| Current News Articles |
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The following news articles contain information on educational issues.The views in these articles are not
necessarily those of the Commonwealth Education Organization, but are posted for your information.
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July 27, 2010
PA AMONG FINALISTS IN SECOND ROUND OF FEDERAL RACE TO THE TOP FUNDING COMPETITION
“Pennsylvania is one of 19 finalists in the second round of the highly competitive federal Race to the Top grant competition, Governor Rendell said today.”
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July 24, 2010
PROPOSED MATH STANDARDS UNTEACHABLE
“Algebra I is taught in eighth grade in high-performing foreign countries, and this is also recommended by America's 2008 National Math Panel. California has made immense progress in this direction in the past decade, and we now lead the nation in the percentage of algebra-takers in eighth grade. Regrettably, all these gains are in danger of being reversed because of these ill-advised standards recommendations.”
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July 23, 2010
RHEE FIRES 241 D.C. TEACHERS; 165 CITED FOR POOR PERFORMANCE
"Every child in a District of Columbia public school has a right to a highly effective teacher -- in every classroom, of every school, of every neighborhood, of every ward, in this City," Rhee said in a statement. "That is our commitment. Today, with the release of the first year of results from IMPACT, the educator assessment system, we take another step toward making that commitment a reality."
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July 21, 2010
LEGISLATING IMMORALITY IN SCHOOLS
“From condoms for young children in Provincetown to sex education for kindergartners in Helena, Katie Reid -- author of When the Bough Breaks -- believes the intent of such actions is to provide children a means to engage in sexual relations with fewer possible side effects. But as Reid points out, there are more consequences to sex than just pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.”
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JULY 21, 2010
WILL NATIONAL STANDARDS IMPROVE EDUCATON
Discussion on the topics: “Will the adoption of the national curriculum standards improve public education? What are the risks?”
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July 21, 2010
THE STATE OF STATE STANDARDS AND THE COMMON CORE—IN 2010
"The K-12 academic standards in English language arts (ELA) and math produced last month by the Common Core State Standards Initiative are clearer and more rigorous than today’s ELA standards in 37 states and today’s math standards in 39 states, according to the Fordham Institute’s newest study. In 33 of those states, the Common Core bests both ELA and math standards. Yet California, Indiana and the District of Columbia have ELA standards that are clearly superior to those of the Common Core. And nearly a dozen states have ELA or math standards in the same league as Common Core. Read on to find out more and see how your state fared."
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July 19, 2010
MANY QUESTION VALUE OF SINGLE-GENDER SCHOOLS
“Separating boys and girls is a long-established practice in private schools. In public schools, it is a still-controversial notion that has gotten a foothold in districts across the country in the last decade.”
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July 18, 2010
BIAS SEEN IN PUSH TO NEW ED STANDARDS
“The recommendation that Massachusetts adopt a set of national "Common Core" academic standards over the highly successful state standards already in place was based in part on outside analyses from research groups heavily funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Gates Foundation, run by former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates and his wife Melinda, has also been heavily invested in the drafting of the Common Core standards themselves, raising questions about whether state officials were relying on the most unbiased information.”
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July 16, 2010
ADMINISTRATION USHERS IN ‘NEW ERA IN SEX ED’
“According to Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA), ‘At a time when teens are subjected to an increasingly sexualized culture, it is essential that common-sense legislators from both sides of the aisle reject this extreme attempt to defund the only approach that removes all risk. (State and congressional legislators) would be well advised to listen to youth and parents in their districts who overwhelmingly support these valuable programs.’ “
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Related article:
December 9, 2009
PA SEX EDUCATION: HB 1162 & HB 1163: ATTACKING YOUR CHILDREN’S EDUCATION
“Abstinence-only education is not something new to the education system and neither is comprehensive sex-education. This “comprehensive” program is simply the repackaging of the failed “safe-sex” messages promoted since the 1980’s.”
