School Community

The state releases its list of schools today that made adequate yearly progress and those that didnt, setting off a chain of transfers of students out of Needs Improvement schools to higher performing schools that met AYP, as mandated under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

But many parents wonder about the wisdom and the timing of AYP status.

Here is a copy of a note that one parent sent to the state Department of Education about the late timing of this process:

I am very concerned about the timing of the release of even preliminary ESEA (AYP) results.

Please help me understand why it takes until late July for April test results to be made available. I understand that principals and districts must certify results, but these tasks should be of the highest priority. Georgia DOE deadlines should be tight and enforced.

School starts three weeks from today and parents still do not know how AYP status will impact their child. I am a DeKalb county resident (sigh!) and the uproar of AYP transfers affects every single high school student. You can’t imagine the distraction, the massive rescheduling required for receiving schools, and the waste of energy each year.

I understand that DCSS bears most of the responsibility for this issue, but the Georgia DOE holds all of the cards since it controls the data and the release of the data to parents. Please tell me what the Georgia DOE will do differently next year to release AYP data at a reasonable, not last-minute, date.

Here is a note to me from a DeKalb parent about whether these transfers even improve student outcomes:

Have you ever addressed in your coverage of the DeKalb County School System whether the mandated AYP transfer program for students actually improves student performance?

I ask because at the county presentation Dr. Beasley confirmed that the county has never tracked academic progress, graduation rates or rate of return for the millions of dollars invested in implementing the AYP transfer option out of Needs Improvement schools under NCLB. All of that money invested in a program to which we have no clear understanding if it even works for these students who leave their home schools.

Better solutions for fixing schools must exist rather than creating chaos in other succeeding schools. Mark your calendar for certainly, if we must receive all of these transfer students, we will not have settled schedules, classrooms, teaching and support staff until after Labor Day when counts are determined for teaching points; one month of education compromised due to lack of foresight.

Education Week has a new compilation of articles about religion in the schools, geared to teachers, administrators, school law experts, researchers, and others.

“Education Week Spotlight on Religion in Schools” is a PDF publication with links to a host of content from the newspaper and its Web site about such issues as religious expression in the public schools, approaches to teaching evolution, the portrayal of religion in textbooks, and teaching the Bible as literature, among others.

The PDF is available for $4.95 at this link. It is one of several issues spotlights published by Education Week, including ones on “response to intervention,” tips for new teachers, and math and science.

The state budget for Oregon schools would get a $100 million boost from reserve funds under one of two bills filed Thursday by a pair of House Democrats.SALEM — The budget for Oregon schools remains far from settled.

Two Democratic House members filed bills that would pull money from state reserve funds to boost spending beyond the $5.7 billion that won legislative approval this week.

“Economic times like these are why we have reserve funds,” said Rep. Val Hoyle, of Eugene. “I’m fighting to access every dollar we can for our kids.”

Hoyle and Rep. Margaret Doherty, of Tigard, are looking to withdraw a total of $175 million from two reserve funds — $100 million for schools from the Education Stability Fund and $75 million for health care and public safety from the Rainy Day Fund.

According to calculations by House Democrats, the state is expected to build up a total of $444 million in those two funds by the end of the 2011-13 budget cycle.

The House Democratic caucus has been the most vocal in declaring that K-12 schools need at least $100 million more than what has been approved so far. Other lawmakers, including Senate Democrats, have said that $5.7 billion is the best the state can do given economic conditions and needs of other agencies.

It’s not clear when — or how — action will be taken on the two bills. However, Republican Greg Smith, of Heppner, signed onto the bill that would give schools additional money. That’s a signal that the evenly divided House would have enough votes to assure at least a floor vote on the issue.

Harry Esteve  Twitter: @hjesteve

In a case with implications for Alabama public schools, the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday considered whether a railroad could challenge a state sales and use tax on diesel fuel that rail carriers must pay, while motor and water carriers are exempt.

Alabama education groups filed a friend-of-the-court brief on the side of the state, arguing that the tax on railroads is critical because it helps fund the state’s Education Trust Fund.

“The amount of [railroad tax] refund claims that could be resurrected by this case is potentially devastating to Alabama’s public schools,” says the brief filed by the Alabama Education Association, the Alabama Association of School Boards, and other groups.

