Font size:
MICHIGAN EDUCATION DIGEST
Volume IV, No. 33
August 20, 2002
https://www.educationreport.org/pubs/med/
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Contents of this issue:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
* Colleges swamped with remedial students
* Texas teachers exploit Social Security loophole
* Cleveland school voucher applications soar
* Home schooling illegal in California?
* NEA history sites cast blame on Americans for Sept. 11
* NOTICE: Hoogland Center for Teacher Excellence Seminars
----------------------------------------------------------------
COLLEGES SWAMPED WITH REMEDIAL STUDENTS
----------------------------------------------------------------
DETROIT, Mich. - Michigan's community colleges, already swamped
with students who don't meet basic standards, are hoping to work
with local school districts to keep more students from failing at
higher education.
More than a third of the 90,000 Michigan students who graduate
each year leave high school without basic skills in reading,
writing and math, according to a 2000 study by the Mackinac
Center for Public Policy, a research and educational institute in
Midland. The issue is daunting for the state's 28 public
community colleges because they are required to admit all
Michigan high school graduates.
Students who lack the basic skills to enter college take longer
to earn a degree-if they graduate at all. And even those who do
graduate often are at disadvantage competing for jobs, experts
said.
Michigan's community colleges spend an estimated $65.4 million a
year teaching students basic skills, according to the Mackinac
Center study; and universities and businesses in the state also
spend millions to provide remedial education.
________
SOURCES:
Detroit News, "Colleges, districts battle bad learning," Aug. 20,
2002
https://www.detroitnews.com/2002/schools/0208/20/a01-566328.htm
Mackinac Center for Public Policy, "The Cost of Remedial
Education," August 2000
https://www.mackinac.org/article.asp?ID=3025
----------------------------------------------------------------
TEXAS TEACHERS EXPLOIT SOCIAL SECURITY LOOPHOLE
----------------------------------------------------------------
DALLAS, Texas - A fast-growing technique used by Texas teachers
to circumvent federal pension limitations could drain more than
$450 million in unintended benefits from the Social Security
system, says a report issued Wednesday by congressional auditors.
The General Accounting Office said retiring teachers can spend a
single day - their last working day - as a janitor or a clerk,
pay as little as $3 in Social Security taxes, and collect an
average $93,000 or more in spousal retirement benefits for the
rest of their lives.
Jeri Stone, executive director of the Texas Classroom Teachers
Association, told the Dallas Morning News her organization not
only encourages Texas teachers to take advantage of the loophole,
but also lobbies against the federal provision that was intended
to prohibit public employees from collecting both pensions.
"We're not unhappy that the loophole exists," Ms. Stone told the
Morning News.
The report offers no estimate of the extent of the problem
nationwide, focusing only on Texas and Georgia. Of 4,819 cases
studied, all but 24 were in Texas.
________
SOURCES:
Dallas Morning News, "Pension loophole exploited," August 16, 2002
http://www.dallasnews.com/latestnews/stories/081602dntexGAO.9807b.html
The Arizona Republic, "Teachers using loophole to get extra
benefits," August 16, 2002
http://www.arizonarepublic.com/news/articles/0816gao16.html
----------------------------------------------------------------
CLEVELAND SCHOOL VOUCHER APPLICATIONS SOAR
----------------------------------------------------------------
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling
upholding its constitutionality, applications for the Cleveland
school voucher program began pouring into the state's education
department.
The Ohio Department of Education, which administers the voucher
program, got 2,200 first-time applications by the July 31
deadline, a 10 percent increase over last year. The vouchers can
be used for up to $2,250 of tuition at a private school.
The state is making more vouchers available this year-5,523
compared to the 4,500 vouchers awarded last year. But about the
same number of private schools as last year will accept vouchers
and some of those schools may have no more spots open, Dottie
Howe, communications manager for the education department told
the Plain Dealer. A family picking such a school will have to
choose another or return the voucher.
The program gives priority to families who earn less than 200
percent of the federal poverty level; the earnings threshold for
a family of four is $36,200.
________
SOURCE:
The Plain Dealer, "School voucher applications soar," August 13, 2002
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/xml/story.ss
f/html_standard.xsl?/base/cuyahoga/1029231092124860.xml
----------------------------------------------------------------
HOME SCHOOLING ILLEGAL IN CALIFORNIA?
