Education

Wesleyan has ended its blanket need-blind admissions policy, saying it can no longer afford to admit every qualified student. Like Brown University, Wesleyan promises financial aid to any student who needs it. For a small number of applicants, that means they will not gain entrance to the college this year because they do not have enough money attend.

A New York Times article published this week suggests a growing practice of prescribing attention deficit hyperactivity disorder drugs to low-income children who struggle in school.

The drugs, like Adderoll and Risperdal, can increase focus and improve a child’s behavior, but they are also addictive stimulants that can have negative side effects, including psychotic episodes.

The Board of Governors for Higher Education has just three full meetings left before it ceases to exist, at least in its current form.

The state is dissolving both the Board of Governors and the Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education. Instead, a single board will oversee the state’s public schools and colleges and universities starting on January 1st, 2013. (No word yet, by the way, on when Governor Lincoln Chafee will announce his appointees for the new board)

Items the Board of Governors may address in its final days include:

School leaders say 90 percent of the faculty at Spaziano Elementary School in Providence support their plan to turn the public school into a charter school.

Spaziano has filed an early “prospectus” detailing its plans to the Providence School Department. District officials have asked all Providence schools to consider becoming charters, and so far two schools have shown an interest in taking them up on the proposal.

Two Providence elementary schools will apply to become charter schools. The first schools entering a new district initiative are Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School and Spaziano Elementary School.

Martin Luther King school leaders say they plan to work the The Learning Community Charter School in Central Falls. Spaziano will partner with the Highlander Charter School in Providence.

More details to come!