Education Week - October 2, 2013 - 1

▲
Nathan W. Armes for Education Week
EDUCATIONWEEK
VOL. 33, NO. 6 • OCTOBER 2, 2013
AMERICAN EDUCATION’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD • © 2013 Editorial Projects in Education • $4
edweek.org: BREAKING NEWS DAILY
High Court
To Tackle
Race Case
Issue: Mich. Preference Ban
By Mark Walsh
Combatants in the long-running war
over affirmative action in education
are lined up again in the U.S. Supreme
Court. But the coming battle is a little
different from those that produced wellknown
high court landmarks involving
race and admissions.
Early in the new court term that
Students at the Challenge School in Denver work together to construct Lego robots. The school’s class and club were created in response
to coordinated advocacy efforts by a diverse group of parents that demanded more gifted education services and programs for their children.
Parents Press For Attention to Programs for Gifted
Advocacy Efforts Gain Urgency
Amid Worry of Being Overlooked
By Nora Fleming
From court cases and legislative lobbying to
their own fundraising campaigns, parents are
putting pressure on states and school districts
to boost services for gifted children, whose needs
and abilities, they say, often aren’t met inside a
traditional classroom.
While parents of the gifted have long faced
challenges in proving the worth in providing
“extras” for highly capable students, the fight
has become even harder now in many districts
where dollars are tight and other needs are
deemed more pressing.
And, according to some advocates, the stakes
can be even higher for low-income and minority
parents who view gifted and talented programs as
a means of providing their children with greater
opportunity in cash-strapped school systems.
“In a low-resourced district, the concerns
of parents of gifted students who can’t access
gifted education services are often heightened,”
said Natalie Jansorn, the director of those programs
at the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation,
which provides scholarships and other funding
to help gifted students. “They have no assurance
their child will be challenged in the regular
classroom that is focused on meeting minimum
test requirements, and they don’t know where
else to turn.”
Currently, there is no federal requirement
that schools offer gifted services for students
and no dollars allocated to states to provide
them. The Jacob K. Javits federal grant proPAGE
14>
Data Demands
Spark Outcry
In California
By Andrew Ujifusa
Ed. Testing Industry Sees Rising Demand
By Sean Cavanagh
The market for testing products and services
is booming and could continue to surge over the
next few years, according to industry analysts
and company officials, who say that growth is
being fueled by the shift toward common-core
tests across states and the use of new classroom
assessments designed to provide timely and precise
feedback for teachers and students.
Demand for testing resources tends to be
driven by major changes in state or federal policy
affecting schools, and the current environment
is reflective of that connection.
Changes in testing policy with nationwide
implications are invariably “good for any provider
of testing materials,” said Scott Marion,
the associate director of the National Center for
the Improvement of Educational Assessment, a
Dover, N.H.-based nonprofit organization that
consults with states on assessments. “You knew
the common core was going to be a big change
from what [we] had before.”
Mr. Marion also echoed a concern expressed
by others familiar with the testing world: that
many companies are exaggerating their products’
alignment to the common core and their
ability to improve achievement.
Still, he predicted that demand for an array
of assessment materials is likely to continue to
grow “for the foreseeable future, as people figure
out what [tests] they want.”
This new growth in the testing industry bears
some similarities to past periods of expansion.
The passage of the No Child Left Behind Act
more than a decade ago presaged a wave of
spending on assessments and tools connected
PAGE 16>
Managing
The Digital
District
This special
report examines
the complex and sometimes
daunting challenges of running today’s
technology-oriented school districts. It
shows how schools are developing and
maintaining more sophisticated 1-to-1
computing programs, what education
leaders are doing to build a culture of
innovation, and how superintendents and
chief technology officers are collaborating
to improve digital teaching and learning.
See the pullout section opposite Page 16.
To satisfy demands of California’s
state K-12 database and a brand-new
system for education finance, the state
has asked many schools for data on each
individual student, including a count of
those who qualify as low-income based
on their eligibility for federally subsidized
meals.
But this fundamental shift in how
California handles student information
has caused consternation and confusion
among many districts serving large populations
of needy students. It also highlights
the disparities that can emerge
between the high-profile components of
new laws and the regulations governing
those laws.
A stronger focus on student data has
arisen in a wide variety of state policies.
Colorado, for example, passed a
$950 million increase for schools this
year (pending voter approval in November)
that requires more frequent, accurate
counts of school attendance, as well
as more transparent information about
PAGE 25>
MEALS ELIGIBILITY: A new USDA option is
increasing student participation. PAGE 24
opens next week, the justices will weigh
a case about a 2006 Michigan ballot
measure that prohibited racial preferences
in education and other areas of
state and local government. Last year,
a federal appeals court struck down the
measure as it applies to admissions policies
at state colleges and universities.
The measure violated the 14th
Amendment equal-protection rights of
racial minorities in the state by making
it harder for them to achieve a political
goal, namely, a race-conscious admissions
policy, the full U.S. Court of Appeals
for the 6th Circuit, in Cincinnati,
said in an 8-7 ruling.
Many people were poised for a landPAGE
22>

http://www.edweek.org

Education Week - October 2, 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - October 2, 2013