----------------------------------------------------------------
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The state of California is warning parents
that they cannot educate their children at home without acquiring
a professional teaching credential, making many home-schooling
parents wonder whether their home education program is now
illegal.
On July 16, the California education department issued a memo
that stated home schooling with non-credentialed teachers "is not
an authorized exemption from mandatory public school attendance."
Legal defenders of home-based education say home schooling is not
mentioned in California law and is legal under a statute that
allows any parent to operate a "private school," even if the
student body amounts to one. California is one of 12 states where
home schooling is accomplished under a private school exemption.
Home-school legal advocate Roy Hanson, director of the Lincoln,
Calif.-based Private and Home Educators of California, told World
Net Daily the state is trying to frighten people into abandoning
home schooling, and called the memo "pure deception."
Despite debate over the legal claims in the memo, school
officials in California are taking it seriously, sending notes to
private schools and home-schooling parents, encouraging them to
enroll their students in programs or schools with certified
teachers.
________
SOURCE:
World Net Daily, "Home-schooling illegal in California?," August
19, 2002
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=28644
----------------------------------------------------------------
NEA HISTORY SITE CASTS BLAME ON AMERICANS FOR SEPT. 11
----------------------------------------------------------------
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The National Education Association (NEA) is
suggesting to teachers that they be careful on the first
anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks not to "suggest any
group is responsible" for the terrorist hijackings that killed
more than 3,000 people.
But some of the suggested NEA lesson plans-compiled together
under the title "Remember September 11" and appearing on the
teacher union's health information network web site-urges
educators to "discuss historical instances of American
intolerance," so that the American public avoids "repeating
terrible mistakes."
Critics say some of the suggestions included in the lesson plans
aimed at junior and senior high school students can be seen as
more concerned with America's faults than with confronting or
overcoming terrorism.
"A lot of what's stated in these lesson plans are lies," William
S. Lind, director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism for the
Free Congress Foundation, a conservative think tank, told the
Washington Times. "None of what is mentioned in these plans are
facts. It's an ultimate sin to now defend Western culture. It
does not matter today whether a student learns any facts or any
skills. What matters now is the attitude they come away with when
they graduate school."
________
SOURCES:
Washington Times, "NEA delivers history lesson," August 19, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020819-34549100.htm
National Education Association Health Information Network www.neahin.org
----------------------------------------------------------------
NOTICE: HOOGLAND CENTER FOR TEACHER EXCELLENCE SEMINARS
----------------------------------------------------------------
The Hoogland Center for Teacher Excellence at Hillsdale College
is sponsoring two upcoming seminars:
November 1-2, 2002:
A More Perfect Union: Teaching the Constitution of the United
States
January 17-18, 2003:
Founding Father: George Washington and the American Founding
Both seminars will be held on the campus of Hillsdale College, in
Hillsdale, Mich., located 80 miles south of Lansing. Open to
public, private and home-school middle and high school teachers
of civics, social studies and history, the seminars require only
a $25.00 registration fee. This fee pays for accommodations at
the on-campus hotel, all meals, and seminar and curriculum
materials.
Participants will explore the seminar topics in lectures and
small group discussions led by Hillsdale College faculty and
guest lecturers. Hillsdale College academic credit or one
Michigan State Board Continuing Education Unit (SB-CEU) of
professional development credit may be earned for each seminar.
For more information and to register for one or both of the
seminars, visit www.hillsdale.edu/cte, or call (866) 824-6831.
################################################
MICHIGAN EDUCATION DIGEST is a service of Michigan Education
Report (https://www.educationreport.org), a quarterly newspaper
with a circulation of 130,000 published by the Mackinac Center
for Public Policy (https://www.mackinac.org), a private,
nonprofit, nonpartisan research and educational institute.
################################################
The Mackinac Center for Public Policy is a nonprofit research and educational institute that advances the principles of free markets and limited government. Through our research and education programs, we challenge government overreach and advocate for a free-market approach to public policy that frees people to realize their potential and dreams.
Please consider contributing to our work to advance a freer and more prosperous state.
