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Here are news and opinion stories educators, advocates, policy wonks and makers are talking about today:
News and Analysis
A judge issued a preliminary ruling Tuesday that found California’s public school teacher tenure laws unconstitutional. (NBC Southern California)
As first lady, I’ve spent a lot of time talking with young people all across the country about education. I’ve heard about their hopes of going to college, getting good jobs, and one day starting families of their own. And I’ve also heard about the challenges they’re facing—the rising costs of tuition, their overstretched school counselors, and the insecurities and fears that come along with being first-generation college students. (Education Week)
The notion that U.S. students should share core knowledge is not new. President Dwight D. Eisenhower suggested national academic standards were needed as early as 1959. Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton both proposed that states voluntarily adopt national standards, efforts that crumbled under charges of federal overreach. (Washington Post)
Conservatives complain that “Obamacore” is just another federal-government takeover, this time of public education. Leftists wring their hands over yet more standardised testing and greater scrutiny of teachers. The Common Core educational standards have become so politically fraught that it is easy to forget why so many states decided to adopt them in the first place. Six years ago school academics were a mess, the Washington Post reminds us. Different states had different standards, and high-school diplomas had lost all meaning; as many as 40% of college freshmen needed remedial classes, and American students were falling behind their foreign competitors. America’s fragmented education system also “stifled innovation”, according to Gene Wilhoit, director of a national group of state school chiefs, and David Coleman, a school-standards evangelist, as textbook publishers and software developers could cater to many small markets instead of dreaming up big breakthrough products. (The Economist)
New York
School choice advocates in New York are making a last-minute push to get an education tax credit bill passed in the final eight days of the state assembly’s legislative session. (Education Week)
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania soon may be able to dismiss its more senior teachers in favor of its most qualified. (Pocono Record)