Friday’s ed news:
1. The forthcoming Common Core science standards are unclear, drop important knowledge, and force failed teaching strategies.
2. Governors Jindal, McDonnell, and Bush get together today to discuss education reform.
3. The high number of teacher absences shortchange students.
4. Testing should be used as a ruler, not a hammer, opines the Austin American-Statesman.
5. Missouri legislators are looking to have voters decide whether to pass a right to work law.
6. The charter schools most likely to unionize are low-performing.
7. Strong athletics boost academics within a school, research finds.
8. Kansas’s attorney general has requested a mediator to resolve a court order to increase school spending $500 million.
9. North Carolina is one of 19 states that allow schools to spank children, but its state board of ed recommended a spanking ban.
10. A court rules against the Michigan attorney general’s request to depose 7 of 11 Detroit school board members.
Thursday’s ed news:
1. Obama allies will attack the administration’s waivers of No Child Left Behind in a congressional hearing this morning.
2. Montana legislative committees pass school choice bills for charter schools and tax-credit scholarships to private schools.
3. The Texas House vows to cut high school exit tests. Current proposal moves from 15 to 5.
4. Proposed expansions to Indiana vouchers would spark more private schools, opines the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel. More details.
5. Simulators will fire blanks during an Illinois school shooting drill.
6. California school districts are using federal school lunch money for other projects, such as roofs and sprinkler systems.
7. A bill that would allow teachers or administrators who successfully complete a basic police course to bring loaded handguns to school passed an Oklahoma legislative committee.
8. Like Indiana, North Carolina considers implementing a vocational high school diploma.
9. Why research that supports college for all is flawed.
10. The former leader of a national school chiefs organization will join a Common Core project.
Wednesday’s ed news:
1. Indiana should let kids have vouchers without making them go through a year of public school first, Gov. Mike Pence said.
2. Why increasing education spending is a waste, by Jonah Goldberg.
3. Congress and several states are considering repealing policies that allow government employees to lobby during work hours.
4. California is losing its better-educated workforce, an economist warns.
5. Most colleges make a mockery of the liberal arts, and their grads can’t get jobs.
6. Smart ways for schools to save money.
7. An Oklahoma House committee votes against a bill that would require all public school teachers to be U.S. citizens.
8. Iowa’s education panel passes a new system for mentor teachers who can earn more.
9. South Dakota lawmakers consider a bill to give scholarships to college students who will teach high-demand subjects.
10. Oregon lawmakers to consider a bill requiring every high school student to take a college class.
Tuesday’s ed news:
1. Two hundred children applied for 15 private K-12 scholarships in Chicago. The Chicago Tribune says this means time for school choice.
2. Alaskans consider a constitutional amendment to allow vouchers.
3. Montanans also want school choice.
4. Denver recruits second-career teachers for hard-to-fill spots. h/t EAG News.
5. Keeping bad schools open is a civil rights violation, says Naomi Schaefer Riley.
6. Teachers unions have begun to create fake “parent” groups to parrot their political agenda.
7. Virginia’s House passes two key parts of Gov. McDonnell’s education proposals.
8. Texas’s school finance system is unconstitutional, a district judge has ruled.
9. How universal preschool and childcare hurt children and society, from Sweden’s experience.
10. California’s teacher pension fund is $64 billion short, and to fix it would require backfilling $4.5 billion a year.
Monday’s ed news:
1. Texas Governor Rick Perry endorses vouchers and raising the state’s cap on public charter schools.
2. A Maryland school district proposes that it own the copyright for all teacher and student work.
3. The D.C. vouchers program produces $2.62 in benefits for each $1 spent on it, a new study finds.
4. The teachers union-mandated insurance provider for the country’s fifth-largest school district may go bankrupt within three months.
5. The head of a major Washington research institute discusses his $10,000 B.A.
6. Poor families urge New Hampshire lawmakers to keep the state’s new education tax credits.
7. Boys are becoming the new second sex in education.
8. Pennsylvania considers expanding tax-credit vouchers that offer poor families education opportunity.
9. Tennessee teachers don’t know of negative evaluations under the state’s new, test-score-tied system.
10. Students who are threatened with violence or bullying should be allowed to choose another school, writes Vicki Alger.
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.
