Friday’s news roundup:
1. Andrew Kelly reviews Parent-Trigger movie Won’t Back Down.
2. Virginia’s board of education defends lower goals for minorities and disabled students on state math tests.
3. National parent-teacher organizations are in court over allegations of member poaching.
4. Fewer students are attending graduate school.
5. Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback will not support a Republican candidate for state board of education who supports Westboro Baptist Church.
6. Pennsylvania’s education secretary is in a spat over whether his cheating clampdown lowered student test scores.
7. Father-daughter dances and mother-son baseball games promote gender stereotyping, says the ACLU, so it has sued a Rhode Island school district to stop them.
8. The Supreme Court is set to reconsider racial preferences in college admissions.
9. States are pursuing digital textbooks.
10. David Burnett argues campuses should allow concealed carry weapons.
Thursday’s news roundup:
1. Louisiana voucher families and schools are happy.
2. Texas Gov. Rick Perry talks education amid a new push for government spending containment.
3. Preparing to release a new education agenda, Florida Gov. Rick Scott embarks on a “listening tour.”
4. Nearly all Michigan teachers and principals still rate “effective” and 68 percent of their grades in college were As.
5. Pennsylvania’s public pension system is in crisis.
6. Florida can’t find a new education commissioner so is broadening its search.
7. New Hampshire heads towards “digital bookbags.”
8. The number of states requiring high school exit exams has quadrupled since 2002.
9. New Hampshire charter schools fight back, surprised by a new moratorium.
10. The Idaho education overhaul no one discusses.
Wednesday’s news roundup:
1. Students launch a viral video protesting the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.
2. Mitt Romney declared himself against federal involvement in the Common Core.
3. Once parents discover President Obama’s takeover of education, they will create a grassroots rebellion, writes Stanley Kurtz.
4. Here’s an overview of Indiana superintendent Tony Bennett’s state of education speech this week.
5. Michigan families on welfare will put their government checks at risk if their kids are chronically truant.
6. A Wisconsin teacher has sued her union for refusing to let her opt out of union membership.
7.A California bill on the governor’s desk would let professors assign students free, open-source textbooks rather than expensive conventional textbooks.
8. Former U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings reminds of what No Child Left Behind did right.
9. A Texas state senator wants to implement a statewide property tax for public schools.
10. To increase parental involvement in schools, Georgia is creating a statewide parent advisory committee.
Tuesday’s news roundup:
1. A student and her mother are complaining at their Texas school after both agreeing to let the school spank the 15-year-old girl for allegedly cheating.
2. “Education is ripe for conservatives,” write Rick Hess and Andrew Kelly in their proposed federal education agenda.
3. The Indiana Supreme Court is reviewing the state’s vouchers law this week.
4. This election cycle, teachers unions have doubled their campaign contributions to Republicans over the last election cycle.
5. Screenings of parent-trigger movie Won’t Back Down are packed in Tennessee and prompting discussion over introducing the law.
6. Almost two-thirds of high school students are not ready for college or a career based on their results on two national college entrance exams.
7. Hundreds of charter school students and supporters visited Pennsylvania’s capitol Monday to push for charter school reform.
8. Kindergarten testing is expanding rapidly.
9. Another study concludes that charter schools compete with Catholic schools.
10. A New Jersey Senate panel approved a bill to let school districts experiment with longer school days and/or years.
Monday’s news roundup:
1. How the Common Core English/language arts standards put college readiness at risk, from the Pioneer Institute.
2. The U.S. Department of Education’s directives on student bullying undermine free speech and due process, and greatly expand government, writes Hans Bader.
3. Controversy increases over a Michigan ballot proposal that would lock union preferences into the state constitution.
4. More than 100 Pennsylvania teachers could lose their certifications over a cheating scandal. Meanwhile, Pennsylvania legislators have charter school regulation at the top of their priorities list.
5. Negotiations over a new Washington, DC teacher contract are underway.
6. Continuing Idaho’s new teacher merit pay program depends on the November ballot.
7. As Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels prepares to take over Purdue University, insiders fear his preference for the private sector and cutting costs.
8. Chicago teachers will vote on their new contract Oct. 2.
9. Teacher strikes in Pennsylvania have gone down dramatically.
10. Why -studies programs are a wasteful, indoctrinating joke.
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.
