Tuesday Morning Links

• Urban Colleges Learn to be Good Neighbors:

  As a case study, Penn's urban renewal effort is probably the most comprehensive -- targeting every service and institution that makes a community vibrant. The university restored shuttered houses and offered faculty incentives to move into the neighborhood; invested $7 million to build a public school; brought in a much-needed 35,000-square-foot grocery store and movie theater; and offered the community resources such as hundreds of used Penn computers.

  "We said we teach our students about civic engagement. You can't do that and not be role models for civic engagement," said former Penn president Judith Rodin, who was a catalyst in the renewal efforts.

• Referendum Tactic Calls on Old Friends
• Earlier is Better, Leaders Say
• No Child Left Behind: President Bush Visits School that Closed the Gap:

  The president invoked North Glen's success on the fourth anniversary of the law, at a time when support for his signature education initiative has eroded.

  Despite large increases in federal aid to schools, many congressional Democrats say that overall, the law is underfunded. Some conservatives say the law undermines local authority and gives the federal government too much control over schools. Those concerns have stalled a Bush administration proposal to expand the law's testing requirement to the nation's high schools.

  Educational researchers say it is too soon to say whether the law has prompted lasting improvement in student achievement. "Bush is claiming greater success for the act than he can justify," said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, a Washington research organization that has closely studied the law's impact. "It is still unclear that the law will be successful in solving the problems in public education."

  At North Glen, the percentage of black third-graders rated as proficient on the statewide test rose from 32 percent in 2003 to 94 percent in 2005, placing the campus among the top schools in Maryland for black student performance. Black students perform at least as well as whites on several academic measures at the school, whose student population is 42 percent black, 40 percent white, 11 percent Hispanic and 7 percent other ethnic groups.

• Teens hangout at myspace
• DC Seeks to Redirect Sales Tax to Schools:

  The chairman of the D.C. Council's finance committee said yesterday that a proposal to modernize schools should be paid for by dedicating $100 million of city sales tax revenue every year for the next 15 years.
  

Posted by Jim Zellmer at January 10, 2006 6:40 AM
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