posted on
Here are news and opinion stories educators, advocates, policy wonks and makers are talking about today:
News & analysis:
A New Education Mayor
The next mayor of New York City will assume control of the country’s largest school system at an especially challenging moment. That person will oversee installation of the rigorous new Common Core learning standards. This ambitious set of academic goals, which has been adopted by all but a handful of states, is intended to move schools away from rote learning and memorization toward a writing-intensive curriculum that cultivates reasoning skills required by the new economy. (New York Times)
Education Reform Movement Learns Lesson From Old Standards
Common Core — the new set of national education standards in math and English language arts — will take effect in most states next year. This move toward a single set of standards has been embraced by a bipartisan crowd of politicians and educators largely because of what the Common Core standards are replacing: a mess. (NPR)
We Can’t Integrate Our Way to Better School Performance
Smart post from Matt Yglesias on school segregation and the basic math of our nation’s changing child demographics. Since the end of de jure racial segregation, analysis of progress (or, more frequently, lack thereof) in reducing de facto segregation has tended to focus on the percentage of racial and ethnic minority students attending “majority minority” schools. (Education Week – Sara Mead’s Policy Notebook)
School Voucher Expansion Approved in Wisconsin, With Two Twists
In a not particularly surprising move, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed a budget July 1 that includes a big priority of his—the expansion of the state’s existing school voucher program. (Education Week – State Ed Watch)
Supt. John Deasy faces rocky relationship with new LAUSD president
The private warning from Los Angeles schools Supt. John Deasy was clear: If Richard Vladovic became president of the Board of Education, Deasy was poised to resign and cause a maelstrom in the nation’s second-largest school system. (Los Angeles Times)
Michigan Preschool Economics: How Investing In Early Childhood Education Pays Off
Can quality preschool learning for Michigan children be tied to a healthy economy? Early education proponents around the state believe it can. Michigan Nightlight’s Amy Kuras talks to the experts. (Huffington Post)
Chicago Plans To Open New Schools For Dropouts Amid Massive Closures And Budget Cuts
Chicago Public Schools announced plans to open several new schools for former high school dropouts, despite large-scale budget cuts and widespread protests over school closures in the city. (Huffington Post)
Lessons of National Tests for the U.S.
As the U.S. moves inexorably toward national testing, I think it’s worth looking at the experiences of other countries in this regard. I’ll focus on France’s baccalauréat, which is better known as the bac, and on China’s gaokao. (Education Week – Walt Gardner’s Reality Check)
The Import of the CREDO Charter School Study
The new national charter school study by Stanford’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) has attracted enormous, well-deserved attention. It provides by far the most comprehensive look to date at charter school outcomes. Representing a heroic effort to wrestle with the enormous complexities of studying charter school performance across more than two dozen states, the CREDO team has drawn notice for its remarkable effort and even-handed presentation of the data. That presentation, of course, notes that charter school performance has improved dramatically since CREDO’s previous 2009 study. (Education Week – Rick Hess Straight Up)