Education Week - April 15, 2015 - 1

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AMERICAN EDUCATION'S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD * © 2015 Editorial Projects in Education * $4
VOL. 34, NO. 27 * APRIL 15, 2015
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Atlanta Verdicts
Ignite Debate
Empathy, Scorn for Educators
Found Guilty in Cheating Case
By Corey Mitchell
The conviction of 11 former Atlanta educators
on state racketeering charges that could
land them behind bars has ignited debate
about whether the punishment fits the crime
and fueled already-heated discussions about
the role of high-stakes standardized tests in
K-12 public schools.
Jurors in Fulton County, Ga., had to decide
if the educators were conspirators in a widespread
cheating scandal-or, as defense lawyers
argued, were merely pawns in a scheme
masterminded by their former supervisors in
the Atlanta school district.
The jury, following six months of testimony,
found earlier this month that the former
teachers and administrators plotted to artificially
inflate test scores by changing answers
or guiding students to fill in the correct responses
on the 2009 Georgia Criterion-Referenced
Competency Test, the state's annual
PAGE 10 >
Students swing during recess at Patterson International Elementary School in Lakewood, Colo., earlier this month. More schools
are banning or limiting the use of withholding recess for punitive reasons as research shows the benefits of playtime for students.
Withholding Recess as Discipline in Decline
By Evie Blad
It's not uncommon for elementary
school teachers to take away recess
time to discipline students. Withholding
cherished playtime clearly
communicates to children that their
misbehavior is unacceptable, they
argue.
But more and more, schools are
doing away with withholding recess
for disciplinary reasons, pointing to
research findings that unstructured
play and exercise benefit students
both inside and outside the classroom.
"That physical activity and unstructured
play, those things are
not luxuries for kids," said Sara
Zimmerman, the technical-assistance
director of the Oakland,
Calif.-based Safe Routes to School
National Partnership, which advocates
increased physical activity for
students. "That's a key part of how
kids learn and how they grow."
Schools around the country have
implemented policies that limit or
eliminate teachers' ability to take
away recess time, their efforts bolstered
by district policies and state
laws that place renewed emphasis
on physical activity and by increased
public involvement in the
creation of district wellness policies.
In Minnesota, for example, lawmakers
are considering a bill that
would prohibit schools from withholding
recess time as a form of
punishment. A separate bill in that
state would require schools to set
clear policies on how much recess
time they provide to students and
to publish those policies online.
At least 11 states have similar
prohibitions, according to the Reston,
Va.-based National Association
for Sport and Physical Education.
In a 2013 analysis of wellness
policies in more than 600 school districts
around the country, researchers
from the University of Illinois
at Chicago found that 68 percent
of elementary schools had no policy
in place prohibiting the use of withholding
of physical activity as a
form of discipline during the 201011
school year. That's a decline from
79 percent in 2006-07.
Supporters of those changes say it's
PAGE 14 >
As schools
move to ban
restrictions on
playtime, some
teachers resist
losing
discretion
over discipline
Schools Weigh Duty
On Religious Rights
By Mark Walsh
Adriel Arocha was a kindergartner with
long braids in 2008 when his American
Indian religious beliefs and those of his father,
Kenney, ran smack into the grooming
policy of the Needville, Texas, school system-and
led to a federal court ruling centered
on that state's religious-freedom law.
The law, the Texas Religious Freedom
Restoration Act, is among the varied, but
similarly named, statutes in 20 other states
now under intense public scrutiny in the
wake of controversies in Arkansas and Indiana
over whether such laws would allow
business owners to discriminate against
people based on sexual orientation.
The Arochas' case, advocates and scholars
say, is an example of how these little-used
PAGE 19 >
DIGITAL DIRECTIONS
Demand for Print Persists
Amid K-12 Digital Surge
By Sean Cavanagh
The massive shift in school districts from print to
digital content is widely viewed in education technology
circles as inevitable-and highly desirable.
In many school systems, however, the reality is that
the transition is playing out incrementally, and that
teachers will be relying on printed materials for
years to come, for a host of financial and technological
reasons.
Recent surveys and data, interviews with educators
and industry officials, and K-12 companies' development
of new products underscore the enduring,
widespread demand for textbooks and other paperbased
materials in the nation's schools.
While some districts have leapt aggressively into
tech adoption-through 1-to-1 computing programs
and other ambitious measures-many school systems
clearly favor a hybrid approach, in which
teachers and students use both print and digital
resources, K-12 leaders and company officials say.
A number of factors help explain print's continued,
strong presence. Many districts can't afford or are
wary of taking on big upfront costs to buy laptops,
tablets, and other devices necessary to deliver technology-based
content. Districts worry about the time
it will take to train teachers to work with new technology
and integrate it across schools. Some districts
say they lack the Internet bandwidth necessary to
PAGE 12 >
Blended Learning:
Breaking Down Barriers
This special report explores some of the
most persistent questions schools face
in adopting blended learning strategies,
such as how to overcome students'
lack of home Internet access, whether
districts or schools should make
software buying decisions, and how
teachers can help each other master
technology in classrooms.
See the pullout section
opposite Page 14.
Nathan W. Armes for Education Week
http://www.edweek.org
Education Week - April 15, 2015

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