Click here for Newswire, the latest weekly report on education news and commentary you won’t find anywhere else – spiced with a dash of irreverence – from the nation’s leading voice in school reform.
NATIONAL COVERAGE
How to Stop the Drop in American Education
Opinion, Wall Street Journal, September 6, 2013
With headlines announcing unemployment rates above 8% in some parts of the country, many people I talk to are surprised to learn that jobs by the hundreds of thousands remain vacant.
Parents who home-school question Common Core’s reach
FOX News, September 5, 2013
It is up to each state whether home-schooled children must take standardized tests in grades three through eight, and once in high school. But all college-bound home-schooled students take the SAT, which is now being aligned with the new standards.
States seek delay in Justice Department school vouchers desegregation suit
Times-Picayune, September 5, 2013
Lawyers for the state of Louisiana have asked a judge to delay the filing deadline at least until Nov. 15 in the U.S. Department of Justice’s education civil rights lawsuit.
STATE COVERAGE
CALIFORNIA
Bill would overhaul testing in California schools
Daily Breeze, September 5, 2013
Signaling their intention to “go all in” with a national curriculum, California’s education leaders outlined plans Thursday to immediately suspend most standardized assessments and replace them with a trial run of online tests tied to the more rigorous academic standards.
CONNECTICUT
When charter and districts collaborate, parents and kids win
Opinion, The Connecticut Mirror, September 5, 2013
Hartford is a national example of the success that is possible when school districts and public charter schools collaborate — and parents and students benefit most.
FLORIDA
Orange effort: Persuade dropouts to drop in again
Orlando Sentinel, September 5, 2013
Teams of educators will fan out across Orange County on Saturday to visit former students who have dropped out of school. The goal: to persuade them to drop in again.
PB traditional public schools show decline in enrollment while charters climb
Sun Sentinel, September 5, 2013
There may be more students attending Palm Beach County’s public schools this year but more of them are turning to charter schools instead.
Pinellas investigating complaints about new charter school
Tampa Bay Times, September 5, 2013
Pinellas County school officials are investigating parents’ claims that a new St. Petersburg charter school is kicking out students with behavior issues.
GEORGIA
City school system faces public confusion over charter status
Times-Georgian, September 5, 2013
As the Carrollton City School System moves closer to becoming a charter school system, it faces a lot of public questioning on why it’s seeking charter status now when the Board of Education spoke out last November against the charter school amendment vote.
Dougherty School Board, charter school proponents draw line in sand
Albany Herald, September 5, 2013
With days remaining before a Monday meeting with the State Charter School Commission (SCSC), the Dougherty County School System and officials of the River School For Children STEM Academy (RSCSA) are not budging from their respective positions in regard to the proposed charter school.
Marietta schools eye merit pay plan
Marietta Journal, September 6, 2013
Teachers in Marietta City Schools could be earning their paychecks based on student achievement and performance, not the years of experience or the number of degrees they have.
IDAHO
Market public schools
Editorial, Idaho Mountain Express and Guide, September 6, 2013
Everyone knows about schools. Nationally, everyone knows that public schools in big cities are bad, marked only by low test scores, dilapidated buildings and armed guards. Everyone knows that private schools, charter schools, even home schools, are better, that test scores are higher, resources are more plentiful, and campuses are safer.
ILLINOIS
State’s new exams will put grade school students to the test
Chicago Tribune, September 6, 2013
More rigorous reading and math standards pose a challenge throughout Illinois
LOUISIANA
School board considering new school for Youngsville
The Advertiser, September 5, 2013
The Lafayette Parish School Board is floating the idea of building a new school in Youngsville to address overcrowding there.
School counselors’ evaluations more subjective that teachers’, Superintendent John White saya
Times-Picayune, September 5, 2013
Although Louisiana’s new tool for evaluating public school teachers is useful and discerning, Education Superintendent John White said Thursday it is less precise in grading school counselors. There, he said, it needs work.
MASSACHUSETTS
Family Income not a factor as students eat free
Associated Press, September 6, 2013
Some students toted lunchboxes to the first day of school in Boston this week, but district administrators are expecting that could become a more unusual sight as parents learn about a federal program that is now providing all public school students in the city with free breakfast and lunch.
