After an official welcome and orientation, the prospective students are ferried off to science labs across campus where demonstrations evoke squeals of delight as well as creative questions. The “Kindergarten to College” series is a partnership between the School of Education and VT-STEM for high-needs schools across the state.

Virginia students will take fewer Standards of Learning tests next year
The Washington Post, April 5, 2014

Spring is a busy time for third-grade teacher Marlon Mohammed, who is preparing his students to take the Virginia Standards of Learning tests for the first time.In addition to reviewing four years of material in reading, math, social studies and science for the cumulative state tests, he also has to teach them how to take the exams. That means familiarizing 8-year-olds and 9-year-olds at Discovery Elementary School in Ashburn with multiple-choice questions and conditioning them to sit through the hour-long tests.

New Assessments: A Guide for State Policymakers
Alliance for Excellent Education
A recent publication from this think-tank provides a 5 page run down on some of the key questions policy-makers should ask as they seek to improve testing mechanisms. 

The VCU board of visitors was given a budget preview today amid uncertainty over how much the university will receive in state appropriations and concern over loss of revenue from declining enrollment.

If approved by the board on the eve of commencement May 9, students also will see an increase of about 2.5 percent in room and board and pay about 3 percent more for parking.

The Washington Post, April 8, 2014
The push to teach kids “grit,” to make them more persistent, has become wildly popular in the last couple of years, spurred by journalist Paul Tough’s bestseller How Children Succeed and the widely publicized views of Angela Duckworth, a University of Pennsylvania researcher. The idea has been received with largely uncritical acclaim; it’s not easy to find a discouraging word, or even a penetrating question, about it in the field of education. This is odd – and, I think, troubling – in light of what a careful analysis of the concept reveals. Here are 10 specific concerns.

Character Gaps and Social Mobility
Brookings Institute
Mar. 18, 2014

Social mobility is influenced by a kaleidoscopic array of economic, social, education and individual factors—including character strengths.

James Heckman’s pioneering work has opened up a new field of study, connecting the development of “non-cognitive skills” to broader concerns about economic inequality, persistent poverty, and intergenerational social mobility. Paul Tough’s book How Children Succeed has drawn wider attention to these connections. (Our new project, with an advisory panel including both Heckman and Tough, will examine the links between character and opportunity.) 

In light of recent tragedies like the Newtown school shooting, many have asked how to make schools safer.   Some have advocated for increased security measures while others have encouraged improvements in the mental health system.  Our poll asked respondents which of these two directions they preferred and a majority said additional security measures.  Again, there were interesting variations by region with security measures being most popular in the Northwest and West regions of Virginia while in Northern Virginia additional security received only a plurality at 42% and mental health system improvements were preferred by 37%. 

 
Though not represented in the chart, there are some interesting variations in several demographic categories.  Respondents with higher income or with higher education levels were more likely to cite working through the mental health system.  Those with a high school education or less preferred additional security measures 69% to 16% over mental health system improvements compared to 41% to 37% for those with a college degree or more.  Families with under $50,000 in income preferred additional secuirty measures 63% to 23% while families with $100,000 or more in annual income split 43% to 38% in favor of additional security measures.  

To read the full results of our poll, visit our website.  The questions pertaining to school safety and preferred approaches are questions 16-17  (topline on page 33, crosstabs on pages 61-62).

"As the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution states in relevant part: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated….” In recent years public school officials have spent countless hours dealing with legal and policy issues growing out of situations involving student search and seizure and the Fourth Amendment.

Beginning in the mid-1970s and moving through the mid-1980s public school administrators across this country were being called upon “to search students and their property, principally for harboring or dealing in drugs.” (Vacca and Bosher, 2012) Because a growing number of these searches raised a question regarding the applicability of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution they found their way into court where, as a general rule, final decisions were inconsistent. A uniform judicial standard was needed to specifically address public school administrator- not police- initiated searches. This was accomplished when the United States Supreme Court handed down New Jersey v. T.L.O. (1985)—its first public school student-related search decision.

The T.L.O Standard. Emphasizing that students do not forfeit their Fourth Amendment protections or waive their privacy interests and expectations simply because they enter school property, Justice White also made it clear that student privacy interests and expectations must be balanced against the fact that school officials (as government agents) possess a “legitimate need to maintain an environment in which learning can take place.” In his view, while “[m]aintaining order in the classroom has never been easy…. in recent years, school disorder has often taken particularly ugly forms: drug use and violent crime in schools have become major problems….” Because school officials are different from the police they need “a certain degree of flexibility in school disciplinary procedures….” To enable this the standard created by the Court to apply in school administrator-initiated searches poses the following questions: (1) At its inception do school administrators have reasonable suspicion (different from and lesser than the police standard of probable cause) to suspect that a violation of school policy, or school rules, or the law is present? (2) Is the search, as conducted (i.e., its scope), reasonably related to the purpose for the search?"