Friday’s ed news
MISSISSIPPI: The House kills an education savings account bill for special-needs students.
OKLAHOMA: The Senate votes to repeal and replace Common Core.
GEORGIA: Parents sue to stop the state’s K-12 tax-credit scholarship program.
SOUTH CAROLINA: The state drops federally funded national Common Core tests.
MICHIGAN: Several school districts still have contracts that require hiring based on race.
CHARTERS: A federal bill would give charter schools more money to get started.
DC: A new lottery for charter schools eases, but doesn’t eliminate, waiting lists.
PRE-K: Why it’s a problem that lots of preschool research is based on very old studies.
Thursday’s ed news
TENNESSEE: A Parent Trigger proposal passes the House education committee.
NEW YORK: The state will finally ditch controversial student data collector inBloom.
TEXAS: How a band of mothers took on the state’s standardized test regime—and won.
KANSAS: Hackers take down the state’s tests, invalidating thousands of results.
ILLINOIS: A raft of anti-charter school bills has been introduced this session, threatening the state’s success story with school choice.
NEW YORK: The state’s budget deal unfairly advantages New York City charter schools over the same schools elsewhere in the state, says the Center for Education Reform.
Wednesday’s ed news
NEW YORK: Parents and teachers opt kids out of tests in droves and pour anger on lawmakers for not heeding their Common Core concerns.
FLORIDA: Parents school the PTA on school choice by explaining how it has made a difference for their kids.
CALIFORNIA: What school districts of choice look like.
NEW MEXICO: Gov. Martinez proposes that the state stop collecting dues for unions.
MICHIGAN: Up to 60 percent of Michigan’s largest districts are violating the law by including illegal provisions in union contracts, says a new report.
SPECIAL ED: The time has come for charter schools to start working their magic on disabled children, says Allison Hertog.
SNOW DAYS: Spring means canceling breaks and extending school’s out dates to make up for this winter’s mess of snow days.
FAKE SCIENCE: Colleges have begun to teach global warming through fiction books and film.
Tuesday’s ed news
MEDIA: A statistical analysis finds that the media did, indeed, drop the ball on reporting Common Core.
CHARTERS: The chair of the U.S. House education committee introduces bipartisan legislation to expand charters with federal funds.
KENTUCKY: A state senator explains how Common Core creates educational inequities and doesn’t fit the high standards she wanted for students.
TENNESSEE: The state wants to extend its No Child Left Behind waiver and change how it will measure schools. Because Common Core tests will not allow for comparisons to previous years, the state wants to instead compare school performance by district.
VIRGINIA: The state names a new education superintendent.
SCHOOL BOARDS: A new report looks at what kind of school boards improve student performance.
Monday’s ed news
FLORIDA: The House tries to breathe life into a formerly failed measure to expand school choice.
KENTUCKY: The Senate passes a version of the Parent Trigger bill to allow parents to demand reforms to failing schools.
TENNESSEE: A Senate panel passes a Parent Trigger bill that would allow parents of kids attending a failing school to require reforms.
MISSOURI: A teacher testifies on being intimidated and threatened for opposing Common Core.
KANSAS: Lawmakers take a school choice measure out of an education budget bill.
POLITICS: Promoting school choice can help win black votes for Republicans, Thomas Sowell says.
FEDS: Check out this “cheat sheet” on states’ year three reports on what they’re doing with billions in federal Race to the Top money.
DC: Schools try paying kids for high scores on advanced exams.
MICHIGAN: Two teachers win a lawsuit against their union, and now have the freedom to drop membership.
TENNESSEE: Parents and children wrestle with abstract math lessons demanded by Common Core.
NEW YORK: New York City and the state reach an agreement about money for preschool, Common Core tests, and more.
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.