State flunks charter school test
Op-Ed, Boston Herald, September 6, 2013
But something is upside down when our legislators won’t find the time to debate and pass a law that would ensure that families in 29 troubled urban school districts can send their kids to good schools.
MISSOURI
Nurturing success in a city of academic struggle
St. Louis-Dispatch, September 6, 2013
Mayor Francis Slay cut the ribbon on another charter school last week, expressing his confidence that the school will succeed in a city in which three out of four public schools aren’t making the grade.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Scrap N.H.’s school vouchers
Opinion, New Hampshire Business Review, September 5, 2013
How is it that New Hampshire’s voucher tax credit program can find only 15 public school students who want vouchers, and is giving them $164,000 – $11,000 apiece – to leave their public schools and go to private schools.
NEW JERSEY
NJ teacher raises keep shrinking
The Record, September 6, 2013
As New Jersey teachers head back to class this month, they face pay raises that have gotten smaller on average for the sixth year in a row.
NEW YORK
DOE plans 11th-hour school co-locations
Queens Chronicle, September 5, 2013
With only a few months left in Mayor Bloomberg’s term, the city Department of Education is seeking to approve at least three more co-locations and extend one in borough schools at the end of October.
New York City’s Public Education Challenges
Debate, September 6, 2013
The next mayor of New York City faces some tough challenges particularly when it comes to setting public education priorities. Should he or she abandon Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s fixation on testing and data-driven accountability, or expand school choice and close failing classrooms to give more options to families, especially English-language learners and those in low-income communities?
Shaping classrooms, not the students within
Letters, New York Post, September 6, 2013
If Moskowitz is sincere that her charter schools are about students first, rather than cash and profits, why does she take a salary approaching that of the president of the United States?
NORTH CAROLINA
NC approves 26 new charter schools
News & Observer, September 5, 2013
The State Board of Education gave preliminary approval Thursday for 26 new charter schools to open in 2014.
Old school new again in East Durham
The Durham News, September 5, 2013
The Maureen Joy Charter School opened its new building on Driver Street just two weeks ago, but people who live around it say it already means a lot to them.
OHIO
Fate of Ohio’s charter school rules still uncertain
Zanesville Times Recorder, September 5, 2013
Charter school critics and supporters alike agree the tough new Ohio report cards are a step in the right direction to raise the bar on charter school quality in the state.
State aid could fall for nearly 200 school districts under new budget, once money for charter schools is deducted
Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 5, 2013
More than a quarter of Ohio school districts will likely receive less money from the state this school year than they did last school year, according to calculations by The Plain Dealer and new estimates from the legislature’s research arm.
TENNESSEE
Budget limits number of charters
Opinion, The Tennessean, September 6, 2013
What happens next is unclear, but the debate isn’t about the merits of charter schools. It’s about funding adequacy and equity for all schools.
Metro Nashville paid a foreign company to study our schools. So why did its reports get an icy reception?
Nashville Scene, September 5, 2013
During the day, Metro Schools’ headquarters on Bransford Avenue bustles with traffic as hundreds of district employees file into work, from bean counters to executive principals, secretaries to chief officers in three-piece suits.
WISCONSIN
Milwaukee stonewalling sales of unused schools to choice schools, law firm says
Wisconsin Reporter, September 5, 2013
A complete failure. That’s how the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty rates city of Milwaukee’s policy of giving Milwaukee Public Schools the authority to sell or lease the district’s unused school buildings.
School accountability bill has little support
Sheboygan Press, September 5, 2013
A plan to kick poor-performing schools out of the state’s taxpayer-subsidized voucher program is generating little support in the Legislature so far, but its Republican co-sponsor who introduced the bill Thursday said he was confident it would pass later this year.
ONLINE LEARNING
Big gift lets Adams 12 replace textbooks with interactive Techbooks
Denver Post, September 6, 2013
Sixth-graders in Lisa Meier’s science and engineering class on Thursday used laptop computers to look up words in an interactive glossary — an easy way to start exploring their new digital textbooks.
Seven groups want to open Maine charter schools
Portland Press Herald, September 6, 2013
They submit letters of intent – five for schools with a special focus, and two providing ‘virtual’ learning.