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Here are news and opinion stories educators, advocates, policy wonks and makers are talking about today:
News & analysis:
TODAY: Join The Education Conversation With Tell Me More
For generations, education has been key to the American dream of advancement and opportunity. Today, NPR’s Tell Me More with Michel Martin (@TellMeMoreNPR) is broadcasting from member station WLRN and hosting a Twitter education forum on where the nation’s schools now stand. We’ll talk to Alberto Carvalho (@MiamiSup), superintendent of Miami-Dade Public Schools. He’s leading one of America’s largest and most multicultural districts in its quest to transform classrooms for the 21st Century. We’ll hear from current and former U.S. Secretaries of Education, national education advocate Michelle Rhee (@m_rhee) and Sal Khan (@khanacademy), the founder of online education powerhouse Khan Academy. We’ll also hear from students, parents, teachers — and you. (NPR.org)
Public Schools: Glass Half Full or Half Empty?
This year, Gallup’s Confidence in Institutions survey revealed a disheartening lack of faith in U.S. public schools. The percentage of participants indicating “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in public K-12 education fell to an all-time low of around 29 percent—a drop of 29 percentage points from 1973, when Gallup first began including public schools in its survey and public confidence in schools measured 58 percent. Unfortunately, faith in the public schools has been steadily eroding since 1973. But are things really this dismal? (Education Week)
D.C. Council considers giving state education board more control over personnel, budget
D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson has called a hearing tomorrowon legislation that would give the District’s State Board of Education a little more control over its own affairs. The bill, sponsored by Mendelson and Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) would allow the nine-member board to hire its own administrative staff and administer its own (small) budget — functions that currently lie within the office of the state superintendent. (Washington Post)
Virginia education officials to release results of new annual benchmarks for public schools
Virginia is getting a better idea of how its public school students fared on new annual benchmarks. The state Department of Education on Wednesday is set to release results of the annual measurable objectives in reading and mathematics. The objectives replace the adequate yearly progress targets of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. In June, the state received a waiver from the U.S. Department of Education for certain provisions of the federal law. (Washington Post)
New York:
Making the Grade in New York City
The latest progress reports for New York City elementary and middle schools came out last week, and many parents are baffled to see some of the city’s top-performing schools getting “C’s” and “B’s.” Proponents say, the “A” to “F” grading system is one of the best ways to get parents to pay attention, but critics say that the city’s over emphasis on test performance skews the grades, making them unreliable for judging the quality of a school. If these progress reports are not reliable, what is the purpose of them? (New York Times)
Union Defends Charter School
New York City teachers union officials on Tuesday defended a charter school founded by the labor union as the school undergoes a crucial review period that will determine whether the struggling institution stays open. The UFT Charter School was founded in 2005, when former United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten looked to demonstrate amid a growing reform movement that a school could thrive when its educators worked under the existing teachers contract. The school, which has roughly 1,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade, was said to be the first union-led charter school in the U.S. when it opened. (Wall Street Journal)
View Points:
Why the high court should back race-based college admissions
THE SUPREME COURT will consider Wednesday its biggest affirmative action case in a decade when the justices examine the suit of Abigail Fisher, a woman denied admission to the University of Texas (UT) at Austin in 2008. Lawyers for Ms. Fisher, who is white, claim that she suffered unjustly by having to compete against African American and Hispanic applicants in a system that considers race. Ms. Fisher wants the court to deem the university’s inclusion of race in its admissions process unlawful, a request the justices should deny. The worry is that the court will use Ms. Fisher’s case to rewrite decades of precedent, with implications for nearly every campus in the country, public and private. (Washington Post)