Education Week - October 26, 2016 - 1

Education Week
VOL. 36, NO. 10 * OCTOBER 26, 2016

edweek.org:

UNMET PROMISES

BRE AKING NEWS DAILY

Ed. Groups
Calling For
FCC Action

High-Achieving, Low-Income Students

Resource Worth Billions
Unused, They Contend

Justin Cook for Education Week

By Leo Doran

Senior Dinora Flores, left, gets homework help from classmate Tanasha Owens in a residence hall at the North Carolina School of Science
and Mathematics in Durham. The school offers supports to attract and keep students like Dinora, a daughter of Mexican immigrants.

Finding A Home at Elite Public Boarding Schools
By Sarah D. Sparks
Thriving in an academically rigorous environment
is about more than simply being prepared for classes;
it's about a student fitting in and seeing herself as a
top student.
As advanced academic programs work to find and
enroll more poor and minority students, new research
suggests just how complex it can be for students from
traditionally disadvantaged groups to feel at home
in such programs. These students can be particularly vulnerable as they encounter more academi-

Service Dog Center Stage
In Major Spec. Ed. Case
By Mark Walsh
Manchester, Mich.

When the U.S. Supreme Court hears Ehlena Fry's case
on Oct. 31, the now-12-year-old girl with cerebral palsy
will be in the audience, though she no longer requires the
service dog at the center of her federal disability-rights
case against a Michigan school district. The district refused to allow the animal to accompany Ehlena when she
was in kindergarten.
Wonder, a fluffy goldendoodle who helped Ehlena
with her mobility for seven years, including several
years at a neighboring district that welcomed the dog,
will also be in Washington. The "retired" service dog
will perhaps make an appearance outside the Supreme
Court after the oral arguments in Fry v. Napoleon Community Schools (Case No. 15-497). (Ehlena's parents
and lawyers felt it would be disingenuous to claim that
the girl needed the dog in the Supreme Court when she
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cally challenging classes and peers who are economically better off. How a school presents its programs
and provides emotional support to students can
mean the difference between students struggling
and excelling.
In a study published earlier this year, Mesmin Destin, an associate professor of education and social
policy at Northwestern University, found incoming
low-income college students' uncertainty about their
own social status and identity significantly affected
their achievement and willingness to try hard, both

RELATED STORY:
RURAL: Researchers
are using place-based
lessons to find and
engage gifted students
in rural areas.

Union Teachers on the Stump
altogether. And many of the people they're
hoping to talk to just aren't home on a
beautiful Saturday in October.
Blankenstein isn't surprised-she lives
just a few blocks away and knows most of
By Alyson Klein
her neighbors in this southern PennsylvaYork, Pa.
nia town lean Republican. Still, she said,
There are no misbehaving 2nd
"I had to do something. It's small, it's
graders in sight, but teachers Molly
tiny. It's just a little stone in a big
TION huge wall."
Blankenstein and Missy Rhodes
ELEC
still have their work cut out for
But, by making sure the camthem: going door to door to get out
paign sends voter-reminder cards to
the vote for Democratic presidential
just a few of her Clinton-leaning neighnominee Hillary Clinton in this neighbor- bors, Blankenstein may be having more of
hood peppered with signs for her GOP op- an impact than she thinks, according to
ponent, Donald Trump.
Patrick McGuinn, a political science proThe pair of Hayshire Elementary School fessor at Drew University in Madison, N.J.
teachers work off a list of registered DemoIn fact, he said, teachers' shoe-leather
crats from the campaign. But at least a turnout efforts may mean more to Clinton
couple of the voters they visit won't com- than the millions in campaign cash domit to supporting Clinton. Another tells nated by their national unions, both of
the teachers he's sitting out the election
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2016

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Along With Endorsements,
Clinton Gets Shoe-Leather Aid

Possibly billions of dollars worth of a
public educational telecommunications
resource has languished unused and
unlicensed within the federal government for decades, some estimates show.
If it were managed more effectively,
experts say, the resource could be used
to essentially eliminate the "homework
gap," the divide that exists between students who have access to high-quality
learning technologies in school and at
home and those who don't.
Eleven education groups-including
the National Association of State Boards
of Education, the National Education
Association, the Consortium for School
Networking, and the International Society for Technology in Education-jointly
filed documents eight years ago petitioning the Federal Communications Commission to give educators access to the
unlicensed remnants of the Educational
Broadband Service, or EBS.
Although the FCC has been formally deliberating over what to do
with the unlicensed spectrum since at
least 2008, the agency has yet to issue
a ruling, and the proceeding remains
open-indefinitely.
The spectrum, set aside more than

12th Grade Classes
Help Students Skip
Remedial Courses
By Catherine Gewertz
Fed up with long rosters of college
freshmen who can't handle college-level
courses, states are increasingly turning
to 12th grade transition classes to build
academic muscle to help students skip
the remedial courses that can diminish
their chances of earning a degree.
From coast to coast, states are bringing together high school teachers and
college faculty to design a breed of
English and math courses that reflect
college expectations. Students who perform well in them can enroll directly in
entry-level, credit-bearing courses in
their state's colleges, rather than wasting time and money on remedial classes.
Brandon Velazquez is a walking example of how the approach works. As a
junior at Granger High School in Washington state in 2015, Brandon scored at
level 2 on the English portion of his
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Education Week - October 26, 2016

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