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
Hold to Core values
Opinion, New York Daily News, NY, December 1, 2013
The most important school reform drive in decades has triggered an obtusely wrongheaded backlash by a cynical alliance of right-wing extremists and self-styled progressives.
Louisiana Voucher Assault, Round 2
Review & Outlook, Wall Street Journal
December 1, 2013
The Justice Department campaign against Louisiana school vouchers gets curiouser and curiouser. Attorney General Eric Holder’s troops are now trying to prevent black parents from joining the case by amending their original lawsuit to block the vouchers in 22 districts.
Different wings of school choice
Editorial, The Advocate, LA, December 1, 2013
Anyone who thinks Eric Cantor, the Republican leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, is not shrewd should take a look at a mildly worded but penetrating question he asked in a New Orleans schoolroom the other day.
Caution on Education
Letter, New York Times, NY, November 29, 2013
“Advertisements for the Common Core” (editorial, Nov. 20) cites recent test results as evidence that the new “challenging” national curriculum and “tough” teacher ratings work. Long experience should have taught us all to be skeptical about early claims of educational success and failure.
Critical thinking hallmark of Common Core class
Associated Press, December 2, 2013
Welcome to a classroom using the Common Core State Standards, one of the most politicized and misunderstood changes in education for students and their teachers in kindergarten through high school.
STATE COVERAGE
ARIZONA
Charter school must repay $4.7 million over bogus enrollment claims
Arizona Daily Star, AZ, December 1, 2013
A now-closed Tucson charter school and its Phoenix affiliate must repay $4.7 million to the state for exaggerated enrollment claims that qualified them to get excessive education reimbursement funding from taxpayers.
Charter schools seek $135 million per year in additional state funding
East Valley Tribune, AZ, November 29, 2013
The state’s charter schools are demanding more money from taxpayers, to the tune of $135 million a year.
Somerton residents slow in showing support for charter school
Yuma Sun, AZ, November 29, 2013
A Phoenix-area foundation plans to collect at least 100 petition signatures from residents expressing support for a charter high school the organization wants to build in this city.
DELAWARE
Why we should give Reach Academy another chance
Opinion, Delaware News Journal, DE
Reach Academy for Girls will close and that is unfortunate. Reach is the only all-girl charter school in the state. Delaware families reflecting a growing trend to select alternatives to traditional public schools and single-sex schools, decided all-girl Reach Academy was best for their daughter.
GEORGIA
Audit determines state charter schools often going unmonitored
Marietta Daily Journal, GA, December 1, 2013
A new state audit determined no one is monitoring how Georgia’s charter schools spend almost $11 million in state funding.
Fulton County school district studying more school choice
Atlanta Journal Constitution, GA, November 29, 2013
Montessori schools where students learn more independently. Schools that house students from kindergarten to eighth grade. Language immersion schools where subjects are taught in Spanish or other languages.
MAKING THE GRADE? Ga. Parents Alliance uses education votes to grade local legislators
Douglas County Sentinel, GA, November 30, 2013
The conservative leaning Georgia Parents Alliance recently graded state legislators on education reform and school choice issues, and for the most part, the results were predictable.
FLORIDA
For thousands of Florida teachers, evaluations aren’t making the grade
Miami Herald, FL, November 29, 2013
When Miami-Dade’s 2012 elementary science teacher of the year finally got her annual evaluation last May, she was confused.
Rhema Thompson: Closing the achievement gap
Column, Pensacola News Journal, FL, November 29, 2013
Escambia County School District officials will soon be forming a new task force to help close the achievement gap among the district’s students.
Senator wants to tighten charter school focus
Florida Current, FL, November 27, 2013
A Palm Beach County senator wants to narrow the mission of charter schools. Sen. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth, Wednesday, filed SB 452 — revising the guiding principles listed in statute creating charter schools to meet “a specific instructional need or a need for additional educational facilities.”
ILLINOIS
Building a bridge from CPS high schools to college
Chicago Tribune, IL, November 29, 2013
As the Tribune acknowledged in its initial call for a new Plan of Chicago, it may not have to look far for good ideas to tackle the city’s economic and social challenges. Many creative, workable ideas are out there already. Some have gained a foothold and are just looking, like business startups, to “scale up.”
LOUISIANA
Half of Louisiana’s voucher students at D or F schools in program’s first year, data shows
Times-Picayune, LA, November 28, 2013
At least 45 percent of students in Louisiana’s controversial voucher program last year attended schools with performance scores in the D to F range of the state’s grading scale, according to data the state released Wednesday.
