Education Week - July 9, 2014 - 1

Education Week
VOL. 33, NO. 36 * JULY 9, 2014

edweek.org:

BREAKING NEWS DAILY

Lawmakers
Assert Role
In Standards
Common Core Sparks Bills

Brandon Dill for Education Week

By Catherine Gewertz

Teachers at Ridgeway High School in Memphis, Tenn., begin a three-day Common Core State Standards training session. The state has spent
$44 million of its $500 million Race to the Top grant to train more than 70,000 teachers in the new academic standards.

Tennessee on Dogged Path to Race to Top Finish
By Lauren Camera
Tucked into the northwestern corner of Memphis, Tenn.,
past the derelict tractor-parts plant, across the railroad tracks
overgrown with thorny bushes, and through an abandoned
neighborhood, is Westside Achievement Middle School.
The 400-student school and others in the neighborhood
known as Frayser have been some of the state's poorestperforming schools for decades.
Like other urban communities devastated by the decline
of manufacturing and later by the recession, Frayser doesn't
have much to offer. Most of the single-family homes that surround Westside are vacant, and references to neighborhood

gangs scrawled in black graffiti cover a cluster of houses just
one block from the middle school. When the University of
Memphis recently identified five parts of the city with exceedingly high crime rates, three were in Frayser.
This shrinking outcrop of Memphis is home to some
45,000 people. Most are African-American, and all live at
or below the poverty line. Fewer than half the adults have
a high school diploma. But it is here that one of the most
radical education experiments in the country is taking place,
thanks to a $500 million federal Race to the Top grant.
Westside, along with 21 other Memphis schools, is part
of the state-run Achievement School District, or asd,

Resentful that a massive wave of common-standards adoptions four years ago
bypassed their chambers and subjected
them to intense political heat, state lawmakers are taking steps to claim some
of the authority that state boards of
education have traditionally held over
academic standards.
In just the past year and a half, 10
states have enacted laws that place new
restrictions or specifications on how state
boards may adopt academic expectations.
Altogether, 50 bills have been introduced
in 22 states during that time period that
seek to change the procedures by which
standards are developed, reviewed, or
adopted, according to a special analysis
conducted for Education Week by the National Conference of State Legislatures,
which tracks state legislative activity.
Many such measures died in committee, but others signaled strong political
support by advancing through one or
both chambers. When bills succeeded
PAGE 32>

LOUISIANA SHOWDOWN: The governor faces off
against the state chief and school board on
common-core tests. PAGE 27

MORE INSIDE:
BOTTOM-UP APPROACH

Teachers took a key role in
crafting changes affecting
them under Tennessee's
Race to the Top plan. PAGE 28

Teacher Case
Raises Stakes
In Equity Fight

CONSULTANT SCRAMBLE

With big federal grants on
the line, states sought plenty
of outside help. PAGE 30

PAGE 28>

By Stephen Sawchuk

Ed-Tech Community
Faces Sexism Concerns
By Benjamin Herold
Atlanta

From sexual harassment to the glass ceiling, the
challenges women face in the workplace are suddenly
front and center in the education technology world.
On the heels of claims of rape and harassment at
the 2013 conference of the International Society for
Technology in Education, perhaps the country's largest ed-tech gathering, the organizers of the event have
overhauled their guidelines for attendee conduct.
The new rules were in place here last week,
where iste's 2014 conference featured the launch
of a new network of female ed-tech leaders who
aim to promote career-advancement opportunities
and improved experiences for women working in
PAGE 20>

Schools Brace for Influx of Immigrants
By Lesli A. Maxwell
As the federal government scrambles to
respond to an unprecedented surge of unaccompanied minors streaming across the U.S.Mexico border, the wave of young immigrants
arriving alone from Central America has already begun to surface in communities and
public schools far from the Southwest.
In Miami, a nonprofit agency that provides
legal services to unaccompanied minors has
served 1,600 such children since the beginning
of the calendar year, the same number it served
in all of 2013. Last month, the Miami-Dade
County school board approved Superintendent
Alberto Carvalho's request to seek additional
federal funding to help the district cover the
costs of educating what he called "a spike in the
number of foreign-born students from Central
America, specifically Honduras."
In San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., as well

as in suburbs of Washington, educators report
that the number of unaccompanied minors has
been rising steadily for several months in their
high schools.
And in New York City, educators are beginPAGE 19>

Ross D. Franklin/AP

DIGITAL DIRECTIONS

Two girls watch a World Cup soccer match from
their holding area at a U.S. Customs and Border
Protection facility in Nogales, Ariz.

In the annals of education-equity
cases, the decision in Vergara v. California was nothing less than a bombshell.
The ruling last month by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge said that aspects of California teachers' tenure and
due-process protections violated the constitutional rights of the state's neediest
children. Within minutes, advocates proclaimed it a win for students who have
historically received lower-quality education; others, such as the California Teachers Association, saw it as an unbridled attack on teachers and unions.
To a degree, the cacophony of responses greeting the decision has obfuscated the fact that many of the implications of the lawsuit remain unclear, both
in the Golden State and nationwide.
Among the lingering questions: Will
the ruling, at a slim 16 pages, hold up on
appeal? Will California's notoriously polarized legislature, fearful of additional
litigation and bad press, consider changPAGE 22>

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Education Week - July 9, 2014

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