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Here are news and opinion stories educators, advocates, policy wonks and makers are talking about today:
National
Here’s How Today’s Schools Can Evolve to Prepare Kids for the Jobs of Tomorrow
The key three factors most likely to change the nature of future work are: artificial intelligence/robots, demographic changes and concentration of talent in certain locations, according to a new study from America Succeeds. It’s a good guess that lots of the jobs people currently hold will be drastically changed or eliminated. Estimates of how many jobs will be eliminated vary widely—the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development low-balls to 9 percent—but you can bet job descriptions and duties will change significantly. (Education Post)
Five Reasons Why We Must Modernize School Transportation
School transportation is like plumbing: We rarely discuss it, but when it’s not working, everyone notices. Like the pipes in your home, school transportation impacts every level of school systems, directly affecting the ability of schools to deliver on their core mission. To put it simply: If kids can’t get to school, everything else falls away. (Real Clear Education)
States
Florida
Gov. Jeb Bush — What Florida Can Teach America About Empowering Families Through Education Freedom
Without aspiration, our great country becomes just another country. And so it is disturbing when current surveys show that young people believe they will be worse off than their parents, and their parents agree with them. And when statistics reveal that those born into poverty are likely to remain stuck there, more so than at any time in our recent history. (The 74)
Georgia
Atlanta superintendent donates to school board candidate’s campaign
Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Meria Carstarphen dipped a toe into school board politics with a $500 contribution to an incumbent running unopposed in his re-election bid. Carstarphen donated the money in late August to the campaign of Jason Esteves, an at-large Atlanta Board of Education member. He faces no challengers on the Nov. 7 ballot. (Atlanta Journal Constitution)
New Mexico
National lab scientists assail state education proposal
Dozens of scientists and engineers at New Mexico’s nuclear weapons laboratory are voicing disagreement with public school science standards proposed by the state, cautioning that the guidelines could weaken the study of climate change, evolution and earth sciences. Sixty-one senior technical staff at Los Alamos National Laboratory wrote to the New Mexico Public Education Department to express their disapproval of the standards, publishing their letter in a full-page newspaper ad Monday in The New Mexican. (Santa Fe New Mexican)
New York
De Blasio’s win on pre-K is making an easy campaign even easier
Bo Dietl inadvertently blurted out an uncomfortable truth for Mayor Bill de Blasio’s opponents during last week’s mayoral debate, even as the independent candidate spent much of the night trying to humiliate the incumbent mayor. “The only good thing he ever did was — I like that pre-K stuff,” Dietl said of de Blasio’s first term. The establishment of universal pre-kindergarten for four-year-olds in public schools was a central focus of de Blasio’s campaign, and, after a few hiccups and some help from Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the mayor delivered on the promise in his first year in office. (Politico)
Tennessee
Nashville schools board votes to join Shelby County Schools in lawsuit against state
Metro Nashville Public Schools voted Tuesday night to join its West Tennessee counterpart in pursuing more education funding through a lawsuit against the state. The motion to join Shelby County Schools in the district’s ongoing litigation for increased education funds passed with a 7-0 vote by the Nashville school board. Two board members were absent — Sharon Gentry and Mary Pierce. The Shelby County Schools board suit says that the state isn’t adequately funding its schools and as a result that is hurting the system’s most vulnerable students. (Tennessean)