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Here are news and opinion stories educators, advocates, policy wonks and makers are talking about today:
News and Analysis
A host of civil rights advocacy groups are urging the U.S. Department of Education to create spending regulations for the Every Student Succeeds Act that create clear and tough requirements for districts to show that federal money is supplementing, and not supplanting, state and local funds. (Education Week)
Almost every school district enrolling large numbers of low-income students has an average academic performance significantly below the national grade-level average, according to Stanford Graduate School of Education research based on a massive new data set recently created from more than 200 million test scores. (Stanford University News)
Twelfth graders’ math and reading scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress were released yesterday morning, and the results were somewhat disheartening. Scores went down in math and stayed stagnant in reading compared to two years ago. And the average scores for the lowest performers—those in the 10th and 25th percentiles—dropped significantly. (Education Week)
Jahana Hayes always knew she wanted to be a teacher, but she didn’t always believe she could be one. She grew up surrounded by poverty, drugs and violence in the fading industrial city of Waterbury, Conn. But she loved school, and her teachers told her she could someday go to college. Even when she became pregnant at 17, her teachers refused to give up on her. They showed her how she could continue her education. (The Washington Post)
The urgency to become an “adult” combined with a limited menu of higher-education options can seriously derail young people from poor neighborhoods who are looking for opportunities to succeed. (The Atlantic)
North Carolina
The N.C. Supreme Court ruled this month on an important constitutional challenge that may shape the future of teacher tenure in the United States. While the national media have focused on a California case upholding teacher tenure there, advocates on each side should instead be focused on Raleigh. (The Charlotte Observer)
NYCAN in the news
When you work to change public education, people who don’t want change will try to reduce what you’re doing to a cliché. Then they’ll attack the cliché. Here’s an example. If you publicly argue that merit should play a role in a teacher’s career — in compensation, job security, or advancement — your likely destination is a box labeled “Anti-Teacher.” Before long, you’ll also be cited in an article about the “war on teachers.” (The Seventy Four)