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Here are news and opinion stories educators, advocates, policy wonks and makers are talking about today:
News and Analysis
Hillary Rodham Clinton told the president of the National Education Association that she would listen to teachers if elected president, a simple promise Monday that impressed the president of the nation’s largest labor union. (The Washington Post)
House Republicans’ push this month to overhaul No Child Left Behind is a political landmine for Jeb Bush, who’s being forced to defend his education policies just as he’s set to launch his presidential bid. (The Hill)
In a move against what he called “the ethics of payday lending” in higher education, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced Monday that the Education Department would forgive the federal loans of tens of thousands of students who attended Corinthian Colleges, a for-profit college company that closed and filed for bankruptcy last month, amid widespread charges of fraud. (The New York Times)
The proportion of children who attend public school ranges widely from state to state, from a low of 79 percent in the District of Columbia and Hawaii to 93 percent in Wyoming and Utah, according to the Education Law Center’s annual school funding report, released Monday. (The Washington Post)
Even as lawmakers are on track to limit the school class-size reduction measure that voters approved last November, the state’s largest teacher union continues to push for full funding of Initiative 1351. (The Seattle Times)
Two new national reports paint a grim picture of unfair and inequitable funding of public education across states, with schools serving the highest proportion of impoverished students most often on the losing end. (The Atlantic)
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson has decided that the state should drop the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) test and instead use the ACT Aspire test. (Education Week)