Friday’s ed news
COMMON CORE: Business interests are pouring money into convincing lawmakers to keep national education mandates.
OPT OUT: Parents nationwide report being pressured against opting their children out of tests.
FLORIDA: A bill would let schools designate a trained employee to carry a concealed firearm on campus.
KANSAS: Another year of technical difficulties for annual tests invalidates the results.
CHOICE: Why “accountability” shouldn’t mean making all schools the same.
MATH WARS: How to know if your child’s school is using “fuzzy math,” and why that will damage your child’s learning.
NATIONAL: Teach For America, which places elite college graduates in needy schools, is piloting an extra year of training for recruits.
SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT: The feds continue to spend money on a program their own data proves a failure.
Thursday’s ed news
ACCOUNTABILITY: Americans face a choice between two paths that will guide education in this nation for generations: self-government and central planning.
MISSISSIPPI: The Senate passed education savings accounts for special-needs kids yesterday.
FLORIDA: Democrats joined Republicans in moving forward a bill that would offer education savings accounts to special-needs kids.
NEW YORK: What’s wrong with the story about Mayor de Blasio attacking charter schools. Three questions for de Blasio about his hypocritical opposition to private money in education. And the real problem: de Blasio hasn’t any better reform ideas.
ILLINOIS: Parents say their kids are being pressured to not opt out of state tests.
Wednesday’s ed news
IDAHO: The House has passed tax-credit scholarship legislation.
NEW YORK: The state should drop student data-collection service inBloom, says a panel the governor appointed.
WASHINGTON: The state rushes to obey Uncle Sam so it can keep getting federal education money.
SCHOOL LUNCH: A GAO report confirms Michelle Obama’s changes to school lunches are causing higher costs, more waste, and other headaches.
ALABAMA: A bill would let school districts opt out of Common Core.
COLORADO: The state board of education chairman will ask lawmakers to drop national Common Core tests.
WISCONSIN: ObamaCare is forcing school districts to pay more for the same employees (using tax dollars) or cut their hours.
TENNESSEE: A new bill would require kids to learn cursive.
TESTING: Writing can only be evaluated properly with time and human interaction, not through machines, says Will Fitzhugh.
Monday’s ed news
TENNESSEE: A vouchers compromise narrowly advances in the House. It would give vouchers to low-income children attending the state’s worst 5 percent of schools.
COLORADO: A mother tries to opt her children out of state tests and gets the full Monte.
COMMON CORE: How states and school districts can opt out of Common Core without federal penalties.
NEW YORK: The Assembly passes a Common Core delay but rejects a repeal.
KANSAS: The state Supreme Court splits hairs in a decision on how much the state needs to spend on K-12 education.
MUSIC: Why music training broadens a child’s life and mind.
SOUTH DAKOTA: A student data protection bill passes the legislature unanimously.
KANSAS: A tiny school district takes up an offer of a free audit and discovers $200,000 in savings.
CALIFORNIA: Why “transitional kindergarten” (government preschool) will cost a lot of money and produce nothing.
HAWAII: An advocacy group pays teachers to attend “tolerance training” sessions that bash Christian groups.
For last week’s School Reform News roundup, click here.
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Image by Mo Riza.