Search

For linguistically diverse students, the path to college is often defined by language. Depending on assessments and institutional policies, students may be placed into course sequences in developmental English, adult basic education, and/or English as a Second Language courses. The purpose of this study was to better understand developmental education, adult basic education, and English as a Second Language instructors' perceptions of how to best prepare linguistically diverse students for the literacy expectations of college courses. Ten instructors from Texas institutions were interviewed. Finding showed an overall lack of shared understandings of academic literacy across the three fields. Furthermore, there were tendencies towards deficit framings among developmental English instructors. Finally, findings showed a high level of animosity, particularly between English as a Second Language and developmental English instructors. Implications of these findings are discussed.

This cross-sectional study investigated the influences on feeding decisions made by mothers of infants admitted to neonatal intensive care units. The primary aims were to describe discrete influences on maternal behavior and to test Fishbein and Azjen's Theory of Planned Behavior in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) setting. The study included a convenience sample of 445 mothers in North Texas and Wisconsin. An investigator-designed tool was administered to subjects by research team members in the study units. Significant differences between minority and dominant racial groups emerged, which highlight known disparities in perinatal outcomes. Results supported the Theory of Planned Behavior and demonstrated predictors of exclusive breastfeeding at discharge including intention, race/ethnicity, length of stay in the NICU, and beliefs that the following factors influenced feeding decisions: having help with chores or childcare at home, talking with mothers in the NICU, having the NICU nurse help with feeding, and space for breastfeeding in the NICU. Incidental findings included the observation that mothers in the only NICU with private rooms were significantly more likely to report fatigue and to perceive that unit busyness, space, and privacy affected their feeding decisions, although there was no difference in breastfeeding at discharge between this NICU and others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With his state flush with cash, Gov. Michael F. Easley of North Carolina can have the best of both worlds. Sitting on a $1 billion surplus in an operating budget of $17.4 billion, the second-term Democrat last week proposed a politically popular 13 percent spending increase for K-12 education, while also asking the legislature to block scheduled tax hikes. Such surpluses are giving policymakers around the country the chance to do the same in their own states. According to a recent report, fiscal 2006 revenues are exceeding original targets in 44 states. But while schools will share in the spoils in North Carolina and many other states, some lawmakers are instead spending unexpected revenue elsewhere or are saving it for a rainy day. (Contains 1 table.)

Texas schools would count the salaries of librarians--but not those of nurses, guidance counselors, or bus drivers--as instructional expenses under proposed rules that would define how districts would comply with a new state mandate to spend 65 percent of their budgets on classroom costs. The rules are designed to make it easier for districts to comply with the 65 percent policy than under a plan being pushed by a national group lobbying for ensuring that classrooms get that share of school spending, said Texas Commissioner of Education, Shirley Neeley. In writing the Texas rules, scheduled to be formally proposed the week of April 19, 2006, Ms. Neely said she recognized that librarians are actively involved in teaching students how to conduct research and learn from resources available in school libraries. "They're the hub of any school," she said in an interview the week of April 10, 2006. "There's so much instruction that's going on in there particularly on research skills."

An effort to require school districts to funnel 65 percent of their budgets directly into classrooms is gaining traction in several states. Governor Rick Perry of Texas signed an executive order in August mandating that school districts implement the 65 Percent Solution, as the idea is called by the nonprofit group organizing the effort. It also has been endorsed by Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, the leaders of both chambers of Arizona's legislature, and other top state officials. While the group pushing the idea is led by a businessman with a bipartisan background, all of those politicians are Republicans. The group spearheading the effort is targeting states where Democratic governors are expected to face tough re-election fights. As a result, discussions about the merits of the idea may be overshadowed by questions about the proponents' motives--particularly as an internal document suggests the drive is indeed intended to bolster Republicans. The national consultant spearheading the effort said that the organizing group, First Class Education, is not aligned with a political party, but is committed to a "simple and intuitive" idea that is politically popular. However, many educators oppose the 65 Percent Solution because, they say, it would force schools to cut employees, such as school nurses, who play important roles even if they are not part of academic programs.