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July 2010
THE DROP-OUT CRISIS
“Even as states are being pressured to raise their expectations, they’re also expected to increase graduation rates. By next year, states will be required by the federal government to use a method of calculating their dropout rates that many expect will cause the numbers to spike. That will give states and school districts further reason to find ways to graduate students who may not have met the official requirements.”
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July 16, 2010
MARYLAND EYES ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION GRADUATION MANDATE
“Top state officials in Maryland are promoting a plan that would make the study of environmental education a requirement for all students to graduate from the state’s public high schools…. In fact, the state task force created by Gov. O’Malley called for school districts to provide “an annual meaningful outdoor environmental education experience for every student every year, pre-K through grade 12,” but that is not part of the state proposal moving forward at this time.”
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July 14th, 2010
THE SLIPPERY SLOPE TOWARD NATIONAL SCIENCE STANDARDS
“National standards—in any subject—are bad policy. They are unlikely to result in high standards but rather the standardization of learning. They would also result in the standardization of mediocrity, because the rigor and content of national standards would tend to align with the mean among states, weakening states with higher quality standards… worst of all, national standards would further diminish parental authority in education. The federal government would gain more power over education as a result, which would come at the expense of parents and local communities.”
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July 13, 2010
MONTANA SCHOOL BOARD CONSIDERS SEX-ED FOR KINDERGARTNERS, PARENTS OBJECT
“The curriculum would start teaching children in kindergarten about family structures, and by 5th grade is shockingly explicit. Teaching sex ed to kindergartners is a strong emphasis of the administration and is being heavily pushed by gay donors and activists, as well as SIECUS – the Sexuality and Information Council of the United States.”
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Related article:
July 13, 2010
INTERVIEW WITH JUDITH REISMAN: SOMETHING ROTTEN IN THE STATE OF MONTANA?
“Montana is seeking to impose an unscientific, Kinseyan ideological model of pathological sexual instruction on the undeveloped, immature brains of vulnerable children. I would argue that the exposure of children to the kinds of sexual stimuli proposed by Montana’s education mavens reflects unmitigated ignorance, malevolence or both. Their imposition of sexplicit and indeed deviant forms of sexual conduct on captive schoolchildren is institutional child sexual abuse.”
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July 12, 2010
DEFINING EFFECTIVE TEACHERS
Discussion by education experts: “The administration's blueprint for reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the law that governs K-12 education, calls for states to develop definitions of ‘effective teachers’ and ‘effective principals.’ Student growth and classroom observations, according to the blueprint, should be included in the definition.”
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June 12, 2010
TEACHER ACCOUNTABILITY SCHEMES LET TEENS OFF THE HOOK
“My suggestion is predicated on a different model of teacher accountability, one in which teachers are accountable for teaching well. Students are responsible to do their part.”
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July 10, 2010
WHAT THEY ARE DOING AFTER HARVARD
(Teach for America) “recruits talented people and is responsible for their performance in the classroom. The young men and women who join TFA go through an intensive summer institute of training before they step foot in their schools. During their two-year stints, TFA gives them support and more training. And they are free of the typical teacher certification rules.”
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July 9, 2010
A COMPARISON OF PROPOSED US COMMON CORE MATH STANDARDS TO STANDARDS OF SELECTED ASIAN COUNTRIES
“Executive summary. The proposed Common Core standard is similar in earlier grades but has significantly lower expectations with respect to algebra and geometry than the published standards of other countries I examined. The Common Core standards document is prepared with less care and is less useful to teachers and math ed administrators than the other standards I examined.”
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July 9, 2010
COMPUTERS AT HOME: EDUCATIONAL HOPE VS. TEENAGE REALITY
“Economists are trying to measure a home computer’s educational impact on schoolchildren in low-income households. Taking widely varying routes, they are arriving at similar conclusions: little or no educational benefit is found. Worse, computers seem to have further separated children in low-income households, whose test scores often decline after the machine arrives, from their more privileged counterparts.”
