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Here are news and opinion stories educators, advocates, policy wonks and makers are talking about today:
News and Analysis
Billionaire Eli Broad has suspended a coveted, $1-million prize to honor the best urban school systems out of concern that they are failing to improve quickly enough. And, associates say, he’s no longer certain that he wants to reward traditional school districts at all. (LA Times)
The main federal education law may finally get its long-overdue makeover in Congress this year, and we’re going to be hearing and reading a lot about it. (NPR)
INDIANAPOLIS — President Barack Obama said Friday that he dropped a widely criticized plan to scale back tax benefits for college savings accounts because the savings weren’t worth it. (PBS)
The government is on pace to forgive billions of dollars more in student loans than previously thought as droves of borrowers enroll in federal repayment plans, raising fresh concerns about potential costs to taxpayers on more than $1 trillion in education debt. (The Wall Street Journal)
When Tony Porterfield’s two sons came home from elementary school with an assignment to use a reading assessment site called Raz-Kids.com, he was curious, as a parent, to see how it worked. As a software engineer, he was also curious about the site’s data security practices. (NY Times)