State and local officials are slowly untangling complicated webs of accountability, testing, and graduation policies, hoping to give thousands of students displaced by Hurricane Katrina a better handle on their academic standing. While officials in Texas, Tennessee, and Alabama offered some guidance to such students, school leaders in storm-ravaged Louisiana and Mississippi continued to wait for responses to their requests for flexibility in meeting some federal requirements. Mississippi state schools chief, Hank M. Bounds, pressed his case in Washington with members of Congress and officials at the U.S. Department of Education. His state has asked that districts battered by Katrina and those enrolling large numbers of displaced students be exempted this school year from the No Child Left Behind Act's rules on adequate yearly progress. Cecil J. Picard, the state superintendent in Louisiana, has made a similar request. While federal officials deliberate over how they will handle federal rules, state officials are addressing questions about how to assimilate large numbers of students who have been held to different standards and coursework requirements in their home states.

Kansas, Montana, and New York are the states currently under orders from their highest courts to fix their school finance systems. In Kansas, House and Senate leaders have agreed to a plan that would increase per-pupil funding for at-risk, bilingual, and special education students. It would also create a $20 million program to help districts improve student achievement in reading and mathematics in kindergarten through 3rd grade. In addition, the bill would guarantee cost-of-living increases for future years and allow districts to supplement state funding by levying additional property taxes--something districts are not allowed to do now. Here, Kansas lawmakers are proposing to spend $145 million on education in response to a state supreme court decision declaring the state's system of school funding unconstitutional. In Texas and Montana, plaintiffs are saying the same thing about legislative responses to their state courts. In New York, advocates of greater school funding are headed back to the courtroom because the legislature has not acted on the highest state court's 2003 order to fix funding for the New York City public schools.

Faced with a conflict between state and federal laws, Texas officials have come down on the side of their own law and set up a possible showdown with the U.S. government over millions of dollars in education aid. In determining which schools and districts were meeting annual goals under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the state last February 2005 granted a host of appeals from districts and schools that said they should get credit for following less stringent state rules for assessing special education students. As a result, 431 districts and 1,312 schools were considered by Texas to be making adequate yearly progress, or AYP, even though they did not follow the federal law's strict rules for counting the test scores of students with disabilities. The author states that states will be watching how the U.S. Department of Education reacts to the Texas decision and whether it withholds any of Texas' $1 billion annual share from the No Child Left Behind Act.

Good fiscal news is arriving in state capitals: Tax revenues are finally starting to recover from their four-year swoon. The bad news: States face pressure to meet increasing health-care costs and to replenish rainy-day and other funds legislatures tapped in recent years. The bottom line is that schools will have to fight for significant increases in the next fiscal year's budget, according to lawmakers and analysts preparing for the 2005 legislative sessions. School funding will be at the center of debates over how to spend money when all 50 state legislatures convene this 2005. In an annual 50-state report released in December by the NCSL, budget officers in 26 states said that funding of K-12 education would be one of the top three priorities in the 2005 sessions. In a separate survey conducted late last year by the Education Week Research Center, state education officials in 31 states said their states were considering major changes to the way they finance schools.

Texas has had its Robin Hood school financing system in place since 1993, when the legislature adopted the system in response to a state supreme court order to equalize state spending on public schools. Under the arrangement, any district that has taxable property values exceeding $305,000 per student is not allowed to keep all of its property-tax revenue. It must send money to the state, consolidate with another district, or give excess funds or valuable property to a property-poor district. The state refers to the process as a "recapture" of funds. It is commonly called the Robin Hood method because districts in wealthy suburbs and oil-rich areas subsidize communities with high poverty. This article discusses the Texas approach of funneling money from wealthy districts to poor ones as a way to equalize school spending. Though it's unclear what will replace the current school aid system, the pending changes show the difficulties that policymakers there have found--in Vermont and other states--when trying to take from the rich and give to the poor. Such systems face political snags as taxpayers watch their money leave their local schools. Thus, the fear is that efforts to equalize funding will mean less money to sustain the high-caliber schools people are used to in well-to-do communities.