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July 8, 2009
PAY FOR PERFORMANCE: HOW WILL IT PLAY OUT IN PITTSBURGH’S SCHOOLS?
“Going forward, evaluation of the program for principals and the initiatives contained in the teacher's contract will be the way to determine if the District will try to build upon the current programs, scrap any notion of pay for performance, or try to go for a model that has a more direct tie between pay and student achievement.”
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July 7, 2010
SCHOOLS STILL TRYING TO GROUP STUDENTS BY SKILL, NOT GRADE LEVEL!!
“A USA Today pickup of an Associated Press article about schools trying to group students by skills rather than age or grade level is really very sad. The situation provides yet another piece of evidence that educators do lousy research before jumping on fad ideas.”
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July 6, 2010
CALIFORNIA SCHOOL DISTRICT ADOPTS BIBLE COURSE
“(T)he class will focus on giving students an understanding of the Bible's influence in history, literature, religion and politics. It will offer a survey of the Bible, beginning with the historical context of the Old Testament, and then will focus on the New Testament later in the semester. It will also provide students with a historical knowledge of the Middle East.”
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July 2, 2010
WHAT CANADA CAN TEACH THE U.S. ABOUT EDUCATION
“Why are Canadian students outperforming U.S. kids on these international comparisons? Money certainly doesn't explain the achievement gap. In fact, according to the OECD, Canada spends less than the United States on K-12 education.... The Canadian lead can be explained in part by the different ways the two countries deliver education. While the United States has seen decades of increasing federal intervention and control of education policy, the federal government in Canada has essentially no role in K-12 education. ”
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July 2, 2010
OBAMA’S EDUCATION PROGRAM FACES $500M CUT DESPITE VETO THREAT
“The lure of winning a share of Race to the Top funds has led states across the country to enact laws and regulations meant to spur innovation in schools. Some have eased limits on charter schools. Others have taken steps toward teacher performance pay. The contest was created through unusually broad spending authority Congress granted Obama in the 2009 stimulus law.”
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July 1, 2010
GIRL GENIUS GENDER GAP?
“The developing gender gap in the gifted programs of New York City does not signal that girls are smarter than boys. Rather, it exemplifies how well-intentioned government officials and educators can disregard boys' needs and abilities and unwittingly adopt policies detrimental to boys' well-being. It is a small part of the long story of how American boys across the ability spectrum and in all age groups have become second-class citizens in the nation's schools.”
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June 2010
LITERACY AND THE ENTRY-LEVEL WORKFORCE
“Using data from the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL), Wood finds that low literacy is associated with a variety of unfavorable labor market outcomes.”
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June 2010
INDOCTRINATE OUR KIDS AND GREEN OUR PARENTS
“Green My Parents just launched in April on Earth Day. It is ‘a movement that activates & enlists kids to lead their families in measuring & reducing environmental impact at home & 'challenge' their parents to share savings with kids.”
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June 2010
SPURRING INNOVATION THROUGH EDUCATION: FOUR IDEA
“Our present education system is structured in a way that discourages the innovation necessary for the United States to regain education leadership. K-12 education is delivered largely through a highly regulated public monopoly.”
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June 29, 2010
SCHOOL OFFICIALS IN MASS. TOWN WON’T LET STUDENTS RECITE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
“When Sean Harrington entered his freshman year at Arlington High School, he noticed something peculiar: There were no American flags in the classrooms, and no one recited the Pledge of Allegiance. So Harrington enlisted the aid of his fellow students, and now, three years later, they have succeeded in getting flags installed in the classrooms. But the pledge still will not be recited.”
