School Controversies

Book banning is an age-old concept that is nearly always met with a public outcry. That is certainly the case in two areas of the country today, where schools that have banned specific books from the classroom have been met with plenty of resistance from parents and educators. The ACLU has even involved itself in one of the situations, with a goal of protecting the civil rights of teachers and students. Is book banning appropriate in certain situations? We’ll take a look at what those involved are saying about the recent proposals to ban some pieces of literature from the classroom.

Arizona Ethnic Study Ban Includes Works by Shakespeare

Two years ago, Arizona instituted a law banning ethnic studies, a move that made headlines and ruffled many feathers in the world of education. According to a report at the Wall Street Journal, one high school teacher recently discovered that the ban includes “The Tempest” by William Shakespeare. The teacher had requested to begin teaching from the work but was told he would not be able to do so.

The now-former Arizona teacher, Curtis Acosta, wrote in a statement printed at the Wall Street Journal, “I asked if I could start teaching Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest, and was told no, due to the themes that are present and the likelihood of avoiding discussions of colonization, enslavement, and racism were remote.”

The new Arizona law prohibits any type of course or class that “promotes the overthrow of the

Corruption charges have been filed against four San Diego public school officials and one contractor in the largest corruption investigation in the recent history of this beach city. The investigation was prompted by allegations of bribes taken by public school trustees and one superintendent, and it uncovered widespread corruption in what the San Diego district attorney referred to as a “pay for play” culture. Current charges may not be the only ones filed, since the DA has revealed the investigation is ongoing and additional charges are possible.

Defendants Associated with San Diego Public Schools

According to a report at the Los Angeles Times, charges have been filed against Arlie Ricasa, Pearl Quinones, Greg Sandoval, Jesus Gandara, and Henry Amigable. Ricasa and Quinones are both Union High School Trustees that serve on the school board. Gandara is the former superintendent of the San Diego School District, who was fired from his post last June after receiving a $400,000 payout from the school system. Sandoval is also a former school board member. Amigable is a construction contractor, who worked for Sweetwater and Southwestern College, as well as securing contracts from the San Diego Public School system.

According to a report at Fox News, school officials charged in the probe racked up hundreds of dollars in lavish gifts provided by Amigable between 2008 and last year. Gifts included restaurant tabs, as well as airline, concert, and theatre tickets. Tickets to the Lakers’ playoff games and the Rose

School closures have become a hot-button topic across the country, as parents, students, and community members are rising up to protest such actions by their local governments. States like Illinois and New York have all experienced recent confrontations over this issue, as they have struggled to balance budgets and increase the quality of education to the students in their areas. Do closures of underperforming schools really improve the performance of students in those areas? We’ll take a closer look at two of the districts facing this difficult question, as well as research that may question this method as a means of raising the bar on education standards.

This video reports on proposed school closures in Columbus, Ohio.

Chicago Parents Question Closure Decisions

New Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has faced a serious education crisis since taking his office earlier this year. According to numbers from Catalyst Chicago that were reported in Progress Illinois, 140 of the 675 Chicago Public Schools are eligible to be shut down, based on a three-level metric that rests largely on the Illinois Scholastic Assessment Test results. All of the schools on the list were situated in communities largely populated by minority students, which further complicated the issue.

Parents rose up quickly to form a community organization that provided alternatives to closing down schools in their neighborhoods. The agenda, titled, “A Neighborhood’s Agenda for Schools,” included recommendations like hiring and training

Schools across the country continue to try to do more with less, and budgets are squeezed and classroom sizes begin to bulge. Funding from any source is a welcome relief, and in Utah and California, that help comes from an unlikely source – the gas pump. The Fuel Your School program launched by Chevron in both Utah and California was a big success last year, and this year, the company and the schools involved with the program hope to see the same positive results.

What is Fuel Your School?

Fuel Your School is a program introduced to California and Utah communities by Chevron and DonorsChoose.org. This large company and non-profit organization are teaming up to provide teachers with much-needed supplies for the classroom. The focus of the funding is on STEM learning, so additional money typically goes to help science, technology, engineering, and mathematics-related projects. However, other types of projects are also eligible for funding from this program.

The premise of the program is relatively easy – to raise money for your school, simply fill your gas tank at one of the participating Chevron stations during the month of October. For every eight gallons of gas you purchase, Chevron donates $1 to the school. Last year, the initial launch of Fuel Your School in California raised more than $850,000 for the schools in the California communities, according to the Sacramento Bee.

Helping Schools in California and Utah

According to the Fuel

Colorado School District Facing Outrage Over Voucher Program

School choice has been an ongoing debate in districts nationwide, but one Colorado district has been getting plenty of attention on this subject lately. Douglas County, located in the southern part of the Denver metro area, has unanimously approved a voucher program that provides state funding to parents who want to enroll their children in private schools. The Douglas County school board approved the measure in March of this year, but the fight is just beginning over the constitutionality of such a move. We’ll look at both sides of this potentially explosive issue to determine whether using taxpayer dollars to fund private schooling should be allowed under the law.

The History of the Voucher Program

The “Choice Scholarship” pilot program, due to launch in Douglas County during the 2011-2012 school year, was the brainchild of Milton and Rose Friedman. These two economists established the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation in 1996 to advance an education system based on free choice. This couple firmly believes that the most effective way to raise the bar on the quality of education in this country is to provide free choice to parents and students that promotes healthy competition within the educational framework.

The Friedmans state on their website, “This foundation is the culmination of what has been one of our main interests for more than four decades: improvement in the quality of education available to children of all