New Orleans schools should stick with OneApp
Editorial, Times-Picayune, LA, December 1, 2013
Now it’s evident that some schools that are supposed to be open to any child wanted to handpick their students rather than take the ones assigned to them through OneApp.
MASSACHUSETTS
Boston teacher ratings don’t add up
Column, Boston Globe, MA, November 30, 2013
BOSTON’S TEACHERS are succeeding swimmingly in their chosen profession, with 93 percent landing in the exemplary and proficient categories on a new teacher-evaluation system. Yet about two-thirds of the city’s schools rank in the bottom 20 percent statewide based on student test data. What’s going on here?
Charter school divide widens
Andover Townsman, MA, November 28, 2013
A sharply divided crowd turned out last week to testify on a proposed charter high school in Andover that’s seeking a green light from the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
MICHIGAN
Choice is ultimate democracy
Column, Battle Creek Enquirer, MI, November 27, 2013
In its Nov. 23 editorial (“Charters, choice are strangling our public schools”), the Battle Creek Enquirer insinuated that charter schools are not public schools and that allowing students and parents to choose among schools is “doing immeasurable harm to our democracy.”
MINNESOTA
Bridging the achievement gap
Editorial, Minnesota Daily, MN, December 2, 2013
New research shows how small changes in the classroom can play a big role in reducing academic disparities.
Students with struggles find a place of their own at Rochester charter school
Minneapolis Star Tribune, MN, November 30, 2013
When people talk about ROC, which is marking its 20th anniversary, they talk about the culture. But it’s easier said than described. When students show up at ROC’s doors for the first time, they may be homeless or from broken homes, suffering from drug addiction or battling depression.
MISSISSIPPI
Changes to charter school application process tweaked
Clarion Ledger, MS, November 28, 2013
Groups seeking to establish a charter school in Mississippi have until March 14 to submit their applications, though officials may continue to fine-tune the application forms.
MISSOURI
In debate over school transfers, it’s time to seek common ground
Editorial, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, MO, November 30, 2013
Missouri’s most pressing public policy problem is what to do about school districts in urban areas that fail to make the grade.
NEW JERSEY
Newark’s big play on charter schools: Moran
Column, Star Ledger, NJ, December 1, 2013
Cami Anderson, the superintendent of Newark schools, has taken enormous heat for nurturing the growth of charter schools, which now educate roughly 1 in 4 kids in the city.
NEW YORK
A Charter School’s Struggle for New Students
Wall Street Journal, November 28, 2013
A Williamsburg charter school that tried to attract white and middle-class families needs to find more students in the next week, or it could be shut down.
For New York City’s Charter Schools, a Lesson on Paying Rent
New York Times, NY, December 2, 2013
As a rent-paying school, Bronx Community Charter may also offer a lesson to many New York City charter schools if the mayor-elect, Bill de Blasio, follows through on his campaign proposal that “well-resourced” charter schools pay rent.
Readers weigh in on education tax credit proposal
Opinion, Journal News, NY, December 1, 2013
If we encourage maintaining private schools, including those of various religious faiths, two important advantages come to mind: a healthy competition will benefit public schools; secondly, the public school districts in New York will save in per-student costs long term.
Students thrive at Newburgh charter school
Times Herald-Record, NY, December 2, 2013
Each dropped out of Newburgh Free Academy, and each could have stayed a dropout, statistically doomed to a life of low-wage jobs, or worse. Instead they took a chance on Newburgh Prep, the 3-month-old charter school created for dropouts.
The New Mayor and the Teachers
Editorial, New York Times, NY, December 2, 2013
Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio will take office facing the need to forge new labor agreements with the unions that represent nearly all of New York City’s 300,000 municipal workers.
NORTH CAROLINA
Chris Fitzsimmons says school vouchers are a bad idea
Opinion, Winston Salem-Journal, NC, November 30, 2013
Thanks to Gov. Pat McCrory and the current General Assembly, your tax dollars will soon be subsidizing discrimination across North Carolina and paying to teach children bizarre fundamentalist theories about dinosaurs and the age of the earth.
GOP finally notices needs of NC teachers
Editorial, News & Observer, NC, December 1, 2013
With the 2014 election coming, are North Carolina’s Republican leaders seeing chickens on the horizon, looking to come home to roost?
OHIO
Bill seeks to end Ohio’s adopting Common Core
Cincinnati Enquirer, OH, November 29, 2013
Say what you will about the new Common Core academic initiative: Love it or hate it, everybody in education is talking about it.
Weed out the bad bets
Editorial, Columbus Dispatch, OH, December 2, 2013
Ohio lawmakers haven’t done much lately to improve oversight of charter schools, and a recent spate of rather spectacular failures shows how urgently change is needed.
