Afternoon announcements: Tony Bennett moves to Florida

Tony Bennet has been selected as Florida's new state education commissioner. Bennett lost his seat as the Indiana superintendent of public instruction in the November election. Huffington Post

Some states are deciding that the art of cursive writing is one that should be prserved. THe Kansas State Board of Education believes cursive belongs in schools and adopted a policy statement this week encouraging educators to continue teaching it. Lawrence World-Journal

The D.C. teacher of the year has been named. Julia King is a 7th-grade teacher at D.C. Prep Public Charter School. Mayor Vincent Gray surprised her in her classroom last week with the announcement. Washington Post

It's well known that standardized tests quantify what students know in core subject areas, but what about health and sex ed? D.C. released standardized test scores from 5th and 8th-graders in health and sexual education for the efirst time this week. The students performed well on the health section but lacked knowledge on human anatomy. Washington Post

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Afternoon announcements: 60 percent of parents know "nothing" about Common Core

With the Common Core State Standards adopted in 46 states and in the District of Columbia and set to take full effect in 2014, parents should know what they are what they mean for their children. Only 7 percent of adults say they know “a lot” about the standards and 60 percent report knowing nothing at all about them, according to a July report by Achieve. US News

To rectify the skills gap – job openings without the skilled workers to fill them – Florida Gov. Rick Scott, and republican lawmakers, are encouraging the state universities to encourage students to pick certain majors by giving tuition breaks for them. New York Times

Long gone are the days of teachers calling individual students’ names to a chorus of, “Here!” and “Present!” In todays’ 21st, technology driven century, there are other means of taking roll, including, believe it or not, microchips. One student in Texas says the chips – a type of surveillance system – go against her religious beliefs. Wall Street Journal

Have reporters misrepresented a new report from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) showing students in 4th and 8th grade are behind on the vocabulary they’re expected to know? Mother Jones

Georgetown University is set to join the ranks of other elite schools involved in edX, a program that allows students around the world to participate in classes online. Washington Post
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Afternoon announcements: If Indiana won't have Tony Bennett, maybe Florida will

Is your school district hanging on the edge of the fiscal cliff? The cliff, or the situation the nation will be in if sequestration (automatic spending cuts) go into effect, may affect some school districts more than others. Politics K-12

Tony Bennett may have lost his re-election bid for Indiana State Superintendent of Public Instruction, but it doesn’t mean he’s out of politics. He’s seeking the same job in Florida. In Florida, the position is appointed by the governor, not elected. Indy Star

What if, instead of standardized homework, students were able to work at their own pace? Some educators in the Urbandale school district are allowing their students to do just that. Instead of homework, students take on “quests,” that give them the opportunity to take their education into their own hands. Des Moines Register

It has long been touted that university classrooms may not be the best place for teachers to learn to teach. Maybe the same is true for principals learning to lead. Principal-preparation initiatives – programs that train principals-to-be in the districts and schools they may end up leading, are growing. Education Week

Jeb Bush writes an opinion piece arguing that one solution to the fiscal challenges in higher education is an increased emphasis on online classes. Learning online is inexpensive – it doesn’t involve dorms, gyms or debt. Newsday
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Afternoon Announcements: Friday, August 31

Before you hit the road for that last weekend at the beach, we invite you to enjoy today's afternoon announcements. Besides, wouldn't you rather read the latest education news instead of spending hours sitting in a traffic jam?

Our first three articles for today focus on the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida. The Tampa Bay Times reports on former Florida Governor Jeb Bush's speech at the convention yesterday, when he called the need for better schools "the great moral and economic issue of our time." The Huffington Post has the complete text of Bush's speech.

Also reporting from Tampa, Alyson Klein of Education Week says that the Common Core State Standards are "dividing" the Republican party. "On the one hand," she writes, "there's Jeb Bush, a key Romney surrogate and the former GOP governor of Florida. He points out that a majority of GOP governors have embraced the standards." On the other hand is Gayle Ruzeicka, president of the Utah Eagle Forum, and a delegate to the Republican National Convention," who calls the standards "Obama Core."

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Afternoon Announcements: July 24, 2012

If society operated on a four-day work week, Tuesday would be the Monday of that week. Think about it. Amazing. Just like some of today’s announcements. Read on, intrepid High School Soup devotee!

