The first full week of school has ended, and it's time to survey the educational law and policy landscape to find out what the hot topics are these days. Over the next couple of weeks, we'll take a look at these in more detail, but for now let's get the list out there for your consideration.
Probably the most surprising and difficult trend for me to deal with has been the avalanche of teacher bashing that began last Spring during state budget season. The volume and virulence with which teachers were attacked as incompetent, over-protected, and under-worked was startling to the profession and to many in the public. The Save Our Schools rally in Washington in May was supposed to begin a counter-offensive, but so far we haven't seen much in the way of progress.
The long-expected reauthorization of No Child Left Behind still awaits us, probably stuck in the eternal log-jam that is inside the beltway politics. There appears to be some interest in changing testing programs and giving states a break on accountability measures. Secretary Duncan's proclamation that he would change the direction of the school failure provisions attracted a lot of attention, and states are concerned that they could not deal with a failure rate as high as the 82% Duncan has predicted.
As more schools utilize educational technology, issues about teachers' relationships with students, changing instructional practice, and a curriculum that meets the needs of today's students have taken a technological twist. Many districts have enacted policies that prohibit teachers interactions with students on Facebook and other social networks, raising free speech and privacy issues. Whether today's teaching corps is ready to teach today's students with technologies students understand is an issue that has students and parents concerned and administrators scrambling to find professional development approaches that reach teachers in ways that actually improve performance. The Common Core standards and 21st Century Skills projects are the most recent efforts to improve what students learn, but whether either is really workable or an improvement remains an open question.
Students with disabilities and second language learners have gotten a lot of attention lately because these students are less likely to do well on standardized tests and therefore their schools do not make AYP. Exactly what to do about that is controversial. On one hand, AYP draws attention to the performance of these students, thus making it easier to argue for resources to met their needs. On the other, students who are identified in these categories got there because of their achievement problems in the first place.
Also from special education we hear a lot about the marked increase in the number of students with autism or autism spectrum disorder as it is now called. The implications of the rapid increase are still unknown for this condition that some estimate affects 1 in 90 children.
That's about it for the Flashpoints48 list. Stay tuned for more on these stories in the next couple of weeks.
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