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Here are news and opinion stories educators, advocates, policy wonks and makers are talking about today:
News and Analysis
The Obama administration, which spent its first six years in office arguably upping the ante on standardized tests by calling for them to be a part of teacher evaluations, has instead spent the past year encouraging states and districts to make sure that assessments are of high quality, and don’t take up too much instructional time. (Education Week)
The Education Department took some of the blame for the sometimes stressful, excessive and time-consuming testing at many schools and said Saturday that it hasn’t done enough to help states tackle the problem. (Politico)
The number of standardized tests U.S. public school students take has exploded in the past decade, with most schools requiring too many tests of dubious value, according to the first comprehensive survey of the nation’s largest districts. (The Washington Post)
Federal law does not prohibit undocumented students from enrolling in college, but it does something nearly as effective, banning them from receiving government aid. In recent years, though, some undocumented students have stumbled upon a little-known, non-profit, online university that doesn’t charge tuition and doesn’t care about students’ legal status. (NPR)
High school graduation rates are on the rise across the country, except for one segment of the population: They’ve dropped dramatically for people in prison or jail who need to get their GED diplomas. (NPR)
When protests from parents and teachers erupted against the new Common Core tests here, Florida thought it had a solution: It dropped the tests. (The New York Times)
New Jersey
Now that the statewide PARCC results have been released, we need to get to work and use these new scores as a tool to improve the education of our children. New Jersey is a leader in education, which is why it is imperative that we seize this moment to learn from the new test scores, make improvements and set an example for the rest of the country. (NJ.com)