By Brittany Hutson A report released in mid-November by A+ Schools, an independent community organization based in Pittsburgh that advocates for improved student achievement, revealed that the achievement gap between Black and White students is narrowing but it will take 40 years to be eliminated. But what’s even more discouraging about the report’s results is […]
(Chicago Sun Times) — The Chicago Teachers Union was among seven organizations Wednesday to demand that Chicago move to a 13-member elected school board that would strip the next mayor of the power to appoint board members. Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis and others contended an array of reforms under a board appointed by […]
The city has the dollars, the challenge now is to make sense of what reform actually means.
(Washington Post) — The Columbia Heights couple planned to spend the holidays mulling over seating assignments and experimenting with apple pie recipes for the 80 guests invited to their spring wedding. Instead, William Neville and Daniel Rehbehn will head to the courthouse in the next few days to file their marriage papers, concerned that the […]
(Wall Street Journal) — Months after winning $700 million in the federal Race to the Top competition, New York state’s education department says it needs another $18 million, and is turning to foundations, hedge fund managers and other private donors for the money. The $18 million will pay for systems, technology and research that will […]
(Washington Examiner) — Kaya Henderson is tired of breaking china. The interim D.C. schools chancellor remembers a class she took in college: Cycles of Revolution, something like that. It explained that when something is broken, people reach a boiling point. There’s a bloody battle in the streets. And then people look up: They realize their […]
(Wall Street Journal) — A higher percentage of teachers will likely fail to get tenure this year, an education department official said, as the city moves to make more difficult the path to lifetime employment. Traditionally, tenure is granted three years and a day after teachers begin working. Once they get tenure, they are difficult […]
(New York Times) — In defending his selection for schools chancellor, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has called Cathleen P. Black, a publishing executive with no education experience, “exactly the right person for the job” and suggested that her skills as a manager were unrivaled. Ms. Black, however, was not the first person the mayor asked to take […]
(AJC) — A committee of state education leaders and members of the Georgia Charter Schools Commission agreed Wednesday on a proposed funding level for cyber campuses. The group recommended that virtual schools approved by the commission should receive $5,800 a student on average, about $2,400 more than they were offered previously. The figure was proposed after a […]
(Chicago Sun Times) — Thousands of Chicago Public School students have been unfairly flunked and forced to repeat a grade due to broken promises by CPS officials in implementing a controversial promotion policy, a parent group is expected to charge today. About 100,000 students have repeated a grade since 1996, at an estimated cost of […]
(Wall Street Journal) — Former Washington, D.C., schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee launched a national advocacy group Monday to support political candidates and school districts that embrace substantial changes in public education. Through the group, StudentsFirst, Ms. Rhee hopes to raise $1 billion to dole out to political candidates who support her policies and to local […]
(Wall Street Journal) — The election of a tough-talking new teachers’ union head here could complicate efforts to turn around the capital’s struggling school system, just as the fragile national effort to overhaul public schools faces a change in educational leaders in this and two other big cities. Officials who took over in the wake […]