projects.
Emile Wamsteker for Education Week
Chris Keane for Education Week
John Zich for Eduction Week

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Education Week - February 19, 2014

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