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Here are news and opinion stories educators, advocates, policy wonks and makers are talking about today:
News and Analysis
Putting an end to more than a decade of strict federal control of public education, President Obama on Thursday signed a sweeping rewrite of the No Child Left Behind act that returns power to states and local districts to determine how to improve troubled schools. (The New York Times)
Calling it a “Christmas miracle”, Barack Obama signed the “Every Student Succeeds Act” on December 10th. It has been rare, lately, to have Republicans and Democrats in agreement about anything. But the new law was easily passed with bipartisan support by the Senate a day earlier and overwhelmingly by the House last week. Both parties and both chambers were united on one issue: replacing the once celebrated but now disliked No Child Left Behind (NCLB), a 2002 education bill. “It makes long overdue fixes”, said Mr Obama at the signing ceremony. What was wrong with NCLB and why did Congress and the president want to revise it? (The Economist)
The sweeping bipartisan education bill signed into law on Thursday contained a nugget of good news for the tech industry: computer science has been recognized as important an academic subject as math and English, potentially introducing it into more classrooms across the U.S. (The Wall Street Journal)
Tying teacher pay to student test scores. Creating public schools of choice with private operators. Setting common standards for all students. Those issues probably are familiar to any American reporter who covers education. They are also becoming more and more common in Brazil, where many policymakers are deeply inspired by the American experience. (The Atlantic)
The District is a national leader in providing universal access to preschool for 4- and 5-year olds, an investment designed to improve school readiness and narrow a a rich-poor achievement gap that is apparent by kindergarten. (The Washington Post)
A task force’s recommendation on Thursday that concealed guns be permitted in classrooms at the University of Texas at Austin left many people there leery about how the university will obey a controversial new state law allowing such weapons to be carried into buildings on college campuses. (The Chronicle of Higher Education)