Extra Credit

Social studies changes to be online

Lots has been said about the changes to the social studies curriculum that the State Board of Education tentatively approved in March. Later this month, you can see them for yourself.

The Texas Education Agency will post the updated curriculum online "no sooner than April 9 and no later than April 16," spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson said today. Then, a 30-day public comment period begins.

The board is expected to take a final vote in May.

In the meantime, the Mexican American Legislative Caucus held a press conference today in Austin to talk about their disappointment with the board's work, according to the Houston Chronicle.

- Traci Shurley 

Mansfield to add $8.5 million in technology

Classrooms in the Mansfield school district will have more up-to-date technology, thanks to an $8.5 million upgrade approved by trustees Tuesday night.

Some of what's included - document cameras, interactive white boards and interactive tablets. The money for the project is coming from the district's fund balance. The ideas came from teachers. Administrators based their choices on a survey where 1,700 teachers responded.

Here's a statement the district released Wednesday and a video from the district showing some of the technology.

- Traci Shurley

Texas to pay for free SAT and ACT tests for high schoolers

Free, free, free! That'll get your attention. But the catch is it's about free testing. The Texas Education Agency has made a deal with the SAT and ACT folks to allow Texas students to take college admissions tests without charge.

Here are the details:

SAT: High school juniors can take the exam free on May 1 or June 5. Students should get a voucher from a school counselor and log onto the College Board's Web site to use their number to sign up. 

The deadline for the May 1 test is TODAY, with late registration via phone April 1 to 15 (an extra charge). Registration for the June 5 test is May 5, with late registration May 6 to 19. Texas students who paid to register already can get a refund.

ACT: Students can take the Explore test (grades 8 and 9), Plan test (grade 10) and ACT test (grades 11 and 12) for free. This includes the cost of Explore testing arranged by school districts before May 21 and ACT tests for Texas juniors in April and June. Click here for info.

Juniors can get a state voucher to register for nationwide ACT test date; the next one is June 2. Registration for the April 10 test is over. Students who have already paid for the April or June test are eligible for a refund.

Jessamy Brown

Joshua 8th-grader commits suicide over bullying, family says

The family of a 13-year-old middle school student in Joshua says the eighth-grader committed suicide this past weekend because he was bullied at school, television station KDFW/Channel 4 reported.

Jon Carmichael hanged himself in a barn near his home, the station reported.

The family told the station that school officials knew what was happening and his mother said she believes that the bullying was too much for her son to bear.

Joshua school superintendent Ray Dane said the bullying may have happened during an athletic period and that district administrators plan to determine who may have known about it. He said the district would address the issues related to the incident, Channel 4 reported.

School bullying has drawn national attention with the recent case in Massachusetts in which nine people have been charged after a 15-year-old girl committed suicide following prolonged harassment and bullying at school.

-- Lance Murray

Local educator group backs Fort Worth newcomer

Today the United Educators Association formally endorsed its first candidate in the Fort Worth school board elections. The group, which represents area school employees, is backing Ann Sutherland for District 6 over incumbent Chris Hatch.

Sutherland spent most of her career in California as an educator and budget analyst. She moved to Fort Worth in 2004 to be close to family and had served on John Peter Smith Hospital's committee looking at patient access. UEA deputy director Steven Poole said that it is time for new leadership on the board. "There are a lot of difficult issues facing the school district," he said, referring to the district recently declaring a financial state of emergency for the second year straight. "She brings a number of perspectives together with her background as a school teacher and budget analyst."

Hatch, a certified public accountant, has represented the Southwest district since 2004. He currently serves as chair of the board's audit committee. Hatch has said he is proud that the district has been able to make gains in academic achievement despite financial difficulties and noted that the current bond program is about $38 million under budget.

-Eva-Marie Ayala

Texas African-American students' reading scores top most states

New testing results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress contain good news and not so good news for Texas.

The state's African-American fourth-graders scored sixth highest in the nation on the 2009 NAEP reading test, with a score of 213, nine points higher than the national average for African-American students.

