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Articles of Interest
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State & Local Policy
Number of reported sex assaults rises at UVa
Richmond Times-Dispatch
November 17, 2014
The number of reported on-campus sexual assaults at the University of Virginia more than doubled between 2012 and 2013, according to an annual security report published by the school in late September.
The data showed that 27 reported offenses occurred on Grounds in 2013, up from 11 the year before. Twenty additional offenses were reported to have occurred off Grounds last year, nine of which took place on public property, the report said.
Virginia State University Names Hammond Interim President
Diverse Education
November 13, 2014
Hampton University Provost Pamela Valleria Wilson Hammond has been named interim president of Virginia State University.
Hammond will lead the historically Black land-grant university during a national search for a permanent president.
The university announced Hammond’s appointment on Thursday in a news release. She is the first woman to serve as Virginia State’s president.
Officials discuss Virginia's Standards of Learning assessments
Richmond Times-Dispatch
November 12 2014
The Standards of Learning assessments have been a great tool for Virginia educators for two decades, but the accountability process can be improved, Virginia Secretary of Education Anne Holton said Wednesday.
“The SOLs have served us well,” she told parents and teachers at the Richmond elementary school named for her father, former Gov. Linwood Holton. “Virginia has a pretty good K-12 system.”
But still, she said, the system could be improved, particularly in closing achievement gaps that show great divides between the state’s lowest- and highest-performing students.
“I think the most important work we’re doing in education today is figuring out ways to close those gaps,” she said.
During the meeting, which was called specifically to discuss SOL issues, Holton discussed the work of the 32-member SOL Innovation Committee created by Gov. Terry McAuliffe.
Federal Policy
How Can Community Colleges Get a Piece of the Billions That Donors Give to Higher Education?
The New York TImes
November 14, 2014
Last year at its annual gala, LaGuardia Community College, arguably the most ethnically diverse college in the country, honored Marilyn Skony Stamm, the chief executive of a global heating and air-conditioning business. A child of the South Side of Chicago who had gone to Northwestern on scholarship, Ms. Stamm maintained a committed interest in education and joined LaGuardia’s foundation board six years ago, proving herself a skilled networker for an institution with minimal capacity for soliciting money.
Occupying four buildings overlooking the elevated tracks for the No. 7 train in Long Island City, Queens, LaGuardia serves 50,000 students annually, many of them immigrants and more than two-thirds coming from families that earn $25,000 a year or less.
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School funding - sufficient, effective, efficient?
This past week the General Assembly returned to Richmond to approve a budget fix in light of the need to trim millions from the previously approved budget. The fix included cuts to higher education and cuts in state support for local governments but held funding for K-12 education unchanged - a fact pointed out by at least one delegate in conversations with his constituency. As we discussed in a previous newsletter, this may be because the public consistently provides greater support for spending on K-12 education than for other areas like higher education and corrections. And this may be true beyond Virginia as well. The graph below shows the share of general fund spending across all states for a 9-year period. Although the K-12 education share has held relatively steady, higher education spending as a share of the total has declined while spending on Medicaid has increased significantly.
While the relative priority given to education spending by the public is one interesting question, another is whether people feel that schools have sufficient funding. Our poll snapshot this week takes a look at that question by asking whether the public thinks that schools have enough resources.
Yet another question, and one that was the focus of much of the discussion at last week's House Education Summit, was how to build accountability for consistently effective education. Dr. Bosher, in a presentation to the committee, noted the importance of distinguishing between effective actions and efficient actions. Things can be done efficiently that may not need to be done at all.
The theme of effective school actions also came up in Dr. Bosher's weekly editorial where he noted several recent initiatives in the Richmond Public Schools that bode well.
Finally, inspired by the General Assembly being in town last week, in our update we take a look back at the legislation passed last spring by the General Assembly.
We hope you stay warm.
Sincerely,
CEPI
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Poll Snapshot: Do schools have enough?
Education systems are often built on dedication and long hours worked by teachers, staff and administrators; but they also take financial resources. Our poll has often asked a very basic question - "Overall, do you think the funding for public schools in Virginia is enough to meet their needs?"
As can be seen in the chart below, the answer of a strong majority is consistently no. And this may explain why community members often are happy to chip in with added donations or to purchase bake sale products or wrapping paper, or other products that schools often sell in order to raise extra funds. Over 11 years of asking the question, the sense that schools need more funding has never dropped below 60%.
The demographic breakdowns on this question are interesting as well. Women are more likely to think schools don't have enough resources (73% in 2014 compared to 57% of male respondents.) While income and educational level of the respondent don't have clear cut differences, there is a clear division between those aged 65 and over (52% think schools don't have enough resources) and the three younger age groups that all fell within the 68-70% range.
There were also interesting regional differences. South Central (76%) and Tidewater (74%) area respondents thought schools didn't have enough resources more frequently than respondents in the Northwest (61%), West (60%) and Northern Virginia (56%).
(To read the full results of all the polls, visit our website. In 2014, question 2 is the question reported above - topline results are on page 26; crosstabs are on page 37.)
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General Assembly Update - reviewing last year
The General Assembly was back in Richmond last week for a long evening of business. On the 11th the House Education committee held a summit under the leadership of Chair Landes to hear updates on a number of education issues. In the same spirit, in order to think about what business might come before the education committee this year, we excerpt the listing of approved legislation from 2014.
INSTRUCTION/ACCOUNTABILITY
HB 197 (Landes) requires teachers to ensure that all supplementary, written materials used to teach certain historical documents contain accurate restatements of the principles contained therein. In addition, the Department of Education (DOE) is directed to develop guidelines for such materials used by teachers.
HB 886 (Peace) requires the State Council of Higher Education (SCHEV) to provide high schools and institutions of higher education a link on its website to published data, to the extent available, assessing rates of enrollment in remedial coursework, individual student credit accumulation and postsecondary degree completion rates. Local school boards are required to post an annual notice to high school students and their parents of the availability of such data on their websites.
HB 887 (Peace) requires the Board of Education (BOE) to develop model criteria and procedures for establishing a jointly operated high school with a career and technical education focus, to be recommended to the Governor and General Assembly for funding as a Governor's Career and Technical Education School.
HB 930 (Greason) and SB 306 (Deeds) stipulate that Standards of Learning (SOL) assessments administered in grades three through eight not exceed (a) reading and mathematics in grades three and four; (b) reading, mathematics and science in grade five; (c) reading and mathematics in grades six and seven; (d) reading, writing, mathematics and science in grade eight; and (e) Virginia Studies and Civics and Economics once each at the grade levels deemed appropriate by each local school board. Each school board shall annually certify that it has provided instruction and administered an alternative assessment, consistent with Board of Education (BOE) guidelines, to students in SOL subject areas in which an SOL test was not administered. The bills also include provisions for an SOL Innovation Committee, consisting of legislators and education stakeholders, to periodically make recommendations to the BOE and General Assembly on the SOL tests; student growth measures; alignment between the SOL, assessments and the School Performance Report Card; and ideas on innovative classroom teaching.
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