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Here are news and opinion stories educators, advocates, policy wonks and makers are talking about today:
News and Analysis
Missouri and Arizona are pushing back against a tide of states that have been making college more affordable for undocumented immigrants or those who arrived in the U.S. illegally as children. (The Wall Street Journal)
Ask any advocate—liberal or conservative—of criminal-justice reform for the best way to shrink the nation’s overcrowded prisons, and one of the first answers you’ll likely hear is this: Keep the inmates currently in jail from coming back once they get out. (The Atlantic)
Voters in Jefferson County, Colo., are petitioning to recall three conservative members of the local school board who caused a national stir last fall after criticizing the Advanced Placement U.S. History course for being insufficiently patriotic. (The Washington Post)
The Great Recession might be more than six years in the rearview mirror, and the economy might soon be good enough for the Federal Reserve to decide to raise interest rates. But K-12 spending still sparks a lot of angst and debate. The folks at EdSource have put together a tool to help put states’ public school spending in perspective. (Education Week)
The AFL-CIO’s executive council meeting is this week, which means visits from presidential candidates: Martin O’Malley, Bernie Sanders, Jim Webb, and, of course, Hillary Clinton, who has a 1 pm with the union federation tomorrow. There’s also a sole Republican visitor: Mike Huckabee. (Vox)
Each new BASIS school that has sprouted across the country since 1998 has been grounded in a curriculum based on the best concepts from Asian and European classrooms. Now, BASIS plans to export its successful model to one of the most competitive turfs in the world: China. (The Washington Post)
The D.C. State Board of Education is launching a task force in late August to develop recommendations for how the District can offer more flexible ways of awarding high school credit. (The Washington Post)
The new school year is just around the corner and as students prepare to head back to class, state legislators are prepping for a special session. (whnt.com)
Phillip Cantor got called into an emergency meeting last week at the school where he teaches—North-Grand High School on Chicago’s West Side. The district’s central office had just sent over the budget for the coming school year. (wbez.org)
State lawmakers voted by wide margins Wednesday to restore millions of dollars in education funding vetoed by Governor Charlie Baker. (The Boston Globe)