Texas fourth-graders as a whole, however, scored an average of 219, one point lower than the national average and 34th in the nation.

The test is given every two years. About 12,000 fourth-graders and eighth-graders took the reading test in 2009.

The TEA has more results here.

- Traci Shurley

Bill White says Perry should step in on social studies standards

Bill White, the Democratic candidate for governor, is weighing in on the State Board of Education's controversial amendments to Texas' social studies curriculum standards. He's asking Gov. Rick Perry to urge state board Chairwoman Gail Lowe to send the revisions back to the committees of mostly teachers where they started.

The board's work on the standards, which are undergoing a 10-year review process, has brought attention from everyone from the Washington Post to Stephen Colbert. The 15-member board is set to approve the changes in May. Critics worry they'll affect textbooks offered nationwide because of the volume of Texas' purchases.

In his release, White highlighted the removal of Thomas Jefferson from a section on revolutionary thinkers of the Enlightenment. Critics have accused conservative factions of the board of wanting to downplay Jefferson's contributions because he advocated a "wall of separation" between church and state.

Lowe released a statement last week, through the Texas Education Agency , pointing out that Jefferson was required to be taught in several other areas of the curriculum standards.

White's statement said: "Individual school board members are no doubt sincere in their beliefs, and some of the changes can be debated by reasonable people. But, under the leadership of another extreme Rick Perry appointee, the amendment process injected politics into our school books and classrooms. That is a step in the wrong direction, requiring leadership from our Governor."

-Traci Shurley

Mansfield newspaper sites recognized

Two online newspapers from Mansfield high schools are among the top in the nation, according to the National Scholastic Press Association or NSPA.

The finalists in the 2010 NSPA Online Pacemaker contest were announced earlier this month. The Rider, Mansfield Legacy High School's site, and The Uproar, Mansfield High School's site, were the only finalists in Texas

The 132 high schools from across the U.S. that entered the contest were judged on content and coverage, site design, ease of navigation, interactivity/multimedia and writing and editing, according to the NSPA.

Winners will be announced on April 17, at the Association's national conference in Portland, Oregon.

- Traci Shurley

State board issues clarification on Jefferson

The Texas State Board of Education has been getting a lot of press this week for their controversial revisions of social studies curriculum standards. Today, they decided to make some things clear on the subject of Founding Father Thomas Jefferson.

You can read the statement here. It acknowledges that the board removed Jefferson from a list Enlightenment thinkers. But, basically says, don't worry students in Texas are still going to study him plenty - in fifth-grade, eighth-grade and then in U.S. Government in high school.

But their explanation wasn't sitting well with the Texas Freedom Network, a group that bills itself as a mainstream voice to counter the religious right.

They quickly put out a press release in which their president Kathy Miller said: 

"This isn’t a contest to see how many times someone is included in the standards. The issue here is why the board would not want students to learn that people struggling for freedom around the world have looked for more than two centuries to Thomas Jefferson and his ideals for inspiration. This is yet another example of board members making decisions about things they clearly don’t know anything about instead of listening to teachers and scholars who do."

- Traci Shurley

 

Should colleges with low graduation rates be banned from March Madness?

Well, the Education Secretary (a former professional basketball player himself) thinks so. Arne Duncan said any team with a graduation rate lower than 40 percent should be banned from post season playoffs. That would include Baylor.

Such a rule would have kept the Baylor men's team and Lamar women's team off the brackets this year. A recent study found Baylor's team graduation rate to be 36 percent (that's with 29 percent of African Americans on the team graduating compared to 100 percent of white students graduating). Lamar's graduation rate was 35 percent with 36 percent of African American students graduating and 25 percent of white students graduating.

The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida released its annual study this week looking at the graduation rates for basketball teams in the NCAA playoffs. The report found that the women athletes are graduating at higher rates than men. It also found that white students are graduating at much higher rates than African-American students (84 versus 56 percent in men and 90 versus 78 percent in women).

-Eva-Marie Ayala