Around the Web

Summer Break

Around the Web is taking its summer holiday and will be on hiatus for a while. Please check back in the fall.

Building School Pride One Street at a Time

"If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Parkview High School should be blushing." That's how Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter D. Aileen Dodd begins her story on a new high-end subdivision in Atlanta with six streets named for the nearby high school. There's Orange Jungle Way and Big Orange Pass—both playing off Parkview's school color of orange. "Selling a high-end home on a street named after a school could prove to be a winning combination," Ted Kurland, a developer and Realtor with Brokers of Atlanta, Inc., told the newspaper. "I think it's innovative," he said. "In the future there will probably be a lot of pride associated with it."

New School Promises 'Customized Education'

A new private school in Miami promises "customized education" for children with autism and other neurobiological disorders, The Miami Herald reports. Kevin Gersh, the school's founder, says allowing students to help design their educational plans ultimately helps them focus on learning. Gersh's Coral Rock Academy is set to open in September. Annual tuition will be $30,000, and officials plan to enroll 20 students from grades 4 to 12.

Back-to-School Spending is Big Business

The National Retail Federation projects that back-to-school spending this year will exceed a whopping $18 billion.

According to the National Retail Federation’s 2007 Consumer Intentions and Actions Back-to-School survey, conducted by BIGresearch, American "families with school-age children are expected to spend $563.49 on back-to-school merchandise, up 6.9 percent from last year’s $527.08 average," the NRF reports. Families will pay about $94 on average for school supplies, but the biggest uptick in costs will come in the electronics category, the federation says—projecting a rise to $129.24 per family this year from $114.38 last year. In the electronics category, Americans will purchase computers, printers, and software, as well as cellphones and other items.

"Mister Rogers" Goes Digital

Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa., has begun digitizing 900 episodes of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" dating to 1967 and will make them available to educators and media specialists studying child development, early learning, and children's media, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.

Children's television icon Fred Rogers chose to house his archives at Saint Vincent before his death in 2003. He was a native of Latrobe. The college has since gone on to create the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media, which is designed "to create an environment that supports and encourages such good and important work on behalf of children and families."

Phase one of the project—digitizing 200 television episodes—should be finished by September, according to the Post-Gazette.

Heartbreak and Progress in Afghanistan

The International Herald Tribune offers a harrowing tale of schooling in Afghanistan. Reporter Barry Bearak opens with a scene out of a war movie—young girls trying to outrun gunmen lurking just outside the Qalai Sayedan School. Bearak says six girls were shot in the June 12 incident; two of them fatally. He cites "tools of intimidation used by the Taliban and others to shut down hundreds of schools here. To take aim at education is to make war on the government. Parents find themselves with terrible choices. 'It is better for my children to be alive even if it means they must be illiterate,' " one father tells the newspaper.

Bearak also cites encouraging statistics about education in Afghanistan: The Ministry of Education there claims that 6.2 million children are now enrolled—or about half the school-aged population. Even so, all progress is made against a backdrop of uncertainty and fear. "By attacking schools, the terrorists want to make the point of their own existence," Haneef Atmar, the minister of education, tells the Herald Tribune.

Education Week has also reported on the turbulent situation in Afghanistan. In its five-year plan, Afghanistan's Ministry of Education has set a goal of enrolling 60 percent of girls and 75 percent of boys in schools by 2010.

CNN Gives Education Headlines a Summer Break

The nation’s schoolchildren aren’t the only ones taking a vacation from school. When it relaunched its Web site last month CNN.com nixed the “Education” news link on its home page in favor of a category dubbed “Funny News,” Dan Brown reports on the Huffington Post.

So now you’ll have to drill deep into the Web site for a video report on the crisis in Los Angeles’ schools, or for news articles on the latest education studies. But if your brain is on summer break, you can easily find much lighter fare. Like the story chronicling an Oregon man’s flight on a lawn-chair powered by helium balloons; or the one about the bank robber in Manchester, N.H., who thought up a novel disguise: a tree.

Some Huffington Post readers blasted the decision, while comments on CNN.com generally praise the network for its redesigned homepage. Mitch Gelman, CNN.com’s senior executive producer, noted in an email that CNN has not reduced its coverage of education news and issues. “We are still covering education, are still publishing the Student News site, and will be bringing back an education destination page at some point post-relaunch,” he wrote.

Study Examines Teasing's Impact on Overweight Kids

Children who are made fun of for being overweight may carry deep psychological scars because of it, according to The Boston Globe. A new Yale University study "found that overweight and obese children who are subjected to verbal taunts and physical bullying are substantially more prone during childhood to suicidal thoughts, eating disorders, and high blood pressure than their peers," the Globe reports.

University of Florida researchers reported last year that such bullying may actually make it harder for children to shed weight by making them uncomfortable about exercise. "The problem clinically is if kids are avoiding PE class or playing sports because of fears of negative peer relationships, their health status is affected,” said Eric Storch, a University of Florida assistant professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the university's College of Medicine. UF researchers recommended that schools create a zero-tolerance culture for bullying and consider providing gym teachers with training on how to recognize bullying and intervene.

Multiple Choice on Choice

"Place yourself back in First Grade," Matthew Ladner writes on edspresso.com. Then, choose where you'd like to attend the public schools: (a) Washington, D.C., (b) Los Angeles, (c) Chicago, or (d) none of the above. Did you choose (d)? Uh-oh. "If those schools are not suitable for you in theory, then they are not suitable for low-income children in practice," writes Ladner, the vice president of research at the Goldwater Institute. Writing for the Center for Education Reform's edspresso blog, Ladner opines that children in inner-city schools face very limited opportunities and that, if all children faced such limits, the system would change. He advocates for reform on two fronts: "expand school choice options for all parents and completely overhaul the resource development and compensation system for teachers."

