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Education News for Wednesday, April 19

Proposals For Two Florida Scholarship Programs Move Forward in Senate – Two separate plans to save a school voucher program ruled unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court passed through Senate committees Tuesday. (more)

High School Graduation Gap More Than Racial  – A new study leaves you pondering whether boys are slackers or whether girls have simply picked up the education ball and run with it, yelling "Goodbye fools!" to the boys. (more)

Milwaukee near bottom for graduation rates – Milwaukee public high schools have one of the worst graduation rates in the country among large school districts, according to a new report that takes the unusual step of trying to make comparisons across large school districts as well as states. (more)

CA preschool measure still winning in poll – California voters support Proposition 82, dubbed the Preschool for All Act, by a 13-point margin, according to a Field Poll released Wednesday. (more)

Villaraigosa promises to fix LA’s problems while calling for a revolution in education – Promising to confront the city’s problems and make each tax dollar count, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa proposed on Tuesday a six-year experiment in school reform… (more)

Check back later today for more news.

UPDATE:

AP Story on Florida voucher moving through Senate – An unconstitutional plan that let students from failing public schools transfer to private schools at public expense would be re-established as part of another voucher program under a bill that cleared a Senate committee Tuesday. (more)

South Carolina school choice bill dies – A new plan to give private school vouchers to parents of students in failing schools has died in a House subcommittee. (more)

Florida’s failing schools face hard choices – Failing schools, including two in Polk County, may face some tough choices this summer if their students’ FCAT scores haven’t improved this year. (more)

Two great teachers teach me – Does Washington Post’s Jay Mathews have any business writing about schools? (more)

New York Times: Boys are no match for girls in completing high school – Nationwide, about 72 percent of the girls in the high school class of 2003 — but only 65 percent of the boys — earned diplomas, a gender gap that is far more pronounced among minorities… (more)

Arizona groups file suit to overturn use of AIMS testing – Two legal advocacy groups filed a lawsuit Tuesday that seeks to overturn the statewide AIMS test as a high school graduation requirement, claiming inadequate funding for schools leads to students who are unprepared for the test. (more)

‘No Child’ Law Raises Segregation Fear – Connecticut hasn’t always given its poor and minority students an education as good as it’s given its rich and white students. (more)

LA Mayor’s School Takeover Would Bypass Local Voters –  Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced Tuesday that he would ask the Legislature to give him overwhelming authority to run the city’s embattled public schools. (more)

Congress reacts to NCLB excluding minority test scores – Schools should stop excluding large numbers of minority students’ test scores when they report progress under the No Child Left Behind law. (more)

Don’t retreat on tough school courses – Principals, teachers shouldn’t cave to pressure to water down academics. (more) 

Pay more to Iowa teachers of math, science – Eventual legislation should include payment of significant bonuses for secondary math and science teachers for a set period.  (more)

Oregon has widest disparity of funding for rural schools – Rural school districts in Oregon have the widest funding gap in the nation, and students in rural districts that receive the most tax money outperform those in rural districts that receive less, a new national study shows. (more)

Researches review think tank researchers – A group of education researchers recently launched a project to review e
du
cation reports released by private think tanks to judge the quality of their research, the accuracy of their conclusions and expose any ideological bias. (more)