Health & Fitness
MarylandCAN News Roundup: Top 10 Education News Stories of the Week
MarylandCAN Top 10 News Stories of the Week
1. City school system creates new ethics panel August 3, 2012 | Erica L. Green, The Baltimore Sun
Four attorneys and a former staple of government agencies have been named to a newly created Baltimore city school Ethics Panel, officials announced at the most recent board meeting.
The new members presented are: Letina Green, an attorney who currently works for the Social Security Administration and whose background includes labor and employee relations; Paris Lee, who has worked in several city and state government agencies, including the mayor's office and the Maryland Department of Transportation; Nicole Leonard, also an attorney who serves as deputy director of the Johns Hopkins University's School of Medicine's Office of Research Administration; Aaron Murkey, an attorney, who serves as a clerk in the U.S. District Court who also worked for the prominent Venable law firm; and Benjamin A. Neal, an attorney and professor of legal studies at Towson University.
Find out what's happening in Silver Springwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
August 8, 2012 | Jen Bondeson, Gazette.Net
Schools Superintendent Joshua P. Starr said he’s never seen a good school without a good principal.
To ensure all principals have the backing they need to boost student achievement, Starr has made some changes.
Starr reorganized top offices so that the office that communicates directly with principals and focuses on school performance reports directly to him. He also brought in new staff, who will be responsible for professional development and strengthening the bond between principals and central office.
Find out what's happening in Silver Springwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
August 7, 2012 | Nirvi Shah and Lesli A. Maxwell, Education Week
Nearly one in six African-American students was suspended from school during the 2009-10 academic year, more than three times the rate of their white peers, a new analysis of federal education data has found.
That compares with about one in 20 white students, researchers at the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles, based at the University of California, Los Angeles, conclude. They use data collected from about half of all school districts in the nation for that year by the U.S. Department of Education’s office for civil rights.
4. Calvert schools plan for 'third wave'
August 7, 2012 | Marty Madden, The Baynet
Calvert County Public Schools’ (CCPS) officials met with the press Monday, Aug. 6 to present an overview of state-mandated strategy for making students ready for higher education, closing achievement gaps among minority groups, and evaluating teachers and administrators. The initiative, dubbed “Maryland’s Third Wave of Educational Reform,” is part of the Free State’s commitment to the federal “No Child Left Behind” and its “Race to the Top” strategy.
Deputy Superintendent of Schools Robin Welsh said the plan impacts “performance and accountability.” Calvert will be adopting changes in curriculum, standards and instructional practice known as “common core state standards.” Welsh said the changes emphasize more rigorous classroom instruction and will “integrate several content areas. The common core state standards require students to demonstrate their understanding of the standard through analysis, problem solving, critical thinking, citing evidence to support their conclusions.”
5. Christie signs bill overhauling job guarantees for teachers
August 6, 2012 | Kate Zernike, New York Times
It will be harder for public-school teachers in New Jersey to get tenure and easier to fire bad ones under legislation signed on Monday by Gov. Chris Christie that overhauls the state’s century-old tenure law.
The new law suggests how much the landscape has changed on revising education, and on tenure, long among the most contentious issues for teachers’ unions and legislators.
6. Maryland to amp up anti-bullying efforts
August 6, 2012 | Lisa Gartner, The Examiner
Not too long ago -- or not long ago enough, anyway -- Katie O'Malley met a Maryland student who filled out the proper bullying incident forms each time he was the target of his peers.
One day, his principal asked him to stop. The boy was "making their school look bad" by boosting the bullying data reported to the state, the principal explained.
7. Renee Foose reorganizes duties of top staff
August 6, 2012 | Joe Burris, The Baltimore Sun
New Howard school superintendent Renee Foose has named a deputy superintendent of operations, as part of an effort to divvy up duties held by deputy superintendent Mamie Perkins, who retired last week.
Howard County schools chief operating officer Ray Brown has been named the school system’s deputy superintendent of operations. He will also oversee the school system's state-mandated Bridge to Excellence plan and its strategic planning.
August 5, 2012 | Michael Alison Chandler, The Washington Post
Montgomery County schools will expand autism services this fall, bringing new resources to high school students as the school system works to increase the range of programs available to an exceedingly diverse and fast-growing part of the special-education population.
The number of students diagnosed with autism in the county has risen dramatically in the past decade, from about 400 in the 2001-02 school year to just more than 1,900 by June 2012.
9. To increase learning time, some schools add days to academic years
August 5, 2012 | Motoko Rich, The New York Times
It was the last Sunday in July, and Bethany and Garvin Phillips were pulling price tags off brand-new backpacks and stuffing them with binders and pencils.
While other children around the country readied for beach vacations or the last weeks of summer camp, Bethany, 11, and Garvin, 9, were preparing for the first day of the new school year at Griffith Elementary, just six weeks after the start of their summer vacation.
10. Diversity at Howard County schools: Cause for a commission
August 3, 2012 | Brandie Jefferson, Ellicott City Patch
Everywhere he goes, County Executive Ken Ulman said, he’s been hearing the same thing: The Howard County School Board is not representative of the residents it represents.
On Wednesday, Aug. 3, Ulman announced that Nancy Grasmick, former state superintendent of schools, will head a commission to “review the structure of the Howard County Board of Education and develop recommendations for possible improvements.”
