posted on
Here are news and opinion stories educators, advocates, policy wonks and makers are talking about today:
News and Analysis
Microsoft plans to give $75 million to nonprofits that can spread computer science education throughout the world, CEO Satya Nadella said on Wednesday during Salesforce’s annual Dreamforce conference in San Francisco. (Fortune)
Education policy barely got a sniff of the stage during the Republican presidential debates Wednesday on CNN. But here are a few highlights of when the 15 candidates did touch on K-12. They’re culled both from the main 11-candidate debate and the prior debate between the four candidates with the lowest poll numbers. Both took place at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. (Education Week)
KIPP, the nation’s largest chain of public charter schools, significantly improves the academic performance of its elementary and middle school students, but after the students enter a KIPP high school, their performance does not statistically differ from peers who attend other schools, according to a new study. (The Washington Post)
Parents and educators know the surest — and sometimes only — way to connect with college-bound students. “How many have phones in your pockets?” U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan asked a roomful of teenagers here Thursday. (The Washington Post)
Back when Grant Hosford’s older daughter was in first grade, she signed up for an extracurricular class, building robots with a programmable LEGO toy called Mindstorms. Hosford, a dotcom entrepreneur, came to visit the class and was startled to see that Naomi, who loves science and math, was both the only girl there and the youngest by a couple of years. (NPR)
Beefing up technology in the classroom doesn’t always lead to better education for children, according to a new study from an international consortium presented Tuesday. (The Wall Street Journal)
After four months of negotiations, a five-day strike and one final all-night talk, the Seattle teachers union and Seattle Public Schools reached a tentative contract agreement early Tuesday, and school is scheduled to start Thursday for the city’s 53,000 students. (The Seattle Times)
New York
There was $75 million a year for second-grade reading specialists. Advanced Placement classes got $51 million. Every eighth grader can take algebra thanks to $19 million. And $15 million was proposed to provide more than 16,000 students with dedicated counselors from sixth through 12th grade. (The New York Times)