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
Doubts over Common Core
Opinion, Washington Post, DC, January 15, 2014
Viewed from Washington, which often is the last to learn about important developments, opposition to the Common Core State Standards Initiative still seems as small as the biblical cloud that ariseth out of the sea, no larger than a man’s hand. Soon, however, this education policy will fill a significant portion of the political sky.
STATE COVERAGE
ALABAMA
School Choice Week encouraging options for parents
The Southeast Sun, AL, January 16, 2014
Despite the new options to Alabama students, the state has currently accepted only three of the six school choice options National School Choice Week endorses and encourages.
CALIFORNIA
Achievement-gap debate reaching peak
Opinion, San Francisco Examiner, CA, January 16, 2014
Years — even decades — of intense academic and political debate over closing the stubbornly wide achievement gap that separates Latino and black students from their white and Asian classmates are reaching a climactic point.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Montessori school, Montgomery County’s only public charter, plans to close
Washington Post, DC, January 15, 2014
The only public charter school in Montgomery County will shut down at the end of the school year because it has struggled with its finances and can’t afford to stay open.
GEORGIA
Parent Trigger Bill May Come up Again in Legislature This Year
Atlanta Progressive News, GA, January 15, 2014
House Bill 123, the Parent Teacher Empowerment Act, commonly known as the Parent Trigger bill, care of State Rep. Ed Lindsey (R-Atlanta) and others, is rearing its ugly head again, this time for a possible State Senate vote.
ILLINOIS
Academics Blast CPS Charter School Expansion
DNAinfo, IL, January 15, 2014
A community forum organized Tuesday by groups looking to stop the expansion of charter schools was filled with crash-course lectures and calls to civic action.
MASSACHUSETTS
Gonsalves: Charter schools have unfair edge
Column, Cape Cod Times, MA, January 16, 2014
Members of the ad hoc support group Dennis-Yarmouth Save Our Schools are raising delicate but essential questions about public charter schools on Cape Cod.
Parents try out new BPS system
Dorchester Reporter, MA, January 16, 2014
The Home-Based school choice system, established for the coming school year, gives parents fewer choices, but gives them choices that are closer to home, according to Denise Snyder, the Senior Director For the Office of Welcome Services for Boston Public Schools.
MINNESOTA
St. Paul charter school votes to unionize
Star Tribune, MN, January 16, 2014
Education Minnesota scored a rare win in the charter-school sector Tuesday night when 25 teachers at a German immersion school in St. Paul gave 80 percent support to forming a union, making it the sole unionized charter school in the state.
MISSISSIPPI
Charter school would guide teens toward health careers
Clarion Ledger, MS, January 16, 2014
Jackson physician Aaron Shirley envisions a high school for Jackson youths that will prepare them for a health profession.
MISSOURI
Great schools change lives. How do we get them?
Editorial, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, MO, January 15, 2014
That’s the most important sentence in the 78-page education consultant’s report that the Missouri Board of Education might rely on to figure out how to turn around struggling urban school districts in St. Louis and Kansas City.
New proposal for troubled districts
St. Louis American, MO, January 15, 2014
On Monday the state’s controversial consultant CEE-Trust presented a plan for unaccredited school districts that gives individual schools more autonomy and eliminates the districts’ “central office” administration – a model similar to how charter schools operate.
NEW JERSEY
Views mixed on Christie’s call for more school hours
Philadelphia Inquirer, PA, January 15, 2014
Gov. Christie’s call in Tuesday’s State of the State address for lengthening the school day and year drew initial support, but it also raised some questions – and some eyebrows.
Vouchers appear to vanish from Governor Christie’s education agenda
New Jersey Spotlight, NJ, January 16, 2014
In education circles, one of the more notable parts of Gov. Chris Christie’s State of the State address on Tuesday was something he didn’t mention: school vouchers.
NEW YORK
An education reform without merit
Opinion, New York Daily News, NY, January 16, 2014
Like Lazarus strolling out of the grave, a proposal for teacher incentive pay rose from the dead in Gov. Cuomo’s State of the State address, despite a mountain of evidence suggesting that the idea, which sounds fine in theory, simply doesn’t work.
Buffalo diocese to close 10 of its Erie County schools
The Buffalo News, NY, January 15, 2014
Ten suburban Catholic elementary schools suffering from low enrollments and struggling with finances will close in June, Bishop Richard J. Malone announced today.
Charter schools should be part of universal pre-K
Editorial, New York Post, NY, January 15, 2014
There is untapped potential to increase access to pre-kindergarten in high-need communities through public charter schools, which serve many high-need students.
