Friday’s ed news
WISCONSIN: A federal judge upholds contentious collective bargaining limits.
PARENT TRIGGER: Why it’s a bad long-term idea and good short-term idea.
OBAMACARE: The U.S. Department of Education partially responds to several senators’ questions over its assistance implementing ObamaCare. Meanwhile, the feds are giving universities grants to sign more people up for ObamaCare.
CALIFORNIA: The legislature sends the governor a bill changing testing requirements despite protests from the U.S. education secretary.
WISCONSIN: A legislative leader says he wants to hold hearings on Common Core but just hasn’t gotten his act together yet.
COMMON CORE EXEMPLARS: The Bluest Eyes isn’t the only soft porn novel the standards recommend (adult language warning).
TEXAS: The state is stepping up efforts to prevent test cheating.
FLORIDA: The House Speaker discusses what’s ahead for Common Core.
ENGLISH CLASS: Why Common Core’s “close reading” will hurt kids.
Thursday’s ed news
KENTUCKY: The governor will override a legislative panel to implement national science standards.
KENYA: Inexpensive private schools far outpace tax-sponsored, “totally dysfunctional” government schools because parents have control over the outcome.
WISCONSIN: Thirty-four lawmakers pressure their colleagues to hold hearings on Common Core.
CALIFORNIA: A bill intended to protect students from abusive teachers may actually make it harder to dismiss such teachers after the union got a hold of it.
LOS ANGELES: The district releases guidance to parents and schools on how to pull the Parent Trigger.
NORTH CAROLINA: Some 170 charter schools could open in 2015, more than doubling the state’s current roster.
INDIANA: The state’s Democrat superintendent leaked her GOP predecessor’s emails to AP with the intent to smear him, insiders say.
TECH: What kids do with iPads in school.
HIGHER ED: Existing college rankings already release virtually all of the information President Obama wants the government to publish for college “accountability.”
Wednesday’s ed news
COMMON CORE: Why the standards flunk logic 101, from a logic professor.
NORTH DAKOTA: In the past five years, the state has increased teacher pay and education spending by at least 30 percent.
MISSOURI: Lawmakers consider limiting teacher tenure.
GEORGIA: The state will now require ninth graders to pick a career path.
NEW JERSEY: The state supreme court hears an appeal from a charter school that has applied to open six times.
TEXAS: The state’s K-12 enrollment is majority Hispanic.
ALABAMA: The GOP formally censures a state board of education member for supporting Common Core.
TEACHING: Yet another study finds kids learn more with Teach for America teachers.
NEW MEXICO: It’s difficult to find how state schools for the deaf and blind perform.
Tuesday’s ed news
EMPOWERMENT: How school choice allows parents to be entrepreneurs for their children’s futures.
FEDERAL: The U.S. Department of Education refuses to give Texas a No Child Left Behind waiver because it wants more testing. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan also says he’ll shoot down California’s plan to suspend tests until Common Core national tests arrive in a year.
SCHOOL LUNCH: Four more states decide to feed kids “pink slime” this year because of expensive federal regulations.
PHILADELPHIA: Kids head back to school in emaciated buildings as leaders continue to struggle with massive debt.
COMMON CORE: A new report from Texas’s former education commissioner describes how Common Core undermines state and local autonomy over K-12 education.
VERMONT: Becomes the first state to offer poor students taxpayer-paid lunch and breakfast.
INDIANA: Meanwhile, state leaders wonder about school lunch fraud because the federal government forbids schools from checking if families are eligible for lunch subsidies.
HIGHER ED: It’s not just the United States. European colleges have also become essentially junior high schools in terms of academic quality.
Monday’s ed news
LOUISIANA: State lawyers seek a delay of the Obama administration’s lawsuit against Louisiana’s vouchers program.
INDIANA: A legislative review panel clears former state Superintendent Tony Bennett for changing the state grade of a school that contributed to his campaign.
MISSOURI: An audit of Saint Louis schools finds, of many problems, the district keeps passing myriad students into the next grade despite not having mastered their last, which may violate state law.
CALIFORNIA: How the teachers union hopes to take down mostly non-unionized charter schools.
NEBRASKA: An independent study finds the state’s English standards are better than Common Core, but its math standards are a bit trickier to compare.
EMOTIONAL TESTING: Yale and other elite entities want to start evaluating children for emotional intelligence.
ILLINOIS: The state raises the bar for teacher certification, and the union complains because it wants teachers chosen according to skin color rather than competence.
CALIFORNIA: The governor signs a new law requiring districts to report teacher misconduct in response to a Los Angeles sex scandal.
FLORIDA: A local school board member is concerned about Common Core.
For last week’s School Reform News roundup, click here.
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Image by Mo Riza.
Joy Pullmann is a research fellow on education policy for The Heartland Institute and managing editor of The Federalist, a web magazine on politics, policy, and culture.