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June 27, 2010
ONLINE BULLIES PULL SCHOOLS INTO THE FRAY
“Many principals hesitate to act because school discipline codes or state laws do not define cyber-bullying. But Bernard James, an education law scholar at Pepperdine University, said that administrators interpreted statutes too narrowly: ‘Educators are empowered to maintain safe schools,’ Professor James said. ‘The timidity of educators in this context of emerging technology is working to the advantage of bullies.’ “
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June 25, 2010
RHEE GETS STAR TURN IN EDUCATION FILM ‘WAITING FOR SUPERMAN’
“’The people who are the most frustrated by ineffective teaching are the effective teachers,’ she said. ‘They are the ones literally driven crazy every day with the idea that because their colleague next door did not do the job they were supposed to do, they have to catch kids up.’”
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June 25, 2010
HIP-HOP HIGH’S LOW NOTE
“The Academy for Recording Arts opened six years ago with an ambitious plan and limitless potential. Set in an Hawthorne industrial lot, the school aimed to give struggling high school students a second chance, helping them toward a diploma while inspiring dreams of higher education. In the end, the troubled school - better known as Hip-Hop High - couldn't be saved. Not by local school districts or a for-profit learning company. Not even a teacher-led rebellion could bring the school back from financial instability and plummeting student achievement.”
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June 24, 2010
GOVERNOR GETS IT TERRIBLY WRONG ON EDUCATION SPENDING
“To the larger point of increasing school spending to protect teacher jobs and income, the Governor should for one moment ask where the money is coming from in light of the state’s economic and budget environment. Perhaps he should consider the hard pressed taxpayers who will have to pick up the tab for such an increase.”
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June 24, 2010
CONDOMS, SECRECY FOR PROVINCETOWN PUPILS
“Provincetown — from elementary school to high school — will be able to get free condoms at school under a recently approved policy that takes effect this fall. The rule also requires school officials to keep student requests secret, and ignore parents’ objections. ‘The intent is to protect kids,’ said School Superintendent Beth Singer, who wrote the policy that the Cape Cod town’s School Committee unanimously passed two weeks ago. ‘We know that sexual experimentation is not limited to an age, so how does one put an age on it?’“
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Related article:
June 30, 2010
PROVINCETOWN SUPERINTENDENT PROMISES CHANGES IN CONDOM POLICY
“The Provincetown school superintendent sent a letter to parents earlier this week assuring them that changes will be made to a controversial policy that called for making condoms available to all students, regardless of their age.”
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June 24, 2010
D.C. OPPORTUNITY SCHOLARSHIPS BOOST GRADUATION RATES
“A congressionally mandated evaluation of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) – and performed through the Department of Education (DOE) – revealed encouraging results. The study concluded that students who used the scholarships were 21 percentage points more likely to graduate from high school than their public school peers. ‘The results of the study demonstrate what we've known for years,’ said former D.C. Council member Kevin P. Chavous, chairman of the Black Alliance for Educational Options.‘(The program) is making a difference for students who need our help the most.'“
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June 23, 2010
RACE TO THE TOP PROVES THAT COMPETITION WORKS
“Supporters of choice want funding to be attached to students, not bureaucracies. Students and parents, not bureaucrats, should make the decision where students attend school. The schools, whether government-run or independent, should compete for the money, just as states do in Race to the Top.”
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June 23, 2010
SBOE’S CURRICULUM CHANGE GOOD FOR TEXAS & CHURCH-STATE HISTORY
“The furor that has ensued over the matter shows how difficult it can be to drive politically correct versions of history out of classrooms once they have been allowed to creep in.”
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June 22, 2010
KIPP MIDDLE SCHOOLS FOUND TO SPUR LEARNING GAINS
“Students’ gains in mathematics after three years in a charter school run by the Knowledge Is Power Program, or KIPP, are large enough in about half of schools to significantly narrow race- and income-based achievement gaps among students, according to a study of 22 KIPP middle schools nationwide.”
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June 21, 2010
SHOULD PUBLIC SCHOOLS MODERATE FRIENDSHIPS?
“With the exception of moderating disruptive classroom bullying and encouraging kindness courtesy, and tolerance, public school officials should refrain from tinkering with childhood friendships.”