Summer School, Not Summer Jobs

More teens are spending summer days in school rather than on the job, USA Today reports. According to U.S. Labor Department statistics released July 6, only 48.8% of teens ages 16 to 19 were working or looking for work in June. That was down from 51.6% in June 2006 and below the 60.2% in the labor force in June 2000, reporter Barbara Hagenbaugh writes. The reasons for the downturn are varied, including more adult competition for jobs that once went to teens and more families saving for college—which means students don't have to earn as much cash to pay college tuition. In addition, one expert tells the newspaper that teens see the benefits of extra learning. "The value of school is higher than it used to be," said Daniel Sullivan, senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

The Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University has been tracking the decline in youth employment for several years. The center's April 2007 study found that teens living in low-income families—family income of less than $20,000 a year—were the least likely to have summer jobs—only 32 percent were working. By contrast, those in families with incomes between $75,000 and $100,000 were the most likely to hold jobs. Approximately 52 percent of those teens did have jobs.

But in her Working Parents blog on the BusinessWeek Web site, Cathy Arnst writes about the downside of foregoing summer work. The "most valuable" lesson of her first summer job working as a waitress at a small-town diner: "how to be a responsible employee, a skill that I think can only be gained on the job," Arnst writes.

"Without that first job, and all the other waitress jobs I held afterwards, I never would have been able to afford college, my ticket to a job in journalism—a career I really do value more than waiting tables," she concludes.

So, what do you think? Do teens need more time in the classroom, or do the benefits of a summer job exceed the paycheck?

Tracking School Law Twists in the Internet Age

The American School Board Journal offers educators perspective on legal twists and turns of the cyber age in a piece titled, "Blogging for Columbine." "The 'dark side' of student online expression, including some aspects of social networking sites like MySpace, confronts school officials with issues that place schools on uncertain legal ground and at the crux of conflicting societal demands," Thomas Hutton, a senior staff attorney for the National School Boards Association, writes in the July issue. Hutton goes on to point out instances where courts have been sympathetic to educators' complaints and cases where schools have received the cold shoulder. A helpful primer on freedom of expression in the Internet age.

For more on technology and learning generally, see Education Week's recent special report, Digital Directions.

Boost in Autism Numbers Strains Services

The Boston Globe reports on the sharp increase in the number of children diagnosed with autism in Massachusetts and the impact its having on programs that serve them. "Many people who haven't had the experience assume the hardest part is hearing your child has autism," Ann Guay of Bedford told the Globe. Her 12-year-old son, Brian, has the disorder. "But I think the greater challenge is trying to obtain the services you know your child desperately needs."

Autism is more common than it was once believed, according to data released earlier this year by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC found that an average of 6.6 children out of 1,000 had an autism spectrum disorder in 14 communities the center studied in 2002. "For decades, the best estimate for the prevalence of autism was four to five per 10,000 children," CDC officials said.

Last year, the CDC launched what it called the largest-ever federally funded study into the causes of autism. Education Week reported that the $7.8 million study would be conducted over five years in six states.

What's in a School Name?

The Kansas City Star reports that schools are less frequently being named after historical figures and are instead becoming namesakes for geographical features or forces of nature. The article is based on this report out of the Manhattan Institute, that found that community leaders are no longer naming schools for Abraham Lincoln or George Washington or even more modern political figures. Instead the trend appears to be towards naming schools with nature in mind, like Windy Pointe or Sandy Springs.

Commentary on the Court

As school districts try to interpret last week's U.S. Supreme Court decision on school desegregation, editorial pages across the country have offered the following opinions:

The two major newspapers covering the districts in the case were split. The Seattle Times agreed with the decision; Kentucky's Lexington Herald-Leader said it was "supreme nonsense."

Elsewhere, the San Fransisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and Raleigh's News & Observer minced no words in their opposition to the 5-4 decision. The Sacramento Bee and the St. Petersburg Times both called it a step backwards, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch found the majority opinion "sadly dogmatic."

On the other side, Denver's Rocky Mountain News called the decision "on the money" and The San Diego Union-Tribune characterized it as a "ruling that squares with the 14th Amendment, court precedent, and common sense."

Kennedy's opinion opens the door for more legal action, The Plain Dealer says. Until then, The Oregonian tells districts to "look for new ways to fight inequality."

"Not as bad as it could have been," said The Des Moines Register, while also offering advice to districts in the state with desegregation plans.

Columnists offered their own take. The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson compared the majority justices to George Wallace; Seattle's Danny Westneat found himself agreeing with Clarence Thomas; The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Jim Wooten thinks vouchers would help integrate schools; and St. Petersburg's Thomas C. Tobin wrote about racial integration among teachers.

Following the Supreme Court Decision on Race

Though the U.S. Supreme Court today rejected school diversity plans that use race as a factor in the case involving voluntary integration plans in school districts in Louisville, Ky. and Seattle, the ruling didn't stop bloggers from opining about the Justices' opinion. In addition to Education Week's extensive coverage, check out SCOTUSblog which recaps the term-ending case and provides solid analysis. The NAACP's Legal Defense Fund school integration blog cites Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s support of allowing school districts to pursue integrated schools despite his agreement in parts with the majority opinion. The Volokh Conspiracy also has plenty to say about Justice Kennedy's stance and the reactions expressed by readers of the blog are also a good read.