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Every week The Schott Foundation for Public Education highlights a select list of articles of interest to you. Simply click the article headlines below to expand the article.


This Issue:
Albany Panel Signals It Won’t Give the Mayor Carte Blanche on Schools

State facing years of fiscal woes, analysts sayp

TO CLOSE ACHIEVEMENT GAPS, CLOSE GAPS IN LIFE EXPERIENCES AND CONDITIONS

FATE OF LANDMARK ABBOTT REMEDIES IN HANDS OF NJ SUPREME COURT

Ginsburg: Court needs another woman

Grantee Highlight

Announcement

Albany Panel Signals It Won’t Give the Mayor Carte Blanche on Schools

By JENNIFER MEDINA
Published: May 6, 2009

ALBANY — As state legislators begin to review the landmark state law that gave Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg control over the New York City schools, the question seems not to be whether changes will be made, but how significant they will be.

The law expires on June 30, and lawmakers are expected to turn their attention to the matter now that a deal has been reached to rescue the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

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State facing years of fiscal woes, analysts say
Key initiatives may be at risk

By Matt Viser
Globe Staff / May 6, 2009

It took less than a year for the national recession to wreak havoc on state government, but the aftershocks on state budgets will reverberate far longer, making it likely that Massachusetts will be grappling with deep budget cuts and debates about tax increases for years to come, state officials and economists said yesterday.

The problems are expected to be so widespread, the solutions so elusive, that the state may have to rethink the size of its commitment to big-ticket programs such as its landmark healthcare coverage plan, aid to cities and towns, and education funding, the specialists said at an emergency budget hearing convened yesterday by members of the state Senate.

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TO CLOSE ACHIEVEMENT GAPS, CLOSE GAPS IN LIFE EXPERIENCES AND CONDITIONS
Minority and low-income students continue to face life conditions that undermine school achievement.

Five years after a landmark Educational Testing Service (ETS) study identified racial/ethnic and income gaps in 14 life conditions and experiences that are associated with academic success, a new analysis acknowledges little progress in closing these critical gaps.

Released April 30, 2009, Parsing the Achievement Gap II updates a 2003 study, Parsing the Achievement Gap: Baselines for Tracking Progress. The updated report identifies factors ranging from birth weight and hunger to lead poisoning, parental involvement, and teaching quality that are related to academic performance. The report then looks at whether these key factors were distributed evenly across different racial/ethnic and income groups.

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FATE OF LANDMARK ABBOTT REMEDIES IN HANDS OF NJ SUPREME COURT

On April 28, 2009, attorneys for the Abbott schoolchildren and the state of New Jersey presented their oral arguments to the state supreme court, and the parties now await a decision that will set the course for the future of the Abbott districts.

Education Law Center (ELC) attorneys, urban school advocates and supporters of education equity returned to the supreme court, urging the justices to retain the historic Abbott remedies established by earlier courts. During oral argument before the court, David Sciarra, ELC Executive Director and lead counsel for the Abbott schoolchildren, challenged the constitutional basis for applying the SFRA to the Abbott districts. Mr. Sciarra noted, among other things, that the conditions that led prior Courts to establish the Abbott mandates are still in place

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Ginsburg: Court needs another woman

By Joan Biskupic, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Three years after Justice Sandra Day O'Connor left the Supreme Court, the impact of having only one woman on the nation's highest bench has become particularly clear to that woman — Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Her status as the court's lone woman was especially poignant during a recent case involving a 13-year-old girl who had been strip-searched by Arizona school officials looking for drugs. During oral arguments, some other justices minimized the girl's lasting humiliation, but Ginsburg stood out in her concern for the teenager.

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Grantee Highlight

Highlighted below are some of the exciting projects of the Schott Foundation’s grantees.  Please visit the Schott Foundation website at www.schottfoundation.org to see a listing of current grantees.

Training the Next Generation of Progressive Policy Leaders

In recent years, the progressive movement has succeeded in convincing more politically conscious young people to work in grassroots activism. Yet too few college students from underrepresented communities view careers in public policy as a way to further their activism after they graduate. DMI Scholars is a program designed specifically to address this challenge. It creates a national pipeline for college activists to enter government, offering extensive training, leadership development, and networking opportunities to enable today’s campus activists to become tomorrow’s policy experts.

This year DMI poured over 250 applications to select 10 students to join our selective program. Training begins in August at our Summer Institute, an intensive two-week boot camp that exposes these students to all aspects of the public policy world. During the academic year, Scholars will continue to work with a policy research and writing coach, and learn how to build relationships with policymakers and influencers in Washington. Next summer, Scholars will be placed in policy internships and jobs within the offices of elected officials, government agencies, think tanks, and advocacy organizations.

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Announcement

CAYL Nellie Mae Education Foundation Family Child Care Policy Forum

Please join us in a discussion as we explore Massachusetts policy relating to family child care. The exploration of our policy topic will be held over two days:

June 2, 2009
Family Child Care Open House
Statewide

June 3, 2009
CAYL Nellie Mae Education Foundation Policy Forum
"Caring, Credibility and Credentials:
Advancing Family Child Care in Massachusetts"
Cambridge College
1000 Massachusetts Ave., Room 152
Cambridge, MA 02138
10AM- 4PM

On June 3, we will be discussing the history and value of family child care, in addition to a panel presentation about three major issues in family childcare: credentials, language barriers, rates.

To RSVP, please visit http://cayl.org/fccpolicyforum, fill out and return the following forms listed.

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