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Here are news and opinion stories educators, advocates, policy wonks and makers are talking about today:
News and Analysis:
‘Dramatic’ Increase in Reading Needed for Common Core, Guides Say
A set of new guides to the Common Core State Standards offers a solution, of sorts, to abrewing controversy about the balance of fiction and nonfiction in U.S. classrooms. “Informational text” doesn’t have to displace fiction, the guides say, if the overall amount of reading students do increases “dramatically.” (Education Week – Curriculum Matters)
California Teachers Pension Fund Moves To Divest From Guns, Firearms Companies
The nation’s largest teacher pension fund took the first step Wednesday toward divesting from companies that make guns and high-capacity ammunition magazines that are illegal in California. (Huffington Post)
2013 RHSU Edu-Scholar Bonus Round
Curtsey of the big-brained Todd Grindal at Harvard Graduate School of Education, we’re stoked to offer RHSU readers three new tools that make it possible to tinker with the Edu-Scholar rankings in cool new ways. In collaboration with the uber-competent Allie Kimmel, Todd compiled and organized the 2011, 2012, and 2013 rankings to allow readers to search and visualize the data using the 2013 Edu-Scholar interactive tools. We hope that they will provoke new questions, incite useful feedback, and surface interesting queries for future research. (Education Week – Rick Hess Straight Up)
Parsing Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell’s education agenda
In his State of the Commonwealth address Tuesday night, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) proposed a constitutional amendment that would make it easier for charter schools to open, an A-F grading system to rate schools, the use of Teach For America members, and more. (Washington Post – The Answer Sheet)
California Parent Trigger: Adelanto School Board OKs Charter Takeover Of Public Desert Trails Elementary
The real-life version of “Won’t Back Down” — the recent movie that promoted the controversial “parent trigger” law — appears to finally be getting a happier ending than the box office flop. Parent union members at Desert Trails Elementary School in Adelanto, Calif., have become the first in the nation to convert their struggling neighborhood school into a charter school. (Huffington Post)
What Makes an Effective School Principal? Reality-Based Principal Assessments
Evaluating the effectiveness of school principals is in everyone’s best interests–students, teachers, parents, and arguably principals most of all. But what are fair and valid measures of success? Unfortunately, past practices in defining and evaluating principals raise concerns about consistency and fairness. (Education Week – Sputnik)
New York:
Full-Day Pre-K, Longer Schools Days Eyed by Cuomo
Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday proposed competitive grants to entice school districts across New York state to adopt policies such as full-day prekindergarten for low-income students, longer school days and years, and new technology programs. (Wall Street Journal)