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Here are news and opinion stories educators, advocates, policy wonks and makers are talking about today:
News and Analysis
National
Trump considers tax credit to channel public money to private schools
The Trump administration is considering a first-of-its-kind federal tax credit scholarship program that would channel billions of dollars to families from working-class households to enable their children to attend private schools, including religious schools. The federal tax credit proposal is one of several ideas under review by the White House to fulfill Donald Trump’s campaign promise to promote the expansion of charter schools and vouchers that would allow families of low income to use public money for private school tuition, sources tell POLITICO. During a recent meeting with parents and teachers at the White House, Trump said he wants “every single disadvantaged child in America, no matter what their background or where they live, to have a choice about where they go to school.”(Politico)
When Does the Racial Achievement Gap First Appear
Latino students in kindergarten trail their white peers in math by approximately three months’ worth of learning, a new study by Child Trends Hispanic Institute has found. Researchers drew a nationally representative sample of students from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-2011 who were followed through the end of their fifth-grade year. Sixty-two percent of the 2,199 Latino students studied had at least one foreign-born parent, and 45 percent spoke only Spanish or predominantly Spanish at home. Nearly half lived in poverty. (The Atlantic)
Bradford: Teachers Unions Exploited Ed Reform Split Over DeVos While Never Losing Focus
When the history books are written, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s confirmation fight will be remarkable for many reasons: a true outsider who supports all forms of school choice getting the nomination and a historic tie-breaking vote by the vice president to end a 50–50 deadlock in the Senate. There are lessons to be learned, however, in the aftermath. (The 74)
As access to AP exams grows, more students are doing better
The percentage of the country’s public high school students who scored three or higher on AP exams continues to grow, according to results released Wednesday by the College Board. Nationally, just under 22 percent of the class of 2016 achieved a three or better mark, up slightly from 2015 and nearly eight points up from 2006. (The Washington Post)
Have We Lost Sight of the Promise of Public Schools?
In the days leading up to and after Betsy DeVos’s confirmation as secretary of education, a hashtag spread across Twitter: #publicschoolproud. Parents and teachers tweeted photos of their kids studying, performing, eating lunch together. People of all races tweeted about how public schools changed them, saved them, helped them succeed. The hashtag and storytelling was a rebuttal to DeVos, who called traditional public schools a “dead end” and who bankrolled efforts to pass reforms in Michigan, her home state, that would funnel public funds in the form of vouchers into religious and privately operated schools and encouraged the proliferation of for-profit charter schools. (The New York Times)
State
North Carolina
Gov. Roy Cooper’s teacher pay plan: Raises averaging 10 percent over next two years
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper announced Monday that his budget will call for 5 percent teacher raises on average this year and next – with a goal of raising pay to the national average in five years. Cooper’s teacher pay plan would cost $813 million over two years without raising taxes, he said. During that time teachers would get average raises of 10 percent. (The Charlotte Observer)