Don’t forget to send in an article and/or upcoming event to highlight your K-12 teacher education or early childhood program in our monthly Newswire e-newsletter starting in March.  If you are interested in showcasing something unique or special that your program does, sponsors, or is involved in that you feel would be of interest to others, please submit requested information to ncte@domail.maricopa.edu by the 10th of the month for the following month’s issue

(see January 2006 Newswire archive for details).

Teacher Pay Debates in Arizona

The Arizona Republic reports that teacher pay is up for debate this year after Gov. Napolitano proposed spending $91 million over the next two years to give all public-school teachers a raise, pay every starting teacher at least $30,000 a year and defray retirement contributions.  "We cannot expect the best from teachers as long as we pay them a paltry sum," Napolitano said.

While many back the Governor’s proposal, others contend that teachers get eight to ten weeks off every summer, three midyear breaks, job security and solid benefits.  They are, therefore, not getting shortchanged.  Some opponents contend that if pay raises are given at all, it should be in the form of incentive pay to reward the best teachers, since raising teacher pay will not necessarily raise student performance.

The Abandonment of Community Colleges

A new study, which has yet to be published, suggests that there has been an historic erosion of government support for community colleges in the last 20 years. The study is a doctoral dissertation by a student at the University of North Texas, whose dissertation committee included some of the top experts on community college finance. According to those experts, this data should make people pay more attention to the financial challenges facing community colleges. Among its findings:

In 1980-81, 16 states contributed at least 60% of the budgets of their community colleges. By 2000-01, none did so.

In 1980-81, 22 states contributed at least half of the budgets for their community colleges, which enrolled 55% of all community college students in the country. By 2000-01, only seven states -- enrolling 8% of community college students -- did so.

Projections of Education Statistics pdf

The National Center for Education Statistics has released its thirty-third edition of a series of education projection reports that began in 1964. The report includes national and state-level statistics on elementary and secondary schools and degree-granting institutions, with projections of enrollment, graduates, teachers and expenditures to the year 2014. Within the summary, the reader will find statistics related to the rise of: the total public and private elementary and secondary school enrollment, the number of high school graduates across the nation, the number of teachers needed nationally, and the number of students enrolling in and attaining degrees from degree-granting institutions.

Students Prefer Online Courses

According to a recent survey by The Sloan Consortium, at least 2.3 million people took some kind of online course in 2004, and two-thirds of colleges offering "face-to-face" courses also offer them online. At some schools, online courses – originally intended for distance learners – have proved surprisingly popular with on-campus students as well.  At Arizona State University, for instance, as many as 9,000 students took both distance and on-campus classes last year. Arizona State's Director of Distance Learning, Marc Van Horne, says students are increasingly demanding both high-tech delivery of education, and more control over their schedules. The university should do what it can to help them graduate on time, he says.

Preschool Gets Record Boost in 2005

According to a report issued by Pre-K Now, with 26 states boosting preschool spending this legislative year by $600 million -- the largest single-year increase in five years -- at least 180,000 more children will attend early-education classes. In addition to Florida, Georgia and Oklahoma, which offer statewide preschool, 36 other states now have preschool programs for their neediest children. States are heeding calls from advocates and early-education researchers who say that students attending high-quality preschools do better in kindergarten and throughout school, and after graduation are less likely to commit crimes and more likely to attend college, get jobs and pay taxes.


Staffing High Need Schools

A Shared Responsibility: Staffing All High-Poverty, Low-Performing Schools with Effective Teachers and Administrators, A Framework for Action, by Learning First Alliance, offers a systemic set of actions for addressing the long-standing problem of staffing high-poverty, low-performing schools with qualified educators and administrators. The persistent academic achievement gaps between children living in poverty versus those living in affluence endanger our nation’s future. While the Alliance acknowledges that factors outside of schools contribute to these gaps, it asserts that the nation helps perpetuate the gaps by failing to guarantee all students access to highly experienced and capable educators. Our goal, according to the Alliance, must be to abolish so-called “hard-to-staff schools” by making today’s high-poverty, low-performing schools the kinds of places where the best educators will want to work.