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June 21, 2010
END THEM, DON’T MEND THEM: IT’S TIME TO SHUTTER AMERICA’S BLOATED SCHOOLS
PJ O’Rourke tries to make the case that “America’s public schools have served their purpose. Free and compulsory education was good for a somewhat unpromising young nation.”
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June 21, 2010
MORNING BELL: TIME TO STAND UP TO THE NATIONAL STANDARDS AGENDA
“Proponents tout national standards & tests as a way to improve academic achievement. For half a century, the federal government’s role in education has continued to increase significantly with no positive impact on student learning. Yet, national standards proponents see this new federal role in standards and testing as the answer. But proponents are wrong to conclude national standards would improve American education.”
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Related articles:
May 21, 2010
WHY NATIONAL STANDARDS WON’T FIX AMERICAN EDUCATION: MISALIGNMENT OF POWER & INCENTIVES
“Abstract: American education needs to be fixed, but national standards and testing are not the way to do it. The problems that need fixing are too deeply ingrained in the power and incentive structure of the public education system, and the renewed focus on national standards threatens to distract from the fundamental issues. Besides, federal control over education has been growing since the 1960s as both standards and achievement have deteriorated. Heritage Foundation education policy experts Lindsey Burke and Jennifer Marshall explain why centralized standard-setting will likely result in the standardization of mediocrity, not excellence.”
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June 25, 2010
EDUCATION STANDARDS: THE NEXT FEDERAL TAKEOVER
Fact sheet
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June 21, 2010
WHY NATIONAL STANDARDS WON’T FIX AMERICAN EDUCATION: MISALIGNMENT OF POWER & INCENTIVES
“American education needs to be fixed, but national standards and testing are not the way to do it. The problems that need fixing are too deeply ingrained in the power and incentive structure of the public education system, and the renewed focus on national standards threatens to distract from the fundamental issues. Besides, federal control over education has been growing since the 1960s as both standards and achievement have deteriorated.”
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June 20, 2010
WHY RACE TO THE TOP IS NO-GO WITH UNIONS
“The Constitution reserves governance of schools to the states, but the federal government has for years been able to influence the schools by offering money, the carrot, to school districts that obey its dictates, and withholding the money, the stick, from districts who disobey. The latest foray into such governance from President Barack Obama is the Race to the Top (RTTT) initiative, which sets aside $4 billion for states who respond to certain criteria.”
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June 20, 2010
RACING TO WHERE?
“The Massachusetts education establishment is telling different things to the public and the U.S. Department of Education. Such duplicity is dangerous....’In the absence of language clearly stating that these national standards would be equal or higher than what Massachusetts has set for itself, the commonwealth is unfortunately forced to decline these standards,’ the letter stated.”
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June 19, 2010
QUITTING THE RACE
“Union opposition and quality concerns drive several states to resist an innovative federal education competition.”
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June 18, 2010
LA TEACHER MAKES ALGEBRA COOL WITH A HIP-HOP BEAT
“"Let's talk about slope intercept.
I don't mind if you interject,
Just don't disrespect.
I say, you have a question for me?
What's y equals mx + b?"
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June 16, 2010
HERE COME THE FEDERAL EDUCATION STANDARDS
“As the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a leading national-standards crusader, explained in a 2006 report, state standards are often very poor because they have been “turned over to K–12 interest groups.” This reality has put national-standards advocates like Fordham in a logically impossible situation: They know states won’t adopt or maintain high standards unless the feds force them to, but they also know that the same political forces that have crippled state efforts would doom federal control.”
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June 16, 2010
MEDIOCRE NATIONAL STANDARDS NO ANSWER TO ‘CURRICULUM MASSACRE’ IN TEXAS
“If we want all the politicking and controversial content of the Texas process but little of the transparency and none of the accountability to voters, a national curriculum is definitely the way to go.”