Let charters bloom
Opinion, New York Daily News, NY, January 16, 2014
Having clouded the future of charter schools, Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Carmen Fariña would make a fateful error for thousands of children by curtailing one of the most successful experiments in urban education reform in decades.
Should Mayor de Blasio Unravel Bloomberg’s Reforms?
Opinions, New York Times, NY, January 15, 2014
Mayor Bill de Blasio has tapped Carmen Fariña as schools chancellor. Choosing someone who has been critical of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s efforts to reform New York City schools suggests that many of the changes that defined Bloomberg’s tenure are about to be reversed.
NORTH CAROLINA
Good, bad schools in all types
Opinion, Fayetteville Observer, NC, January 15, 2014
My family and I arrived in Fayetteville recently, just in time for news about the opening of two new charter schools this fall in Cumberland and Harnett counties.
Teachers Fight Over Loss Of Tenure, New Contracts
WUNC, NC, January 16, 2014
There are 95,000 public school teachers in North Carolina, give or take. So how many, given their only chance to comment publicly on the end of tenure, would make their way to downtown Raleigh to voice their displeasure? Hundreds? Thousands, maybe? Try four.
OHIO
Cleveland principals deciding how to spend their school’s budgets as they gain authority under the Cleveland Plan
Cleveland Plain Dealer, OH, January 16, 2014
Erin Frew’s students at New Tech West High School aren’t reading well enough. So as the principal, she decided to increase class sizes this year to free up money for more reading help for her students.
Yost reveals ‘scrubbing’ audit to Columbus schools officials
Columbus Dispatch, OH, January 16, 2014
In a two-hour meeting yesterday, Columbus City Schools officials heard the findings of a state audit of student-data fraud in the district.
OKLAHOMA
Charter collaboration: Tulsa school board tours charter schools
Tulsa World, OK, January 16, 2014
Tulsa Public Schools is continuing to dismantle the wall that long divided it from the charter schools it sponsors.
OREGON
Oregon Charter School Considers ‘Arrowsmith Program’
Portland Tribune, OR, January 15, 2014
The “Arrowsmith program” leans on neuroscience to address learning disabilities. It’s already in some U.S. private schools. The program is on Thursday’s agenda for a charter school in Oregon City.
PENNSYLVANIA
Pa. auditor announces public meetings on charters
Philadelphia Inquirer, PA, January 16, 2014
Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale said Wednesday that his office would hold public meetings on improving the “accountability, effectiveness, and transparency” of charter schools across the state.
The way we’re funding schools is too high a price to pay
Letter, Philadelphia Inquirer, PA, January 16, 2014
IN PHILADELPHIA, watching our schools scrounge for money is a yearly event. Our schools are without full-time nurses and counselors, without librarians, without extracurricular activities; some are so overcrowded they don’t have enough desks.
TENNESSEE
Charter school company chosen to develop Springfield site
The Tennessean, TN, January 15, 2014
The Springfield Charter School Steering Committee has decided to work with Exalt Education as in its efforts to bring a charter school to the city.
TN Republican lawmakers seek ‘complete overhaul’ of textbook review panel
The Tennessean, TN, January 16, 2014
Wasting no time addressing what conservatives have called a pattern of bias in Tennessee textbooks, a Republican senator has filed legislation to give lawmakers a say over who sits on a key panel that reviews the materials.
WASHINGTON
Court treads delicate path on schools
Opinion, Bellingham Herald, WA, January 16, 2014
Normally we don’t quarrel with 8-1 state Supreme Court decisions, but we’re getting nervous about its approach to the Legislature and public school funding.
Legislature must follow WSAC education ‘road map’
Editorial, The Olympian, WA, January 16, 2014
Last week’s Supreme Court order sent state lawmakers scrambling to develop a complete plan before April 30 detailing how they will meet the K-12 funding mandate in the McCleary decision.
Spokane charter schools clear hurdle
Spokane Review, WA, January 16, 2014
People hoping to launch the first charter schools in Spokane faced no opposition Wednesday during the first and only public hearing on the controversial plans.
WISCONSIN
Reject independent charter schools
Editorial, Appleton Post-Crescent, WI, January 14, 2014
The latest attempt to privatize public education in Wisconsin comes in the form of independent charter schools — charter schools that operate outside the authority of public school districts.
ONLINE LEARNING
South Western wants to upgrade cyber program
The Evening Sun, PA, January 15, 2014
South Western School District is looking for ways to improve its online program and hopefully hire a few new teachers in the process.
St. Paul school district working toward computer-per-student status
Pioneer Press, MN, January 15, 2014
The St. Paul school district is contemplating a major investment in laptops and tablets that could eventually ensure each middle and high school student has a device at school.