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Here are news and opinion stories educators, advocates, policy wonks and makers are talking about today:
News and Analysis
The first time real estate executive and presumptive GOP nominee for president Donald Trump is mentioned substantively in the Education Week archives is 1990. But the Common Core State Standards, which Trump professes to despise, didn’t exist yet. And the 1990 article has nothing to do with shrinking or eliminating the U.S. Department of Education, something Trump says he wants to do. (Education Week)
They may be smiling, America, but your public school teachers are a frustrated bunch. About six in 10 are losing enthusiasm for the job, and just as many say they spend too much time prepping students for state-mandated tests. Nearly half say they’d quit teaching now if they could find a higher-paying job. (USA Today)
Debate over the amount of time students spend on standardized assessments has dominated education policy since the No Child Left Behind law defined high-stakes student testing as the core means of measuring school and district performance. But students are relatively positive about test taking. Three-quarters of the nation’s students in grades five through 12 believe that they spend the right amount of time (66%) or too little time (9%) taking tests or assessments in class. Just 23% say they spend too much time. (Gallup)
The Michigan House passed legislation early Thursday that includes $500 million to pay off the debt of Detroit’s ailing public school system and ensure that teachers are paid this summer, days after teachers who feared they wouldn’t be paid staged a two-day “sickout.” (The Wall Street Journal)
It sounds awfully nice: A yearlong postponement of schoolwork. The White House announced on Sunday that Malia Obama, the president’s older daughter, would be among the thousands of students to take a so-called gap year between high school and college. (The New York Times)
Dozens of teachers called on D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson on Thursday morning to negotiate a fair contract with their union and give city teachers their first collective raise since 2012. (The Washington Post)