Beth’s Briefings (7-8-15)

Here are news and opinion stories educators, advocates, policy wonks and makers are talking about today:

 

The Obama administration is cementing a plan to allow millions of Americans to further slash their monthly student-debt bills, a move to stem defaults that risks raising taxpayer costs for the government’s burgeoning student-loan portfolio. (The Wall Street Journal)

 

For the first time since 2001, the U.S. Senate on Tuesday began debating a bill that would overhaul the Elementary and Secondary Education Act—though the fireworks are yet to come. (Education Week)

 

A few years ago, Pablo Alba was called to the principal’s office to meet with me, an aging white guy he’d never met before. A lanky sophomore, Alba volunteered little beyond a cautious glance upward as he plunked down before me, but he instantly perked up when I asked him about the typical freshman experience at San Francisco’s City Arts and Technology High School. I was conducting research on local organizing and what makes potent charter schools like City Arts work, and I wanted to hear about the student experience. “You make a lot of friends, it’s small,” Alba said, allowing a slight grin. (The Atlantic)

 

Senator Marco Rubio’s economic speech in Chicago on Tuesday criticized the failed Democratic policies of the past and called for the need to unleash American innovation. But when it came to education policy, some of presidential candidate’s proposals had a familiar ring to them. (The New York Times)

 

College professors were pitted against public school educators and parents over the question of changing the state’s main standardized exam from the MCAS to the new PARCC test during a public hearing Tuesday. (Mass Live)

 

The biggest education news that came out of the two-year budget that Gov. John Kasich signed on June 30 was undoubtedly school funding and state testing. But there are other items worth noting. (The Columbus Dispatch)

 

Ken Wagner, a former school psychologist and principal who has ascended the ranks of the State Education Department in recent years, is a final candidate to become Rhode Island’s next state education commissioner, sources say. (Chalkbeat New York)