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
School choice helps students and taxpayers
Op-Ed, Star Ledger, NJ, January 21, 2014
Every 26 seconds, a student drops out of a school in America. For too long, we’ve struggled with a dropout crisis in our country, but the problem isn’t just limited to the significant personal, emotional and psychological toll that “dropping out” has on an individual child.
Study: Charter Schools Raise Nearby Home Values by Thousands of Dollars
National Review Online, January 20, 2014
One of the most consistent results found in the education literature is that school choice leads to high levels of satisfaction among parents. Researchers normally measure parental satisfaction with simple surveys, but a new paper by Robert Shapiro and Kevin Hassett offers a more rigorous test: Are parents willing to pay a premium to live in an area with more school options?
STATE COVERAGE
CONNECTICUT
School choice promoted on King holiday
Waterbury Republican American, CT, January 21, 2014
Having turned down a spot at a magnet school to enroll his 5-year-old in a charter school this school year, Maurice Holness could be a poster father for school choice in Connecticut.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
D.C. schools change IMPACT evaluations for principals
Washington Post, DC, January 20, 2014
D.C. Public Schools officials have changed how they evaluate principals in response to complaints that the previous system — which rated more than half of the city’s principals below “effective” — was unfair and too tightly hitched to student test scores.
FLORIDA
League of Women Voters talk charter school oversight
St. Augustine Record, FL, January 21, 2014
The League of Women Voters discussed tax dollars at its meeting this month.
New Jax Charter School Strives To Close Achievement Gap For Minority Students
WJCT NEWS, FL, January 20, 2014
The graduation rate in Florida for male African American students is just under 60 percent. However, there’s a lot of momentum in Jacksonville aimed at closing the achievement gap.
ILLINOIS
CPS needs more high-quality charter schools
Editorial, Chicago Tribune, IL, January 21, 2014
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle jumped into the fray last week over charter schools in Chicago. The Chicago Board of Education is scheduled to vote Wednesday on whether to approve as many as 17 new charter school campuses, eight months after the board voted to close 49 schools.
CPS to hear new charter school proposals
Chicago Tribune, IL, January 21, 2014
The latest round of charter school expansion in Chicago has been met with a long string of protests by parents and community leaders who question Chicago Public Schools’ claims that it is pushing charters primarily for neighborhoods where classrooms are overcrowded.
In Chicago, charter schools remain untouchable
Opinion, Chicago Reader, IL, January 21, 2014
Yet I can think of a million reasons the expansion should be put on hold. For starters, the more money the mayor spends building new charters, the less money he has for existing schools that are already so broke they’re worried about paying for toilet paper.
Teachers, parents fear proposal to lift class-size limits will hurt special ed kids
Chicago Sun Times, IL, January 20, 2014
A proposal to eliminate class-size restrictions for special education students has galvanized the state’s teachers unions and parents who are concerned that those students will be dumped into larger classes with fewer staff or staff ill-equipped to serve them.
INDIANA
Students should stay on the sidelines if they pick schools without athletics
Herald Times, IN, January 21, 2014
A bill that would make it possible for young people going to charter schools to play sports at the high school in their home district was scheduled to be heard in the House Education Committee this morning. As outlined in a story by Mike Miller in Monday’s H-T, one local teen would benefit greatly from passage of the bill.
MASSACHUSETTS
Cuts in state aid have Boston’s schools straining
Boston Globe, MA, January 21, 2014
The Boston public school system is grappling with declining state educational aid, a trend that is forcing the district to rely more on property taxes and other revenue from the city’s general fund to pay for new initiatives and overhauls of failing schools.
MICHIGAN
Education reform: a bait and switch
Opinion
Lansing State Journal, MI
January 21, 2013
Then, came the switch! The reformers from the Mackinac Center of Public Policy and their legislative partners restricted teachers’ rights, circumscribed professional autonomy, and weakened their associations. Punitive legislation was passed labeling teachers.
NEW JERSEY
Students protest for equal funding on MLK Day
The Trentonian, NJ, January 20, 2014
About a dozen eighth-grade students from Foundation Academy held a rally at the State House to advocate for equal funding for charter schools and equal access to education in Trenton.
NEW MEXICO
Bill would lower bar for diploma
Albuquerque Journal, NM, January 21, 2014
Lawmakers coming into session today are expected to weigh a variety of education policy issues – ranging from a new proposal to lower requirements for a high school diploma to holding back third-graders who struggle to read, a proposal that has been debated the last three sessions.
