A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Table of Contents America Goes Back to School Enrollments Break Record (Again) Reading Excellence Act Grants Comments on Data System for "Quality of Teacher Preparation" GEAR UP Grants Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology School Violence & the Media Expulsions for Guns Decline Secretary Warns College Presidents About Lagging Y2K Repairs Y2K Resources for Teachers, Students, & Families "High Schools" the Focus of Secretary's Back-to-School Speech New Online Credits

America Goes Back to School "Back-to-school time is not just for kids anymore," Secretary Riley said this month in a special back-to-school message. "If our schools are going to do the job we expect them to do, everyone must pitch in & help." He encouraged "every parent, family, & citizen to use this back-to-school season to make a personal commitment to supporting better education in their community." The Secretary is spreading that message on a 5-state bus tour through Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, & North Carolina, & by visiting communities in the East, West, & Midwest. The full text of the Secretary's message & details about his bus trip are at: http://www.ed.gov/PressReleases/08-1999/backschool.html http://www.ed.gov/PressReleases/ How can you get involved in your child's school & stay involved all year? For ideas, please see the Department's back-to-school kit, "Challenge Our Students & They Will Soar," at http://www.ed.gov/Family/agbts/ (or by calling 1-800-USA-LEARN).

Enrollments Break Record (Again) Schools & colleges in the U.S. will set another enrollment record this fall, with K-12 public & private schools surpassing previous years' levels for the 4th consecutive year, & with college enrollment breaking the previous level for the second year in a row. According to "A Back to School Special Report on the Baby Boom Echo," K-12 schools will pack in 53.2 million students, passing last year's record by nearly half-a-million, while college enrollment will rise to an all-time high of 14.9 million. New enrollment records will continue for at least the next 7 years. The biggest increase of students over the next decade will be in grades 9-12, followed by middle schools. "Many of our schools are overcrowded & will stay that way since enrollments are expected to continue climbing," said Secretary Riley. "And the situation will only get worse if we don't act quickly to build new schools & fix old ones. That's why President Clinton has sent Congress a serious school construction plan for 3 years in a row & now is the time to act. This bill will help to build or renovate up to 6,000 schools nationwide." The Secretary also noted that these rising enrollments, plus the fact that many teachers will be approaching retirement in the next 5-10 years, mean that an estimated 2.2 million teachers will need to be hired over the next 10 years. The report is at: http://www.ed.gov/pubs/bbecho99/

Reading Excellence Act Grants This month the Department awarded $231.8 million to 17 states to help improve the reading skills of pre-kindergarten through 3rd-grade children. The grants are the first to be awarded under the new Reading Excellence Act. They will help states create programs that use reading research to improve the reading skills of up to 500,000 elementary school students, particularly at-risk students who need additional help in grades K-3. The program is designed to: provide children with the readiness skills & support they need to learn to read once they start school; help each child learn to read well & independently by the end of the 3rd grade; use research-based methods to improve reading instruction; expand the number of high-quality family literacy programs; & provide early intervention for children with reading difficulties. Funded states will run competitions for eligible local school districts. Because low-income students fail at reading more often than their affluent peers, the program concentrates support to high-poverty districts. States must allocate 85% of the funds to districts to support research-based reading instruction; teacher professional development; extended learning, including tutoring & summer programs; & family literacy. State grants are for 3 years. When announcing the 1999 grants, Riley expressed disappointment over the recently passed House tax cut bill. "If the bill becomes law," Riley said, "the Reading Excellence Program will be cut drastically. Preliminary estimates show that the program would essentially be cut in half -- & half a million children would not get the help they need to learn to read." The states to be funded are Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Utah, Vermont & West Virginia. For grant descriptions & other information, see: http://www.ed.gov/PressReleases/08-1999/readgrants.html

Comments Requested on Proposed Data System for "Quality of Teacher Preparation" You are invited to comment on the Department's proposed system for collecting data from states & higher education institutions on the quality of their teacher preparation activities. Data from this system, which the Department is required to develop (under Title II of the Higher Education Act), will be used for the congressionally mandated Secretary's annual report on the quality of teacher preparation. The initial comment period, announced in the Federal Register on July 28, will close on September 27. An additional 30-day period of public comment will be announced after the Department reviews initial comments &, if necessary, modifies its proposed data system. The July 28 Federal Register notice & other information are at: http://www.ed.gov/offices/OPE/News/teacherprep/index.html Comments may be sent to vivian.reese@ed.gov

GEAR UP Grants This month President Clinton announced the award of $120 million for 185 new grants that will help more than 200,000 disadvantaged children, beginning in the middle grades, prepare for success in college. These efforts, supported under the Gaining Early Awareness & Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP), typically begin in 7th grade (or earlier) to develop students' potential & help them & their families plan & prepare for college by offering comprehensive strategies including counseling, tutoring & mentoring to help students achieve in higher mathematics & other gateway college preparation courses & by offering scholarships as well as information about college & financial aid options. Studies show that disadvantaged students often are not aware of the need to take rigorous academic courses to prepare for college, like algebra in middle school or chemistry & trigonometry in high school, or of the availability of financial aid to pay for college. Two types of grants were awarded under GEAR UP: $42 million for 21 state grants & $75 million for 164 partnerships between colleges & low-income middle/junior high schools & at least 2 other community organizations. The Department received more than 670 partnership & state proposals representing all 50 states & an estimated one out of every five U.S. colleges & more than 4,500 organizations. However, only 1 in 4 partnership grant applicants & just half of the state grant applicants could be funded. President Clinton has asked Congress to double GEAR UP's budget for next year from $120 million to $240 million. For more information, including lists of grantees, please see: http://www.ed.gov/gearup

Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology On August 24, the Vice President announced grants for training 400,000 teachers in integrating technology into instruction. The grants, made under the Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology program, will build partnerships involving more than 1,350 members, including school districts, universities, non-profit organizations, & technology companies. Many of the grants focus on low-income communities & rural areas. For details, please see: http://www.ed.gov/PressReleases/WhiteHouse.html

School Violence & the Media "As our children return to the nation's schools over the next few weeks, I am increasingly concerned that some in the media may exaggerate or overdramatize the issue of school violence at the expense of the best interests of students, teachers & parents," Secretary Riley wrote in an op-ed printed by "The Washington Post" on August 15. He noted that "less than 1% of all homicides among school-age children (ages 5 to 19) occur in or around our schools." He also said that "new data indicate that violence among young people is on a downward trend & that the number of students being expelled from school for carrying a firearm decreased by 1/3 from the 1996-1997 to 1997-1998 school year" (see next story below).

Expulsions for Guns Decline The number of students expelled for bringing a firearm to K-12 schools in 1997-98 is down 31% from the previous year's figure of 5,724, according to the Department's "Report of State Implementation of the Gun-Free Schools Act -- School Year 1997-98: Final Report 1999." This report is the second state-by-state look at implementation of the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994, which requires states to pass laws requiring school districts to expel any student who brings a firearm to school. This report & others, including the Department's "Annual Report on School Safety" & "Early Warning Timely Response: A Guide to Safe Schools," are available at: http://www.ed.gov/offices/OESE/SDFS/news.html.

Secretary Warns College Presidents about Lagging Y2K Repairs This month Secretary Riley sent a letter to college & university presidents expressing his concern that many schools are not yet Y2K compliant. According to a Department survey, most schools have not yet tested their critical systems, such as student financial aid, to assure that transactions can be still completed on January 1. Only 30% of institutions said their mission-critical Y2K work was completed, while 40% said their systems will not be ready until after October. The Secretary noted that so far, only 22 of the over 5,800 U.S. institutions participating in the student aid programs have successfully tested their systems' abilities to exchange data with the Department's systems. He said... "If contingency plans need to be invoked due to school data exchange failures, significant delays in student aid delivery could occur. All schools, including those that use Department-provided or vendor-provided software, should perform data exchange testing to reduce risk. In order to encourage schools to undertake student aid data exchange testing, the Department has established on its web site an Honor Roll of institutions that have successfully tested their student aid data exchanges." The letter, Department's Y2K website, & the Honor Roll are at: http://www.ed.gov/PressReleases/08-1999/y2kletter.html http://www.ed.gov/offices/OCIO/year/

Year 2000 Resources for Teachers, Students, & Families On August 11, the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion announced an initiative to create & distribute education materials through Newspaper in Education (NIE) programs nationwide. In mid-September, newspapers will receive a CD-ROM disk of a Y2K student supplement & teacher resource guide, articles, background information, Y2K preparedness checklists, activities, & other materials. Publishers will be able to use the disk to reproduce & distribute the materials with their newspapers. This initiative, known as the Y2K Youth Education Program, is a partnership between the President's Council, the Newspaper Association of America (NAA), & the National Newspaper Association (NNA), representing the nation's daily, weekly, & community newspapers.

"High Schools" the Focus of Secretary's Annual Back-to-School Speech On September 15, Secretary Riley will deliver his annual back to school address at the National Press Club's Newsmaker Luncheon in Washington, DC. This speech will focus on the American High School in the 21st Century. The speech will be webcast from the Department's homepage (http://www.ed.gov), beginning at 12:30 Eastern time.

New Online The "1998 FIPSE Program Book" from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) presents up-to-date project descriptions. http://www.ed.gov/offices/OPE/FIPSE/98ProgBk/ "The Education for Homeless Children & Youth Program Report to Congress for Fiscal Year 1997" summarizes data about homeless children & youth, problems & barriers they experience in accessing public school programs, difficulties in identifying these problems, & states' success in assisting homeless children to enroll & succeed in school. (EdNote: superceded. See http://www.ed.gov/offices/OESE/SASA/hmlsprogresp.html) "The Directory of Services for Migrant Seasonal Farmworkers & Their Families" lists federal programs & national organizations that serve migrant farmworkers & their families. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) & Higher Education Programs (HEP) have new homepages. http://nces.ed.gov/ http://www.ed.gov/offices/OPE/HEP/ "Teachers Discuss" is an experimental website which features statements by teachers on 10 issues, followed by a message board where you can post your own thoughts on each issue. http://oeri3.ed.gov:8000/Teachers/