The Huffington Post and Education Week both have reports today on the Obama administration’s “shopping sheet,” a guide to academic institutions’ costs and graduation rates. Being part of the shopping sheet is voluntary, but the guide is an important first step to making this information understandable, and transparent, for students and their families.

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Afternoon Announcements: July 13, 2012

It’s Friday! Hooray! Please accept both our afternoon announcements and our wishes for a fantastic weekend. We’ll see you Monday!

The Washington Post leads off today with a story on the American Civil Liberties Union’s lawsuit against the state of Michigan, which alleges that the state is violating the “right to learn” of children in the Highland Park School District. The suit says, “hundreds of students in the Highland Park School District are functionally illiterate,” according to the article. This sets up an interesting legal battle about education as a right for students.

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Afternoon Announcements: June 7, 2012

Today's announcements focus on (1) the economic impact of one high school class in Florida; (2) end-of-course exams in Houston; (3) a new summer online learning program in Florida that costs the same as the old program, but provides access to 50,000 more students than the old model; (4) the pros and cons of "flipping" a classroom; and (5) lessons that the U.S. could learn from the best-performing nations on preparing teachers to teach in the twenty-first century. Enjoy!

Citing data from the Alliance for Excellent Education's economic model, the Gulf Breeze News writes that the 360 graduates from the Gulf Breeze High School Class of 2012 are expected to earn as much as $4.3 million more in an average year compared to their likely earnings had they not earned a high school diploma. The spending and investments made by these graduates, combined, will likely be enough to support as many as 30 new jobs in the state and increase the gross regional product by as much as $4.5 million by the time they reach their career midpoints.

The Houston Chronicle examines Texas’s new end-of-course exams and discovers that high school students can pass most of these exams by answering fewer than half of the questions correctly. In the article, Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott said the decision was made to phase in the standards, starting low and increasing them through 2016 because students need time to adjust to the much more difficult questions. Houston Independent School District Superintendent Terry Grier, who is also a prominent business leader, disagreed with the approach and said the lower bar would give students, teachers and the public a skewed picture of schools’ performance.

 

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Afternoon Announcements: May 31, 2012

The big news at the Alliance today is the release of our latest report, Culture Shift: Teaching in a Learner-Centered Environment Powered by Digital Learning. The report details what educators and schools will require to implement genuine teaching practices that are personalized for each student. Digital learning, the report argues, can be a major strategy for enabling teachers to meet varied students’ needs while also supporting necessary cultural shifts in teaching. Alliance President Bob Wise will have some thoughts about the release this afternoon, so watch this space!

Beyond Culture Shift, there are some other interesting bits of news to relay.

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Stats That Stick: May 23, 2012

Oh those Sticky Stats! Here are some education statistics that made headlines in the past week that you (hopefully) won’t be able to get out of your head.

Maximum amount of funds a district could receive from the Department of Education’s newly-announced school district level Race to the Top program: $25 million.

This week, the Department of Education announced that school districts will be able to submit proposals for education innovations to improve their schools. This round of Race to the Top, which as a competitive program is now in its third year, will focus on individualized instruction and also require applying school districts to agree to evaluate school board members and superintendents. This round of Race to the Top is expected to have about $400 million up for grabs for 15-20 winning districts.

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Afternoon Announcements: May 18, 2012

Stateline.org reports that Delaware Governor Jack Markell defended the new Common Core English and math state standards at a meeting in Philadelphia on Thursday. The article says Markell dismissed the contention that national benchmarks for what students should be learning are part of a “high-level conspiracy from the federal government” to impose its standards on states.

The Philadelphia Public Schools Notebook reports on the city's broken pipeline to college. It notes that only seventeen of the 145 students who started ninth grade at North Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin High School in fall 2005 enrolled in a four-year college. Citywide, only 25 percent of students who started 9th grade in one of Philadelphia's neighborhood high schools that year enrolled in any postsecondary education, compared to almost 80 percent of students who started at the city's most selective magnet high schools. Of those 145 students, seventy-two earned a high school diploma--seventy-three have not.

The New York Times reports that New York City officials have have abandoned plans to negotiate with the union for the removal of some 830 teachers who do not have permanent jobs, but are still salaried, costing the city millions of dollars each year. Instead, Chancellor Dennis M. Walcott proposed on Thursday to offer buyouts to those teachers to leave the system.

The PBS NewsHour spotlights a journalism program in Florida that gives students a reason to stay in school.

 

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