OKLAHOMA
A-F study called ‘misleading’ by Oklahoma Education Department officials
Tulsa World, OK, December 2, 2013
A controversial study by researchers at two Oklahoma universities that deems the state’s A-F school grading system as flawed is “misleading,” according to an in-house analysis by staffers at the Oklahoma State Department of Education.
Urban Teacher Preparation Academy partners with Oklahoma City Public Schools
The Oklahoman, OK, November 30, 2013
The Urban Teacher Preparation Academy is an intensive clinical and mentorship program designed to train more qualified and effective teachers for urban schools.
PENNSYLVANIA
Councilman Green among top picks to lead SRC
Philadelphia Inquirer, PA, November 30, 2013
City Councilman Bill Green and former Convention Center head Al Mezzaroba are Gov. Corbett’s top choices to lead the School Reform Commission, multiple sources say.
Environmental Charter School wants to offer high school classes
Tribune-Review, PA, November 28, 2013
In a pair of Regent Square schools built at the beginning of the last century, students are learning through a 21st century model of education.
How education funding became Gov. Corbett’s big problem
Philadelphia City Paper, PA, November 28, 2013
Though Gov. Tom Corbett has never visited Feltonville School of Arts and Sciences, his presence there looms large.
Pittsburgh-area Title 1 reward schools go right to the head of the class
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, PA, December 2, 2013
Students at the K-5 charter school are doing so well that the school has been designated as one of about 180 Title 1 reward schools across the state — including 20 in Allegheny County.
York Prep in new buildings but doesn’t own them
The Herald, PA, November 29, 2013
York County is home to one public charter school, with another set to open this fall.
SOUTH CAROLINA
Many S.C. charter schools lack facilities
Aiken Standard, SC, November 30, 2013
A new report said many public charter schools in South Carolina lack adequate facilities.
The report by the Charter School Facilities Initiative recommends that state lawmakers take action to help provide additional space, The State newspaper reported.
TEXAS
Deion Sanders’ Prime Prep Academy draws scrutiny from Texas Education Agency
Dallas Morning News, TX, December 1, 2013
The Texas Education Agency has yet to open a formal investigation into Prime Prep Academy, the charter school co-founded by former NFL star Deion Sanders.
Teacher merit pay plan might work, given other key factors now in play
Editorial, Waco Tribune-Herald, TX, December 1, 2013
Although the idea of merit pay has been championed by conservatives and liberals alike (and is generally opposed by teacher unions), studies of school systems in New York, Nashville and Chicago show little evidence that it results in better scores.
WASHINGTON
State’s charter school applications to be posted Monday
Bellingham Herald, WA, December 2, 2013
New details about proposals to open some of Washington’s first charter schools should be available Monday. The state Charter School Commission received 19 applications from 18 organizations hoping to launch the type of alternative public schools that already exists in most other states. Charter schools in Washington state are designed to be publicly funded and tuition-free but operated independently by nonsectarian nonprofit groups.
Legislature’s education issues not limited to money
Seattle Times, WA, December 1, 2013
When legislators reconvene in Olympia in January, the focus on education won’t be merely about money. If the teacher-evaluation system isn’t changed to meet federal standards, the state could lose its waiver from the No Child Left Behind law.
There’s no shame in being an education reformer
Column, Seattle Times, WA, December 1, 2013
I want to set the record straight and encourage other education reformers like me to speak out, writes guest columnist Kimberly Lasher Mitchell.
ONLINE LEARNING
Cuts proposed for cyber charter schools
Pocono Record, PA, December 2, 2013
The public charter school reform movement has split over its support for state Senate bill 1085.
More students switch to online schools to escape bullies
Dayton Daily News, OH, November 30, 2013
Krista Hooten saw “terror” in her daughter’s eyes as they started back-to-school shopping for seventh grade. Her daughter, Kelsey, had been bullied the previous year. It started emotionally: Other girls called her ugly and spread rumors about her. But it quickly turned physical: They pulled her hair and shoved her to the ground.
Our family thankful for online charter school
Letter, Lehigh Valley Express-Times, PA, November 27, 2013
This is the time of year when we sit around the table with our families and give thanks. One thing on my list is having the opportunity to choose the right education for my family.
Thank you for charter schools
Letter, Augusta Chronicle, GA, December 1, 2013
My child attends a public, free “virtual” charter school. I was interested in this because she suffers from Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, a disability that affects stability in her arms and legs.
Virtual school proposal gains support
Metro West Daily News, MA, November 30, 2013
A proposed virtual school in the region is getting plenty of support from MetroWest lawmakers and school officials, who have told the state they have confidence in the education collaborative behind the plan.