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Here’s what educators, advocates, wonks and policymakers are talking about today:
News & analysis
Senators consider codifying Race to the Top in ESEA
The Race may be on for a while longer. Race to the Top, the competitive grant program first created under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, would become an authorized part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, or ESEA, under a draft of Senate education leaders’ reauthorization proposal circulating around Washington. (Politics K-12)
Inflating the software report card
The Web site of Carnegie Learning, a company started by scientists at Carnegie Mellon University that sells classroom software, trumpets this promise: “Revolutionary Math Curricula. Revolutionary Results.” The pitch has sounded seductive to thousands of schools across the country for more than a decade. But a review by the United States Department of Education last year would suggest a much less alluring come-on: Undistinguished math curricula. Unproven results. (New York Times)
Details emerge on Senate ESEA discussions
U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, is putting the finishing touches on a bill to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002. He has been negotiating on the proposal with Sen. Michael B. Enzi, R-Wy, the top GOP lawmaker on the committee, for months. (Politics K-12)
State ed advocacy group, 50CAN, looks to expand
Over the past few years, a pack of education interest groups have sought to put their stamp on school policy in the states. You know some of the names: Stand for Children, StudentsFirst (founded by Michelle Rhee) and Democrats for Education Reform. Now another such organization, known as 50CAN, which currently works in a handful of states, is vowing to scale up its work to across the country. The group wants to be in 25 states by 2015, and eventually have a presence in all 50 states, according to its president and founder, Marc Porter Magee. (State EdWatch)
California: Governor Brown signs college aid bill for illegal immigrants
Illegal immigrants can now apply for state-funded scholarships and aid at state universities after California Gov. Jerry Brown announced Saturday that he has signed the second half of a legislative package targeting such students. (NPR)
Maryland: City tutoring services under scrutiny
The federally mandated tutoring program Supplemental Educational Services has become a lucrative business in Baltimore — city schools spent $55 million in the past nine years for such services. But local researchers and school officials say the program’s private contractors operate with little public accountability and have shown no proven impact on student achievement. Meanwhile, the program has had problems with recruitment, applications and monitoring, according to education officials and an independent report. (Baltimore Sun)
Georgia: New reports says there is no evidence that students of color engage in more misbehavior than whites. So why more suspensions?
A new policy brief from a civil rights research and advocacy group out of UCLA reignites the concern that race influences which students are punished in schools and how they are punished. (Get Schooled)
Connecticut: Hispanic enrollment rises at state universities
Throughout the country, more Hispanic students than ever are attending college. In August, the Pew Hispanic Center reported that from 2007 to 2010, the number of Hispanic college students 18 to 24 who were enrolled in American colleges and universities rose by 32 percent. The trend is slightly higher in Connecticut, where the Connecticut State University System saw a 34 percent increase in Hispanic enrollment — more than 700 students — from 2007 to 2010, according to officials. (CT Post)
Opinion
N.Y.C.L.U. to City: Let educators handle school discipline
All too often in New York City schools, black and Latino children from low-income families are stopped, searched, ticketed, handcuffed or arrested for minor misbehavior that should be handled by educators, not the New York City Police Department. (School Book)