In CSX Transportation Inc. v. Alabama Department of Revenue (Case No. 09-520), the Jacksonville, Fla.-based railroad is seeking to challenge the state’s exemptions for motor and water carriers under a 1976 federal law called the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act, or 4-R Act.

Congress found that railroads were often subject to disparate state and local tax treatment because they were non-voting, non-resident businesses which couldn’t easily pick up and leave a state. The law prohibited tax discrimination against railroads, particularly on property taxes, but also included a catch-all provision that bars states from “imposing another tax that discriminates against a rail carrier.”

“You can’t have this kind of a tax on us and not tax the motor carriers the same way,” Carter G. Phillips, the lawyer representing CSX, told the high court. The specific question before the court is whether the railroad can challenge the exemptions under the 4-R Act.

CSX paid some $3 million to $4 million is sales and use tax on diesel fuel to Alabama before winning an injunction in 2008 that has barred the taxes. The school groups estimate that all railroads operating in the state pay about $20 million per year in such taxes, but several are seeking to invalidate the tax and win refunds.

The education groups say that a ruling for the railroad could end funding for 250 teachers or 1,400 support workers.

Corey L. Maze, Alabama’s solicitor general, told the justices that the federal law’s reference to “another law that discriminates” means “a tax that singles out railroads as compared to the general mass of taxpayers,” which is not what the state is doing.

“We know that Congress didn’t intend to make railroads the most favored taxpayers in any way,” Maze said. “The intent was simply to put them on equal footing.”

“Now one of the problems I see that the court has is this fear that the states are going to take a generally applicable tax and then all of a sudden start exempting everyone” except railroads, Maze said. “It’s not going to happen for a very simple reason. Our sales and use tax funds our schools.”

“At the moment we start exempting every single business, our schools don’t have any money,” Maze continued. “We are not going to pick on the railroads by exempting, exempting, exempting, exempting. The railroads, quite honestly, can’t fund our schools. We are having a hard enough time funding them as it is, and we are not going to just target railroads by exemption.”

Nineteen states filed a joint friend-of-the-court brief on Alabama’s side, saying that a ruling for CSX could lead many other rail carriers to challenge sales and use taxes wherever some taxpayers benefit from exemptions.

“This court should require Congress to speak with considerably more clarity and precision if it intends to interfere with the states’ fundamental power to impose taxes,” the states’ brief said.

A decision in the case is expected by next June.

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It seems that one way or another, the controversy over the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is headed back to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit, in Boston, heard arguments last week in a case challenging a New Hampshire law that requires schools to set aside time daily for students to voluntarily recite the pledge.

As with a past case and a pending case out of California, the New Hampshire suit challenges the inclusion of the words “under God” in the pledge.

A federal district court upheld the New Hampshire statute in February, ruling that the law has the permissible secular effect of “teaching our country’s history to the elementary and secondary pupils of this state” and that it does not have the effect of coercing children to support or participate in religion.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation appealed the ruling to the First Circuit, and it enlisted longtime pledge challenger Michael A. Newdow, of California, to argue its case.

Sheri Qualters, of The National Law Journal, has this account of the Sept. 9 oral arguments in Freedom From Religion Foundation v. United States. A recording of the oral argument is available on the 1st Circuit’s Web site, although it takes a bit of navigation to reach the right place under the “Court Calendar” button.

The statute is being defended by the state of New Hampshire, and the U.S. Department of Justice intervened to defend acts of Congress that added “under God” to the pledge in 1954 and reaffirmed that version of the pledge in 2002.

Newdow, the physician and lawyer who has crusaded for years against “under God” in the pledge and the motto “In God We Trust” on the nation’s money, maintains a Web site that has briefs and documents from both sides in the New Hampshire case.

In March, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, in San Francisco, ruled against Newdow and a group of atheist parents who challenged school-led recitations of the pledge as an unconstitutional establishment of religion. The court said the pledge was predominantly a patriotic exercise. I blogged on the decision here.

Newdow is seeking review by a larger of panel 9th Circuit judges in the case involving the Rio Linda Independent School District in northern California.

Newdow was also behind an earlier case challenging the pledge in his own daughter’s school, which the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in 2004 but disposed of on procedural grounds in Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow.