Va. awards $2.4M in math, science partnership grants
Richmond Times-Dispatch
April 10, 2016

The Virginia Department of Education has awarded more than $2.4 million in second-year grants to support 13 programs established last year to help math and science teachers learn more about their topics and sharpen their classroom skills.

The grants are from the federal Mathematics and Science Partnership program. To qualify, the partnerships have to include a mathematics, science and/or engineering department from at least one institute of higher learning, and at least one high-needs school division.

The grants include:

$113,179 for Longwood University and Virginia State University to work with 24 teachers in Sussex County and Brunswick County.

$98,303 for Virginia Commonwealth University and the MathScience Innovation Center to serve 25 teachers in Richmond.

Franklin County schools spent $90,000 in 7 months on legal fees for special education
Roanoke Times
April 11, 2016

Franklin County Public Schools spent more than $90,000 on legal services related to special education in seven months, a number that starkly contrasts with years past and other nearby school districts.

The payments were made from September through March to the Reed Smith law firm, which has offices in Richmond, the school district’s monthly financial statements show. The payments fall under the category of “purchased services” related to special education.

The most recent financial statement, for the month of March, will be considered for approval by the school board Monday night.

Payments to the law firm began to climb in September, a month before the Virginia Department of Education came to Franklin County to investigate the school system’s special education program, a result of a series of complaints made by parents to school officials, lawmakers and the education department. The state has yet to release a report on its investigation.

VCU students disrupt board meeting over tuition increase
Richmond Times-Dispatch
April 6, 2016

A dozen students demanding a tuition freeze disrupted a budget workshop of the Virginia Commonwealth University board of visitors on Thursday.

The board is considering a proposal to raise tuition and mandatory fees by 2.8 percent, an increase that would bring the cost to in-state undergraduates to $13,130, or an additional $358 for the next academic year.

But at the close of the session, the students who had silently held protest signs through much of the meeting began speaking out about the debt they are incurring and the hardships they face because of college costs.

The New York Times recently ran two stories with implications for those launching their careers.  The first reported that prospects are slowly getting better for college educated young people between the ages of 22-27 - unemployment among this group is down to 4.9% and underemployment (defined by the report as working, but in a role that doesn't require a college degree) has dropped to 44.1%.    

The second story covered the growing industry of career coaching where young people (or their parents) hire a professional consultant to help them figure out what career they should pursue as they emerge from college.  The story points to several push factors for the growth of the industry: fears about defaulting on student loans, concerns about downward mobility compared to parents, a rapidly evolving career climate.  (See chart showing the projected growth rates by occupation from 2010-2020.)


From an educational public policy standpoint, the career coaching phenomenon may be a new wrinkle to a very old question - at what point should children be encouraged to start thinking about or even deciding what career they want to pursue?

Not too many generations ago, such a question was not relevant for a huge portion of the population.  Children tended to follow in the occupational footsteps of their parents.  But with public education systems giving a wide swath of the population a basic foundation for many different careers, occupational choice became a common question in the 20th century and social scientists began developing tools (like the personality/career matching schema below developed by John Holland) to assist people in making a positive choice.  

Such tools can be used at different stages.  Students graduating from high school or college may find them particularly useful.  But some school systems, seeking to maximize the usefulness of high school courses, have begun requiring each student to develop a career plan.  (Here's a link to Iowa's official policy.  Also, an article from the Atlantic looking at a similar policy in South Carolina.)

In light of this trend, this past year we asked about this policy in our annual Commonwealth Education Poll and the results are summarized in our Poll Snapshot below.  

Also, on a slightly different career angle, recognizing that education jobs are among the rapidly growing occupational fields but that school systems are often asked to do more with less, we excerpt Dr. Vacca's February 2015 Ed Law newsletter that looked at legal parameters of teacher employment contracts. 

We hope you have a great week!

Given the fact that only 46.6% of Virginians aged 25-64 have an associates degree or higher, some policy-makers have questioned whether secondary education systems should focus solely on preparing students for college or whether they need to have a greater focus on preparing some students for an immediate career, potentially through technical education in high demand blue collar fields. One policy already implemented in some Virginia schools is to have 8th graders prepare a career plan for themselves with the idea that developing such a plan makes it possible to shape their high school coursework toward that career. In order to get a sense of public support or opposition for such changes we asked respondents about whether they favored such a career plan being required for all 8th graders and found the public almost evenly split in their opinion.

As noted in the chart above, the public appears to be evenly split, with 49% favoring such a policy for their local school system and 48% opposing it.

However, younger respondents were more likely to be supportive. Those aged 18-34 (56% in favor) and 35-44 (59% in favor) were more likely to favor such a policy than those aged 45-64 and those 65 and older (both show only 43% in support). Minority respondents also showed a significantly higher amount of support (62%) for such a policy than did white respondents (43%).
 

(To read the full poll, visit our website.)

Over the past decade several CEPI Ed Law commentaries were devoted to discussions of legal and policy issues dealing with classroom teacher employment. While such subjects as tenure, dismissal, selection and use of curriculum materials, tort liability, sexual harassment, and First Amendment rights have dominated prior discussions, the impact of local school system budget constraints also has been a focus of attention—especially as school funding levels are directly linked, via technology, to student progress and out-comes on statewide academic testing, drop-out statistics, and graduation rates.

As communities across this country continue to expect and insist that their local school boards do infinite things with a finite (in some cases even shrinking) budget, and as local community demographics rapidly change and student enrollments become more culturally diverse, being creative and flexible regarding personnel (including full-time teachers) is needed. Past solutions for past problems might not work in solving the emerging problems found in today’s rapidly changing, data-driven, social and fiscal environments. One area of close scrutiny by local school boards in dealing with today’s changing scene, where long term fiscal commitments are risky, involves classroom teacher contracts.

Emerging Fiscal Issues and Contractual Flexibility. In today’s public school systems, while the recruitment, selection, and hiring of new classroom teachers remains a critical part of the task, assigning and reassigning existing teachers (including those possessing tenure status), and shifting fiscal resources from one school to another (especially from “high performing schools” to “struggling schools”), and from one subject area to another, are of critical importance and have a direct impact on policy. As local school boards work to bolster student academic progress and performance is it necessary to eliminate extra-curricular activities including sports teams, or reduce the emphasis on some academic areas while building up others? As a need to expand mathematics and computer science courses grows, what is the future of art, drama, music, physical education, culinary arts? Will it be necessary to increase school system budgets to support growing numbers of immigrant and English language learning children entering the schools? How do we continue to adequately fund special education? Should local school boards pay teachers and other employees strictly on a “pay for performance” model? In an effort to save money on such matters as health care and retirement is it necessary to fill vacant positions with temporary and part-time workers and reduce the number of full-time employees (including classroom teachers)? In a local public school system in the area where I live the superintendent has proposed to his board that to improve student academic performance classroom teacher pay be tied to days worked—i.e., paying teachers for their work. (B2, Richmond Times-Dispatch, February 4, 2015)

Teacher Assignment and Re-Assignment. As a general rule, absent a collective bargaining agreement or other contractual arrangement to the contrary, classroom teachers (both tenured and non-tenured) can be assigned and/or reassigned to any position or combination of positions for which they are qualified. (Vacca and Bosher, 2012) Historically, while tenured classroom teachers have been and remain less likely to find themselves in such a situation, non-tenured teachers, especially those in their probationary first three years of full-time employment, are often called upon by their principal to fill a variety of tasks in a school’s daily operation, including extra duties, for little to no compensation (e.g., bus duty, student club sponsor, hallway and playground supervision, committee membership, et al.). Issues are likely to spring up when assignments and/or reassignments are made during the school (i.e., contract) year, and/or effect salary, and/or work schedule of tenured teachers. In my view radical steps must be taken—maintaining the status quo will not work.

In today’s tight fiscal environment, as local public school boards deal with rapid political, cultural, and social change; work to diligently carry out federal and state legal mandates; and continue to meet the rising expectations of their communities, coming up with creative solutions to budgetary issues has become a daily fact of life. Because of escalating costs (e.g., health care) and limited fiscal (property tax dependent) resources, state-wide student academic requirements, and shifting student enrollments, the one area of school system operation that has and continues to receive the most attention and scrutiny is personnel—the largest single category in the total school system maintenance and operation budget where flexibility, creativity, and change are often trumped by collective bargaining agreements and traditional notions of tenure and seniority.

While recognizing that Mirabilio v Regional School District 16 (2nd Cir 2014) is but one court decision from one jurisdiction, my intent in presenting the case is twofold. First, to offer an example of how one local school board tried to limit the working hours and reduce the salary within a new full-time contract issued to a returning tenured teacher, while not being in violation of the state tenure law.

Second, to present the factual analysis and rationale of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as the Court dealt with issues of “termination” and procedural due process. Especially informative in clarifying the potential legal and policy issues in the case is the dissenting opinion written by Judge Calabresi. Potential policy implications gleaned from the Second Circuit Court’s majority and dissenting opinions are as follows:

In matters of teacher employment contracts, local school board policies must make it clear that: