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Here’s what educators, advocates, wonks and policymakers are talking about today:
News & analysis
Key senate panel schedules markup on ESEA renewal bill
After months of negotiations, it’s finally happening: The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee has set a date to take up a bill reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The markup is scheduled for Oct. 18 at 2:30 p.m. (Politics K-12)
Study finds successful extended-time schools strategize learning
Schools that successfully extend learning time to improve student achievement change their practice in eight critical ways, according to a new study by the National Center on Time and Learning. (Inside School Research)
Rhode Island: Mayoral academies split with RI charter school league
Rhode Island Mayoral Academies, a high-profile group of mayor-led charter schools, has broken ties with the Rhode Island League of Charter Schools citing “philosophical differences” and financial concerns. (ProJo)
Maryland: State to release high school assessment data
The Maryland State Department of Education plans to release graduation information for the Class of 2011 at noon Friday. The data include High School Assessment results as well as graduation rates and dropout rates. This is the third year that completing the HSA requirement was necessary to graduate. (Baltimore Sun)
Minnesota: More schools missing federal marks; officials reluctantly release list
A report that has come to be known as the ‘list of failing schools’ is available today. This year, 1056 of Minnesota’s 2255 schools were not on track to meet Adequate Yearly Progress, a basis for measuring school performance in meeting requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind law. (MPR)
New York: The secret to getting into Buffalo’s City Honors
Want to know how to get your kid into City Honors? School Zone will tell you. (School Zone)
Opinion
Dana Goldstein reviews “American Teacher”
These stories are engagingly told, and the movie effectively fights back against stereotypes that teachers are lazy and undereducated, with short, easy work days. The problem is that American Teacher elides almost all of the pressing and controversial questions animating the teacher pay debate. (Slate)
Cartoons on testing
Having made the obvious point that reformers of all stripes seek to improve schools but pursue different goals and strategies, what I have noticed is that most cartoons I have seen oppose standardized testing and in drawings and captions lay out negative consequences flowing from the type of tests, their proliferation, and the anxieties surrounding testing itself. (Larry Cuban)
How Jay-Z can help us remix education
Jay-Z “broke out” at 25, at about the same age many lifetime educators start our careers. Most of us will never accumulate a net worth of $450 million, but we can meet ambitious goals as teachers. And I think we can learn a great deal from this hip-hop figure… (Jose Vilson in EdWeek)