Beth’s Briefings (9-9-15)

Here are news and opinion stories educators, advocates, policy wonks and makers are talking about today:

 

Fresh off a five-week summer sabbatical, members of Congress confront a handful of pressing education issues, high among them brokering a path forward for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorization, with dueling bills having already passed in both chambers. (Education Week)

 

Five years ago, Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg went on Oprah Winfrey’s television show to pledge $100 million to transform education in Newark. (The Wall Street Journal)

 

As a young student, Tom McMahon never had to bring scissors to school. “I remember there was always a giant box of scissors,” said Mr. McMahon, now a 38-year-old father of three who teaches English in Mahopac, N.Y. “Now, we provide for scissors as parents and ask for scissors as teachers.” (The New York Times)

 

The union representing about 5,000 teachers and other workers in the Seattle public schools said Tuesday night that contract talks had broken down and that the first teachers strike here in 30 years would begin on Wednesday, which had been the first scheduled day of classes. (The New York Times)

 

By 9 a.m. on August 19, the first day of work for teachers in Oakland, California, Kilian Betlach had already been busy for hours. Betlach, the principal of a small middle school called Elmhurst Community Prep in a neighborhood residents refer to as Deep East Oakland, had just finished a meeting about an upgrade to his school’s athletic fields. There were only three prep days before the school’s 374 students would arrive and there was still too much to do.  But Betlach felt his team—18 teachers, two administrators, and a dozen support staff—was up to the challenge. (The Atlantic)

 

In New York City, some 65,000 children have enrolled in Mayor Bill de Blasio’s new, universal preschool program. To put that number in context, that’s more than all the public school students — in all grades — in either Washington, D.C., or Boston. Free pre-K for all 4-year-olds was a key de Blasio campaign promise. (NPR)