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Here are news and opinion stories educators, advocates, policy wonks and makers are talking about today:
News & analysis:
Year-End Tests Bring Urgency to Common-Core Push
Returning from spring vacation, Dowan McNair-Lee’s students find their desks in neat rows, facing forward. For the previous seven months, the 8th graders had sat in clusters, facing one another, to facilitate discussion. But janitors used the break to ready the classroom for the year-end tests that are only two weeks away. (Education Week)
No Child Left Behind Rewrite Hearing Starts With Senators Divided Over Education Policy
As the Senate’s education committee began hearings on a rewrite of the No Child Left Behind Act Tuesday, partisan divides over the role of the federal government in America’s schools quickly revealed themselves as the sticking point. (Huffington Post)
Andy Smarick: Some early-summer reads, part I
A bunch of very good publications have been released over the last few weeks—so many, in fact, that I’ve had trouble getting to them all (people, you’re killing me; can you coordinate release dates?). But I finally made it, and a number are definitely deserving of attention. (Fordham Institute Flypaper)
Aspen Institute to Look at Online Learning
The Aspen Institute has convened a task force to study how children learn online and how to improve online education while safeguarding student privacy. (Education Week – Inside School Research)
Many States Put Age Limits on Schools’ Dropout-Recovery Services
The amount of time a student has to complete a public high school education and earn a diploma depends on the state where he or she lives. (Education Week)
View Point:
Chester E. Finn, Jr. and Michael Petrilli: Repairing the Conservative School Reform Coalition
For nearly 30 years—at least since Bill Bennett’s tenure as secretary of education and Lamar Alexander’s as governor of Tennessee—education-minded conservatives at both national and state levels have embraced a two-part school reform strategy, focused equally on rigorous standards and parental choice. Recent events have frayed that coalition, but it’s not too late to stitch it back together. (Weekly Standard)