Afternoon announcements: Students protest Chicago school closings

Nine school districts in California have submitted a No Child Left Behind waiver application to the U.S. Department of Education. State officials have approved it, though reluctantly. Politics K-12

The Common Core State Standards offer educators a way to teach beyond worksheets and textbooks. One algebra teacher shares his excitement. Education Week

Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval is under attack from those who believe his $14 million program to help English-language learners is not enough. Struggling students need more resources, the opponents of the Governor’s program argue. Las Vegas Sun

Students have taken up the cause of fighting against Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to close 54 public schools in the city. One student believes that shifting students from schools with higher violence rates will negatively influence safety at the remaining schools. Chicago Tribune Read Entire Post

Afternoon Annoucements: December 2, 2011

Happy Friday!  If you haven’t headed to happy hour already, kick back and enjoy as we ease you into the weekend with today’s education news.

The editorial board at the Washington Post applauds Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s call to tackle the spiraling cost of college education by actually addressing the cost side of the equation as opposed to government solely focusing efforts on increasing federal aid and reducing interest costs on loans. Although acknowledging Secretary Duncan’s initiatives will not be a complete resolution to the enormous problem, the Washington Post calls it a “welcome dose of straight talk.”

 

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Morning Announcements: November 4, 2011

It's Friday again! This weekend marks the end of Daylight Savings Time for most of the country. Remember to turn your clocks back an hour on Saturday night, which will give you an extra hour to catch up on education news!

The Indiana State University newsroom reports that of the 2010 high school graduating class in Indiana, 12 percent, or more than 10,000 students, left high school without a diploma. ISU and community groups from across the state continue to combat those statistics one child and one school at a time.

With concentrated poverty on the rise, the Hechinger Report wonders if education reformers should be worried, referencing a Brookings Institution report out yesterday: “After declining in the 1990s, the population in extreme-poverty neighborhoods—where at least 40 percent of individuals live below the poverty line—rose by one-third from 2000 to 2005–09.”

The Fiscal Times covers a Center for Budget and Policy Priorities report that shows nearly all the top ten toss-up states in next year’s presidential election have sharply curtailed their education budgets since the recession began in 2008.

Tennessee’s Commissioner of Education Kevin Huffman will ask the state Board of Education today to modify the new teacher evaluations, hoping to relieve time-pressured principals of some requirements and better ensure assessments are fair, reports the Tennessean.

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Morning Announcements: October 6, 2011

Education Week reports that if high schools are going to better prepare students for college and careers, experts say they need to track graduates enrolling in higher education, whether they take remedial courses to get up to speed, and whether they earn a degree. At a meeting in Washington Wednesday, politicians from both sides of the aisle, along with educators and nonprofit leaders, discussed the importance of using data to support the college- and career-ready agenda.

Black and Hispanic students are far more likely to be kicked out of school when they break the rules, including some that often have nothing to do with keeping students safe, according to a new report from a civil rights research and advocacy group. Education Week reported school discipline records are too often seen as a measure of how safe a school is and not often enough as a gauge of how healthy a school is academically.

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Morning Announcements: August 19, 2010

In California lawmakers are considering using the $1.2 billion from the federal Education Jobs Fund to shrink the state’s $19.1 billion deficit instead of saving teachers’ jobs according to the Los Angeles Times.

The Clarion Ledger editorial staff discusses the Education Department’s announcement that Mississippi will receive $47 million to help improve the state's most low-performing schools.

According to the New Jersey News Room, State Education Commissioner Bret Schundler told lawmakers Monday that many New Jersey school children could benefit from more days in school and more time in class.

The Las Vegas Sun editorial staff calls for state lawmakers to redo the school funding formula to ensure that every student who attends a public school receives a quality education, writing, “We can think of few greater accomplishments that lawmakers could achieve in 2011 than to help schools deliver the quality students deserve.”

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Morning Announcements: July 29, 2010

The Boston Globe editorial staff questions some change-ups in the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

A The Denver Post editorial speculates on Race to the Top winners and writes that Colorado, “is on strong footing to be one of the dozen or so states that walk away with cash in September.”

Unlike teacher unions in Michigan, state and local educators in Nevada still plan to move ahead with some of the education reforms outlined in their Race to the Top application even though they were not a finalist.

A computer glitch causes several high schools in South Dakota to be wrongly labeled as failing to meet Adequate Yearly Progress as defined under No Child Left Behind.

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