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Here are news and opinion stories educators, advocates, policy wonks and makers are talking about today:
News and Analysis
An investigation by the Houston Chronicle has revealed that unelected state officials in Texas “arbitrarily decided what percentage of students should get special education services” more than a decade ago and then began auditing school districts that did not comply. (The Washington Post)
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has picked Williamson M. Evers, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and Gerard Robinson, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, to be on his presidential transition team for education, according to multiple sources. (Education Week)
If Donald Trump knew that promoting school choice would cause such a ruckus on the left, maybe he’d have weighed in sooner. The Republican nominee has found a winning issue by pitching a plan to “provide school choice to every disadvantaged student in America.” Amen. (The Wall Street Journal)
A group of private schools started only three years ago by technology industry entrepreneurs has designs on reinventing the way children learn in the United States by using data to personalize education. The school system, called “AltSchool,” now operates eight small private schools — six in the San Francisco Bay Area and two in New York — with ambitious plans to eventually license its program and proprietary software to other private — and public — schools across the country. (PBS)
With the Chicago Teachers Union mulling a possible walkout as early as next month, another school contract fight is unfolding outside the spotlight that could result in a strike at one of the city’s largest charter school networks. (Chicago Tribune)
Teenagers make bad choices. Honestly, who doesn’t? For adolescents, however, who are armed with new responsibilities, opportunities, and bodies they are almost inevitably unprepared to deal with, the wrong decision can have serious, life-altering effects. For low-income adolescents who lack the safety net that comes with privilege, the wrong decisions can be catastrophic. (The Atlantic)