Education Week - October 30, 2013 - 1

EDUCATIONWEEK
VOL. 33, NO. 10 * OCTOBER 30, 2013
AMERICAN EDUCATION'S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD * © 2013 Editorial Projects in Education * $4
INDUSTRY & INNOVATION
Students photograph
themselves with
iPads during class
at Broadacres
Elementary School
in Carson, Calif.,
in the Los Angeles
Unified School
District. Problems
have dogged the
rollout of iPads in
the district's schools,
and many educators
have voiced
concerns that
the new digital
curriculum
embedded on their
devices is
incomplete.
By Sarah D. Sparks
A dozen years of control by New
York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has
caused tectonic shifts in the way the Big
Apple runs its schools, but as the battle
for his replacement moves
into its final stretch, a
few of the Bloomberg
administration's most
controversial education
initiatives are shaping the
landscape of the general election.
Mr. Bloomberg gained control of the
nation's largest school system soon
after his initial 2001 election win. He
restructured the 1.1 million-student
district and ushered in a series of
sweeping changes through a package
of initiatives he called Children
First. The program includes support
for charter schools, a school-grading
system, merit pay for principals and
teachers, citywide school curricula,
PAGE 9 >
Concerns Over Curriculum in L.A. iPad Plan
By Benjamin Herold
Los Angeles
Education officials here tout the new digital curriculum
embedded on iPads being distributed to tens
of thousands of students as a key piece of their halfbillion-dollar
effort to transform teaching and learning
in the nation's second-largest district.
But the new software from the publishing giant
Pearson that has been rolled out in dozens of schools
is nowhere near complete, the Los Angeles Unified
School District is unable to say how much it costs, and
the district will lose access to content updates, software
upgrades, and technical support from Pearson
after just three years.
The situation is prompting a new round of questions
about an initiative already under withering scrutiny
PAGE 12 >
Risks Seen in Using
Bonds for Tech Work
By Michelle R. Davis
As school districts across the country
seek to implement costly, large-scale
technology projects, a growing number
of them are asking voters for approval
to go into debt to pay for that work,
through the issuance of long-term bonds.
That strategy is standard practice in
many areas of government, when pub-
lic entities, such as school systems, need
money to pay for special capital projects
such as new construction or infrastructure
upgrades. But districts' attempts to
use long-term bonds to underwrite major
purchases of tablets and laptops, which
have a limited shelf life, are coming under
fire from both taxpayers and financial experts,
who worry that school systems will
still be paying off those costs long after
the technology is obsolete.
"You don't debt-finance something where
the term of the debt is going to extend beyond
the life of the asset," said Bruce D.
PAGE 12 >
edweek.org: BREAKING NEWS DAILY
For N.Y.C.,
Bloomberg
Era to End
Two Candidates
Talk Education
In Boston Race
By Lesli A. Maxwell
As Boston prepares to elect its first
DIGITAL DIRECTIONS
Transition to Online Tests Sparks Fears
By Catherine Gewertz
When tens of millions of schoolchildren
sit down at computers to take new common
assessments in spring 2015, many
of their peers will be taking similar tests
the old-fashioned way, with paper and
pencil, raising questions about the comparability
of results-as well as educational
equity-on an unprecedented scale.
Both state consortia that are designing
tests for the Common Core State
Standards are building computer-based
assessments, but they will offer paperand-pencil
versions as well, as states
Moving Beyond
The Mainstream
transition fully to online testing. The
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium
plans to run the two simultaneous
"modes" of testing for three years. The
Partnership for Assessment of Readiness
for College and Careers, or PARCC, will do
so for at least one year.
In order to rely on the results, however,
the consortia must show that the paper
and computer modes of the tests in English/language
arts and mathematics measure
the same things.
The prospect of establishing such comparability
between two versions of a test isn't
PAGE 15 >
Helping Diverse Learners
Master the Common Core
This special report examines
the challenging work of
trying to adapt the Common
Core State Standards for students with
disabilities, English-language learners, gifted students,
and others. It discusses how the standards are spurring
teacher collaboration, the kinds of technological
adaptations available for testing, and the controversy
around test accommodations such as allowing students
to have test items read aloud to them.
See the pullout section opposite Page 14.
new mayor in 20 years, the two candidates
vying to replace Mayor Thomas M.
Menino are touting education agendas
that signal schools will remain a top priority
at City Hall no matter who wins.
Still, the election will bring a key transition
for the Boston district, as the man
who has led the city for most of the era
of mayoral control of the public schools
prepares to step down.
John R. Connolly, a Boston city councilor
and former teacher, and Martin
J. Walsh, a Massachusetts state representative
and longtime labor organizer,
will face off on Nov. 5 after capturing the
most votes among a dozen candidates in
the first round of the nonpartisan mayoral
sweepstakes.
From a proposal to deepen the bench
PAGE 11 >
ADDITIONAL ELECTION COVERAGE
SCHOOL BOARD ELECTION HEATS UP
8 A contentious school board race in Douglas
County, Colo., has drawn national attention.
GOVERNORS' RACES APPROACH FINISH
16 School choice and finances have been
flashpoints in the New Jersey and Virginia
gubernatorial contests.
TAKING IT TO THE SENATE
18 A look at Newark Mayor Cory Booker
and education as he joins the U.S. Senate.
Bob Chamberlin/Los Angeles Times/AP
2013
ELECTION
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Education Week - October 30, 2013

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