Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
A story in Education Daily explains how although a bipartisan compromise on an ESEA reauthorization bill next year will be difficult, it could provide political benefits for both parties. Bob Wise, president of the Alliance, is quoted as saying, “I'm somewhat bullish that education can be an issue in which both parties can come together. Unlike 1994, when Republicans did not know how to be in the majority, and Democrats didn't know how to be in the minority, folks have learned how to switch. Both sides have had training. Presumptive House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and the House Republican leadership team are much more ready to hit the ground running. 2011 can be in education what welfare reform was in 1994.”
In an op-ed in the Washington Post, Jim Simons, a mathematician and retired founder of Renaissance Technologies, writes, “Whatever is happening during high school, the result is that too few of our kids who go on to college are prepared or inspired to major in math, science or engineering, the bedrock of the new economy.”
The New York Timesreports on the rising number of college applications that selective schools receive and asks when is enough enough?
Montgomery County schools are implementing several recommended changes in math curriculum such as elementary and middle school students will no longer skip grade levels in math in large numbers, instead, they will spend extra time on fundamental mathematical concepts that will better prepare them for Algebra I in the eighth grade and advanced math topics in high school.
The Washington Diplomat details several organizations’ efforts to improve the high school graduation rate in the United States.
A high school newspaper in Santa Monica, CA, calls for an honorable solution to student tracking.
The Dallas Morning Newswrites about the 3,500 students navigating virtual classrooms at 3 Texas public online schools.
An article in Highlands Today (FL) finds that dual enrollment saves students time and money.
Wade Gilley, who has served as the president of five colleges and universities over the past 50 years and as Virginia's secretary of education from 1978 to 1982, writes an op-ed in the Richmond Times-Dispatch defending some of his higher education reform ideas including a three-year degree program. Also in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, a story about a financial services company's private foundation making a three-year commitment to strengthening Virginia high school students' knowledge of personal finance.
According to theHouston Chronicle about 99 percent of teachers in the Houston school district receive satisfactory job evaluations, with their students' academic success barely playing a factor.
The New York Timesreports that many school districts are bolstering their antiharassment rules with early lessons in tolerance.
Junia Yearwood, a retired Boston Public Schools teacher who taught at English High for 25 years, writes in the Boston Globe, “The Boston school system is churning out illiterate students whose only skills are to pass predictable standard tests.”
According to the Des Moines Register, progress at Iowa’s schools is stagnant despite nearly 1,000 full-time teaching positions that were added during a five-year period when improving students' academic skills was heavily emphasized.
At a time of increasing financial and political turmoil, more New Jersey schools fared poorly in the latest performance ratings under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the New Jersey Newsroom reports.
The Journal-Sentinel reports that systemic changes are coming for state's public school teachers in Wisconsin.