Friday’s news roundup:
1. Ohio Gov. John Kasich proposes a new voucher program for low- and middle-income families.
2. Parents and teachers speak out against the Common Core.
3. Wisconsin, Washington, and Virginia lawmakers want to publicly grade schools A-F (video with WI Gov. Scott Walker).
4. What do parents and teachers think about increasing class sizes to give teachers a raise?
5. When older, more experienced teachers retire, student achievement remains steady or goes up, a study finds.
6. Can charter schools replace traditional public schools?
7. Missouri, Oklahoma, Montana, and Colorado introduce academic freedom legislation allowing science teachers to present both sides of a controversy.
8. Maryland, Georgia, and DC are behind on their federal education grant promises.
9. Mississippi has the worst charter school laws in the nation.
10. Track New York spending on a new website here.
Thursday’s news roundup:
1. Nevada’s governor proposes tax-credit scholarships. State lawmakers want even more school options.
2. New Hampshire activists sue to stop tax-credit scholarships.
3. California school districts issue hundreds of bonds with payments not due for decades and interest costs as high as 23 times the amount borrowed.
4. The number of children who want to attend Chicago charter schools has multiplied.
5. New Jersey should pass vouchers for poor students slotted into failing schools.
6. Wisconsin lawmakers consider more school chocie, accountability.
7. A Virginia House committee passed forward a bill to grade schools A-F.
8. Tiring of school funding lawsuits, Kansas lawmakers move towards proposing a state constitutional amendment.
9. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell proposes having the state manage failing schools.
10. A new study finds that charter schools that start weak don’t tend to improve.
Wednesday’s news roundup:
1. States react to the draft Common Core science standards, which incorporate alarmist global warming for the first time and shift focus away from content.
2. Students without the internet at home study at McDonald’s after the library closes.
3. Local school board leaders tell U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan to stop usurping their authority.
4. Sixteen states have improved their charter school laws in the past year, says the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. But not Virginia, where Democrats recently killed a charter bill despite their party’s support for charters.
5. Will “big data” in education lead towards a totalitarian system?
6. Texas educators from rural and urban schools have opposite opinions on guns in schools.
7. Low-performing public schools try blending in-person and online-learning.
8. Students go to college for the country club atmosphere, not to learn, a new study concludes.
9. Get a University of Wisconsin degree online, no class time required.
10. Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam wants to cap virtual school enrollment after poor test scores surfaced.
Tuesday’s news roundup:
1. A South Dakota bill would give private and home school parents tax breaks.
2. The School Choice Week train rumbles through Kansas.
3. New standards for kindergarten are stressing tiny kids.
4. Montana residents rally for tax-credit scholarships.
5. A significant number of college graduates are employed in jobs that only require high school.
6. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker wants to spend more on schools and cut income taxes.
7. A Utah bill would allow taxpayers to see every expenditure schools make.
8. Why the Common Core English standards are rubbish.
9. Idaho’s legislature is considering four bills that would limit teachers unions.
10. Maine teachers want student learning to count for 10 percent of their evaluations.
Monday’s news roundup:
1. Public schools must provide disabled students their own sports teams or eliminate sports teams for all kids, the U.S. Department of Education has ruled.
2. Check out a new report outlining each state’s teacher prep policies.
3. Illinois is one of the first states to illustrate how America’s debt and pensions bomb is hurting schools.
4. After one year on the job, a New York City teacher who confessed to sexually harassing students stayed employed for 13 years and collected a $1 million in salary and benefits.
5. Seattle teachers have refused to administer new standardized tests.
6. Michigan teacher unions will use “any means” to keep newly freed teachers from dropping their memberships.
7. Activists are using civil rights as an excuse to stop cities like Detroit, Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia from closing or fixing poor-performing inner-city schools.
8. Students learn better through primary sources, not textbooks.
9. Milwaukee teachers can earn college credit and a higher salary by attending racism classes.
10. Colorado lawmakers want to mandate tax-paid school breakfast.
For last week’s School Reform News roundup, click here.
For other top-notch school reform news selections, visit:
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.