NEW YORK
A bill to save New York’s Catholic schools
Opinion, New York Post, NY, January 21, 2014
One answer to the financial issue facing parents would be the adoption of a state Education Investment Tax Credit, as a bill now working its way through the Legislature would allow. This would increase the tax incentives for individuals and businesses to make charitable donations to nonprofit groups that offer scholarships for students to attend Catholic, Jewish and other private schools.
Careers & Mentoring Focus of New Charter School
WROC-TV, NY, January 20, 2014
There are about 3,300 students attending 11 charter schools in Rochester. Four more charter schools will open this fall. One of them is Vertus Charter School. It will be a high school for boys with a career focus. The boys will take some classes online. The school will also have an intense mentoring program.
Charter-school supporters give generously to Cuomo
Capital New York, NY, January 20, 2014
Governor Andrew Cuomo received several donations from charter-school supporters in the last six months, including a $40,000 gift from a billionaire who is a major donor to a system of charters in Albany.
Free the teachers from automatic dues
Editorial, New York Post, NY, January 21, 2014
A favorite talking point for the teachers union is that charter-school operators earn more than the schools chancellor.
Pre-K on the Starting Blocks
Editorial, New York Times, NY, January 20, 2014
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to offer full-day preschool to every New York City 4-year-old hasn’t yet rounded the corner from election slogan to classroom reality. But it’s moving: a public-relations campaign on Friday started blitzing the city with leaflets and emails to drum up support for the tax to pay for it.
NORTH CAROLINA
Will PACE Academy Make The Grade? Charter Serving Special Needs Kids Could Shut Down
WUNC, NC, January 21, 2014
When founders Jane Miller and Rhonda Franklin got the news that their charter school may not be around next year, they were overcome with the same feeling.
NC should move ahead on national testing linked to Common Core
Editorial, News & Observer, NC, January 20, 2014
Some conservatives see the Common Core State Standards Initiative as a conspiracy to install a one-size-fits-all standard for language and math testing that will somehow change the face of American education and remove all flexibility.
OKLAHOMA
Oklahoma educators decry change in student categorization
Tulsa World, OK, January 21, 2014
Due to a change in how the state categorizes students, Oklahoma public schoolteachers will now be accountable for the test scores of students who may have missed as much as the first six weeks of school, officials say.
PENNSYLVANIA
Nutter calls school funding an issue of inequality
Philadelphia Inquirer, PA, January 21, 2014
With Gov. Corbett seated just feet away, Mayor Nutter used an appearance at a Martin Luther King’s Birthday ceremony Monday to call for full funding of public schools, his speech a subtle jab at an administration blamed for budget cuts that have left public schools in crisis.
Teacher union’s lesson plan for failure
Commentary, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, PA, January 20, 2014
When the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation offered Pittsburgh Public Schools $40 million, it was a godsend to the cash-strapped school system. But to the American Federation of Teachers, the city’s teachers union, and AFT President Randi Weingarten, the idea that school funding might be tied to improving children’s education was anathema. The grant had to go.
TENNESSEE
TN lawmakers balk at Common Core school standards
The Tennessean, TN, January 21, 2014
Republican lawmakers are putting the final touches on legislation that would delay the implementation of Common Core education standards and the companion test in Tennessee, perhaps setting the stage for the type of fight playing out in statehouses across the country.
TEXAS
School Finance Trial Reopens, With a Political Backdrop
Texas Tribune, TX, January 21, 2014
With the Texas school finance trial reopening Tuesday, state district court Judge John Dietz is set to consider how changes made during the 2013 legislative session could affect his February ruling that the state has underfunded its public schools.
WISCONSIN
New voucher plan for special-needs students revives dispute
Journal Sentinel, WI, January 20, 2014
A proposal to allow special-needs students to attend private schools at taxpayer expense is being revived, the latest effort by Republicans in the Legislature to give parents more options outside traditional public schools.
STEM Academy adds high school grades
Coeur d’Alene Press, WI, January 21, 2014
Beginning this fall, North Idaho STEM Academy will open the doors on its Rathdrum campus to high school students.
ONLINE LEARNING
Digital learning: Don’t fear the future
Opinion, St. Augustine Record, FL, January 19, 2014
It was Albert Einstein who penned, “I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.” “Soon enough” is here for our county school system. It is embarking on a journey to phase in electronic curricula and phase out books.
FG tries school out of school
Muskogee Phoenix, OK, January 20, 2014
Not one student sat in Britton Nevitt’s math classroom Monday at Fort Gibson High School. But her students kept her busy, checking in with her, asking questions, even taking tests via email.