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June 15, 2010
CRITICS: NJ RUSHING TO ADOPT NEW MATH, LANGUAGE ARTS STANDARDS
“Various state interest groups including educators and parents are expressing outrage that the state board is not holding public comment sessions
before adopting standards that would determine what public school children will learn in coming years.”
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June 13, 2010
TEACHERS WHO CHEAT
“No national data is collected on educator cheating. Experts who consult with school systems estimated that 1 percent to 3 percent of teachers -- thousands annually -- cross the line between accepted ways of boosting scores, like using old tests to prep students, and actual cheating.”
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June 13, 2010
STUDYING ENGINEERING BEFORE THEY CAN SPELL IT
“Spurred by growing concerns that American students lack the skills to compete in a global economy, school districts nationwide are packing engineering lessons into already crowded schedules for even the youngest students, giving priority to a subject that was once left to after-school robotics clubs and summer camps, or else waited until college.”
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June 11, 2010
FOR COMMUNITY-COLLEGE STUDENTS WHO STRUGGLE WITH ARITHMETIC, SOME SOLUTIONS
“Nationally, about 60 percent of all community college students enroll in at least one remedial course in English or math, where they can get stuck studying elementary- and middle-school-level concepts. Only 31 percent of students placed into remedial math ever move beyond it.”
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June 10, 2010
TEACHERS WHO CHEAT
“No national data is collected on educator cheating. Experts who consult with school systems estimated that 1 percent to 3 percent of teachers -- thousands annually -- cross the line between accepted ways of boosting scores, like using old tests to prep students, and actual cheating.”
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June 10, 2010
THE DEATH AND LIFE OF THE GREAT AMERICAN SOCIETY
Another take on Diane Ravitch’s new book
“Ravitch is right; all of the presidents’ programs and all the billionaires’ dollars are not going to put America’s educational system back together again. The problem Ravitch indirectly but powerfully documents is a decayed culture. And history demonstrates that neither the market nor any other utopian device can stop sin.”
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June 8, 2010
STUDENTS MUST BE READY TO LEARN
“The reasons a child comes to school ill-equipped to learn are myriad -- they include poverty, overworked/stressed parents and just plain inadequate parenting at all rungs of the socio-economic ladder. Public schools alone cannot solve these problems. But they can ameliorate the disadvantages of insufficient educational preparedness with investments that can pay enormous dividends in the long run.”
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June 8, 2010
TEACHER’S UNION SUES CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS
“The Chicago Teacher’s Union took legal action against the city for trying to increase Chicago Public School classroom sizes to 35 students.”
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June 7, 2010
PA TO TEST HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION IN AS LITTLE AS 2 YEARS
“Starting in fall 2012, Pennsylvania will become a testing ground for the National Center on Education and the Economy, a Washington-based nonprofit that advocates allowing students to graduate from high school in as few as two years if they want to.....Center President Marc Tucker said many students become bored in high school and want to move at a quicker pace or find challenges. He wants to speed up the four-year course...”
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****"The Cartel" & "The Lottery"--Two new documentaries on teacher unions*******
June 7, 2010
THE CARTEL: IT’S NOT ABOUT THE KIDS, IT’S ABOUT THE MONEY
“Formerly an anchor and reporter for Bloomberg Television, Bowdon (the filmmaker) left that job to spend two years answering one burning question: How can a state that spends $17,500 per student each year fail them so badly?”
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June 5, 2010
STORMING THE SCHOOL BARRICADES
“In the film, Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker says he can't go to lotteries anymore because they break his heart. ‘A child's destiny should not be determined on the pull of a draw.’ Nothing drives home this point more than seeing the parents and kids, perched at the edge of their chairs, hoping their names flash on the big screen.”
