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Here are news and opinion stories educators, advocates, policy wonks and makers are talking about today:
News and Analysis
The Republican-led House education committee approved a partisan bill Wednesday to update the No Child Left Behind education law, maintaining annual testing requirements but stripping the federal government of much of its influence in local schools. (ABC News)
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — In November, shortly after Gov. Sam Brownback won re-election, experts forecast that the state would bring in $1 billion less than expected over the next two years. He responded by cutting state agency budgets and proposing the transfer of funds among various state accounts. In December came news of a revenue slump, falling to $15.1 million below estimates. Mr. Brownback proposed increasing taxes on liquor and cigarettes, slowed reductions in the income tax and changed the way money was distributed to public schools. (NY Times)
While the nation’s graduation rate, including that of black and Latino males, has continued to grow, the gap between black males and their white peers has widened, according to a new report released Wednesday by the Schott Foundation for Public Education. (Education Week)
What is the purpose of education? The question came into stark relief when Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker recently tried to quietly change the century-old mission of the University of Wisconsin system by proposing to remove words in the state code that command the university to “search for truth” and “improve the human condition” and replacing them with “meet the state’s workforce needs.” (Washington Post)
(La.) Ongoing protest over Common Core testing has 14 Louisiana schools asking for penalty waivers which would keep the state from holding them accountable if parents decide to remove their children from testing next month. (Cabinet Report)
PHOENIX (AP) — The top two officials at the Arizona Board of Education were fired Wednesday by the state schools chief in a move the board president called unprovoked and outside the superintendent’s authority. (AZ Family)