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Here are news and opinion stories educators, advocates, policy wonks and makers are talking about today:
News and Analysis
Advocates say decades of intervention is the primary cause but point to the recession as an underlying factor. (The Atlantic)
The Obama administration is directing states to show how they will ensure that all students have equal access to high-quality teachers, with a sharp focus on schools with a high proportion of the poor and racial minorities. (New York Times)
A few years ago, I knew a 17-year-old boy I’ll call Raymond. Raymond lived in the sparsely populated Arkansas Delta and went to high school in a town some miles from his home. On stifling-hot days, he had a 10-minute walk down a rutted dirt path to the main road, where he caught the school bus. On days when the rain poured down, the ruts in the dirt path converged into an insurmountable river. Even if Raymond could have forded the river, odds were good the bus wouldn’t make it down the main road anyway. Raymond couldn’t ask his grandparents for a ride; they didn’t have a car. (Education Week)
New Jersey
More than a year into New Jersey’s takeover of the struggling Camden School District, student test scores have shown few signs of improvement, Superintendent Paymon Rouhanifard said Monday. (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Pennsylvania
A coalition of school districts, parents and the Pennsylvania NAACP sued the state on Monday, alleging that Governor Tom Corbett and the state’s General Assembly have failed to live up to their constitutional obligation to develop a funding mechanism that will provide a thorough and efficient system of public education for the state’s children. (Education Week)