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*June 6, 2010
BOARD MEMBER DEFENDS SOCIAL STUDIES CURRICULUM
“Ken Mercer, who serves on the State Board of Education, defends the changes made in school curriculum....The new social studies curriculum, championed by Mercer and the rest of the board's conservative majority, was the subject of tremendous national scrutiny and debate. Mercer discussed the controversial curriculum issue recently with Chronicle reporter Matt Woolbright.”
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June 6, 2010
NY PASSES STUDENTS WHO GET WRONG ANSWERS ON TESTS
“Despite promises that the exams -- which determine whether students advance to the next grade -- would not be dumbed down this year, students got "partial credit" for wrong answers after failing to correctly add, subtract, multiply and divide. Some got credit for no answer at all.”
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June 6, 2010
WESTERN PA SCHOOLS CONSIDER ONLINE COURSE
“Online courses are part of a wave of creating tailored instruction for students who want more choices or need remedial help, said Fred Miller, spokesman for the network, which supplies online courses to school districts in 14 states, including Pennsylvania.”
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June 5, 2010
IN IDAHO, STUDENTS LEARN TO THINK ON THEIR FEET
“In a handful of classrooms nationwide, students are learning to think on their feet. Sixth graders at a small private school in southern Idaho stand while crunching math problems. They lean over waist-tall work stations to compare answers with classmates. And whenever they feel the need to sit, they prop themselves up onto tall stools and slip their sneakers into swinging footrests, rocking them back and forth.”
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June 5, 2010
WALTZING WITH TEACHER UNIONS
“For the past hundred years, with rare and short exceptions and after controlling for inflation, public schools have had both more money and more employees per student in each succeeding year.” Indeed, public schools have been so insulated from economic downturns that “there have been 11 periods during which GDP declined but mean total real per-pupil revenues still increased.”
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June 4, 2010
TEXAS TEXTBOOK CRITICS JUST CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH
“Unbelievably, the battle over the Texas social studies standards, which could impact most of the nation, is not over. The process and rules required a final vote on the standards, and the board completed the process.”
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June 4, 2010
4-DAY SCHOOL WEEKS GAIN POPULARITY ACROSS US
“Experts say research is scant on the effect of a four-day school week on student performance. In fact, there is mostly just anecdotal evidence in reports on the trend with little scientific data to back up what many districts say, said University of Southern Maine researcher Christine Donis-Keller.”
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CRAMMING FOR PHASE TWO OF 'RACE TO THE TOP'
"As your mother always told you, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Sadly, as this Reality Check indicates, the Federal government’s ‘Race to the Top’ program fits that bill."
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*June 3, 2010
MEDIA ADVISORY: MORE STATES DROP OUT OF “RACE TO THE TOP”
“States sitting out the current round include Alaska, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.... experts point out some of the drawbacks and strings attached to the Race to the Top program, and why those states were right to opt out of the second round. The Education Department is expected to announce winners in September.”
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June 3, 2010
STATES’ FISCAL CONDITION STILL DISMAL, NEW REPORT FINDS
“Governors and state lawmakers have been trying to protect K-12 education and health care, but that just might not be possible anymore, according to Scott Pattison, the executive director of NASBO (National Association of State Budget Officers).”
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June 2, 2010
SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT ON LOOMING TEACHER LAYOFFS
“Schools across the country are facing the worst layoffs in half a century. As many as 300,000 school employees are in danger of losing their jobs. If that happens, class sizes will explode and educational opportunities will decline drastically for millions of children. Education will become a "risky" career choice for a generation of potential teachers.”
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June 2, 2010
NATIONAL GOVERNORS ASSOCIATION & STATE EDUCATION CHIEFS LAUNCH COMMON STATE ACADEMIC STANDARDS
“Today, the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) released a set of state-led education standards, the Common Core State Standards, at Peachtree Ridge High School in Suwanee, GA. The English-language arts and mathematics standards for grades K-12 were developed in collaboration with a variety of stakeholders including content experts, states, teachers, school administrators and parents. The standards establish clear and consistent goals for learning that will prepare America's children for success in college and work.”
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