Daily Top Ten School Reform News Roundup, Aug. 27 to 31

Published August 31, 2012

Friday’s top ten:

1. An Atlanta teacher reportedly says she helped kids cheat because they’re “dumb as hell.”

2. A new study shows Milwaukee voucher students outperforming their public-schooled counterparts.

3. Chicago’s teachers union has set a strike date of September 10 as the district and parents scramble to care for kids.

4. America’s future depends on choice-based education reform, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush told the Republican National Convention yesterday.

5. Utah’s charter schools experiment in introducing school choice–as vouchers would to a greater extent–has been a success, editorializes the Deseret News.

6. A California assemblyman’s proposal to give unions more power over teacher evaluations has been shelved.

7. A new Gallup poll finds parents give top marks to private schools over public schools.

8. Is Teach for America working?

9. Why voucher schools should be permitted curricular freedom

10. ROTC has been allowed back on Yale University’s campus with an initial 21 students, after 40 years of being barred.

Thursday’s top ten:

1. The 2012 Republican platform on education supports, among other policies, vouchers, charter schools, and education tax credits. 

2. Virginia and the U.S. Education Department have agreed to a new set of No Child Left Behind waiver rules after uproar over different standards for white and minority students

3. New Mexico is considering legislation to eliminate its charter school appeals process, which would end all options for charter schools to open outside of district approval. 

4. Wisconsin Democrats want to increase education spending.

5. Minneapolis public schools and the teachers union local is refusing to release their newly negotiated contract.

6. Women are more likely than men to enroll in and complete college.

7. Some Ohio State professors have turned their classrooms into recruitment centers for the Obama campaign.

8. Labor unions are funding opposition to a Washington state ballot initiative that would allow charter schools in the state. 

9. Kansas has increased school spending but its ACT test scores have slightly declined over the past decade.

10. One tenth of Utah kids attend a charter school, a competitive situation one district school principal says gives families more options and pushes all schools to succeed.

Wednesday’s top ten:

1. Texas’s lieutenant governor has announced he will help shepherd a school vouchers bill through the legislature this year.

2. Grassroots contributors to the potential GOP 2012 platform frequently name ending the Common Core. Here’s one such petition.

3. Chicago’s teachers union has filed a notice it may strike within 10 days.

4. The latest ACT results demonstrate high schools are failing to educate students, write James Harrigan and Antony Davies.

5. A look at the Silicon Valley hackers aiming to disrupt higher education’s business model.

6. So many students are defaulting on federal loans that some California community colleges have started refusing to offer them.

7. What Alabama should do rather than request a federal No Child Left Behind waiver.

8. The National Education Association has highlighted its Ohio and Colorado union affiliates for their success in influencing elections and politics.

9. Detroit public schools need to get teachers to class before school starts, editorializes the Detroit News.

10. Watch the documentary A Right Denied: The Critical Need for Genuine School Reform.

Tuesday’s top ten: 

1. The Wall Street Journal condemns a California school board for defying the state’s Parent Trigger law.

2. The Texas legislature will be more conservative next year, setting up the state to consider vouchers and other forms of serious school choice.

3. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker talks about the connection between education policies and the nation’s jobs crisis.

4. Some San Antonio schools will track students’ locations through their ID cards.

5. It’s no surprise Peru’s distribution of laptops to schoolchildren did not boost learning, writes Michael Horn, because technology alone cannot transform education.

6. Charter schools pull up to a third of their students from private schools, concludes a new study. Cato’s Adam Schaeffer discusses the implications.

7. Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal comes out to strongly support passing a state constitution amendment to let the state authorize charter schools . 

8. After two years of bargaining, the state of Massachusetts will step into teachers union negotiations with Boston’s mayor.

9. Sixty percent of high school students are not prepared to enter college or a career, concludes the nonprofit ACT based on this year’s national test results.

10. Voters decide on school levy increases in Minnesota and Iowa today.

 

Monday’s top ten:

1. The ACLU has sent a report to the U.S. Department of Education insisting it bar single-sex classrooms from public schools.

2. Schools should return to signing individual contracts with teachers rather than mass contracts with unions, writes Gene Hickok.

3. Reducing healthcare spending and growing the economy are essential to reduce budget pressure on education spending.

4. Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam’s interest in spending more on state pre-K will further waste taxpayer money and harm children.

5. Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad’s education reform ideas were already passed into law in the state 10 years ago, and did nothing to improve the state’s schools.

6. Digital Learning Now has released a new paper detailing three strategies for funding a shift to digital learning.

7. Louisiana’s 60,000 public school teachers are about to face their first job evaluations, under new reforms signed by Gov. Bobby Jindal.

8. Auditors’ reports showing nearly no cheating in DC reaffirms that former chancellor Michelle Rhee’s reforms had positive effects, opines the Washington Post.

9. More schools with poor English speakers are integrating English instruction across all subjects.

10. The  new president of Colorado’s largest education union says she’s willing to join school reform efforts.

 

For last week’s School Reform News roundup, click here.
For other top-notch school reform news selections, visit: 

Image by Mo Riza