Afternoon Announcements: Obama Announces High School Competition in SOTU; Alliance Issues Report on ESEA Waivers

The big news this morning is the high school competition President Obama announced during last night’s State of the Union address. The president said the competition will “redesign America’s high schools so they better equip graduates for the demands of a high-tech economy.” Obama didn’t offer many details, but Alliance President Bob Wise thinks the competition has “great potential.”

In a statement, Wise said, “If the nation is serious about the high school dropout crisis, more must be done to engage students and make learning relevant. The president’s proposal appears to do both.” Read the complete statement.

Education Week’s Politics K-12 blog has more details on the president’s other education proposals, including expanded access to preschool and tying federal college financial aid in part to student outcomes—something the Alliance advocated for in these two recent reports: Repairing a Broken System: Fixing Federal Student Aid and A System in Need of Repair: An Examination of Federal Student Aid for Postsecondary Education.

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Afternoon announcements: Waivers, waivers, waivers!

On Thursday, U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan testified in front of the Senate education committee. One of the biggest topics was his support for No Child Left Behind waivers for states. Duncan defended the waivers. Huffington Post

Education Trust released a report yesterday in conjunction with the Senate education committee’s hearing on NCLB waiver reauthorization. The report, A Step Forward or a Step Back? State Accountability in the Waiver Era, criticizes the Obama administration for failing to address the needs of at-risk students. Politics K-12

And finally on waivers, an overview of the Senate education committee’s hearing on the waiver plans yesterday. Politics K-12

In California, state districts have illegally misused nearly $170 million in funds meant for reduced-price student lunches, according to a legislative oversight report released this week. San Francisco Chronicle

Students were given the opportunity to redesign their classroom furniture – including desks and chairs. See the creative solutions they came up with to keep more organized and make them more functional. Cannon Design blog Read Entire Post

Afternoon Announcements: July 19, 2012

We’re strictly business today. Call us High School Soup Bringing You Afternoon Announcements, Inc. Yes, we know the name needs a little work. Bear with us.

Well, we’re up to 32 states and the District. The Huffington Post and Education Week both report on the new states that have been granted NCLB waivers. Arizona, Washington, D.C., Oregon, South Carolina, Kansas, Michigan, and Mississippi have joined 25 other states that have been exempted from NCLB’s testing requirements.

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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 29, 2012

Go ahead and give yourself a high five. You made it to Friday. The weekend is ahead of you, and if you’re in the DC area, that means sitting in front of a fan and trying desperately to find relief from this heat wave. Actually, looking at the weather map, there’s a lot of places across the country at the moment where you could be reading this in front of a fan. In any event, we have a bunch of pieces of news for you today to close your week out properly.

Five more states are free from key requirements of the No Child Left Act today because the Department of Education has granted waivers to Arkansas, Missouri, South Dakota, Utah, and Virginia. This brings the count of states that have been granted waivers up to 24. The Associated Press via Education Week has more on the implications of this story.

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Afternoon Announcements: June 28, 2012

Welcome to Thursday’s announcements. It’s a bit of a slow news day in terms of education policy today because of all of the national news surrounding Supreme Court decisions, Contempt of Congress hearings, and University President reinstatements. Here’s just a few bits of news for you today.

First, from Education Week, comes the news that Iowa, in the wake of its waiver request being rejected by the U.S. Department of Education, is requesting that it receive a one year freeze in NCLB state targets. This is new territory in the process because  Iowa was the first state to have its waiver application rejected. As NCLB targets continue to increase toward 100% proficiency demanded in 2014, more states who haven’t received waivers may have to request target freezes.

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"Storm" Looming Over Washington, DC Could Impact Nation's Schoolchildren

In the video to the left, Alliance President Bob Wise explains how competing "storms" around education reform in Washington, DC, could impact the educational futures of the nation's schoolchildren.

In this "weather report," Gov. Wise discusses two looming "storm" systems. The first, led by President Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, is focused on providing waivers and greater flexibility to states from key requirements in the No Child Left Behind Act. The other, underway in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, is about rewriting No Child Left Behind, but will require Democrats and Republicans working together on a compromise.

In the coming weeks, Gov. Wise will report on whether the Senate and House of Representatives can come together on a bill that could be sent to the White House and outflank the waiver option. "If no agreement is made, then the waiver option could overwhelm the Congress, pushing them out of the picture completely and controlling the education atmosphere in Washington, DC until after the next presidential election," Wise says.

Learn more in the Alliance's federal policy news section.

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Afternoon Announcements--November 29, 2011

Good afternoon. Here are today's top education headlines.

Stateline.org reports that states applying for waivers under President Obama's plan to grant flexibility from No Child Left Behind requirements will have to make big changes fast. So far, eleven states have applied for waivers, including Iowa and New Jersey, where tight waiver deadlines have the states "scrambling to make major decisions about the future of education in just a matter of months." The article also focuses on Kentucky, where the spokeswoman Lisa Gross says the state passed legislation passed in advance of its waiver application. "We're very lucky that we had all of the basic infrastructure in place," Gross says. "If you're building this from the ground up, that's going to be a struggle."

The Huffington Post reports on former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's appearance on a special Thanksgiving edition of Face the Nation during which she told CBS's Bob Schieffer that the U.S. public school system is the nation's largest problem. "Because with the failing public schools, I worry that the way that my grandparents got out of poverty," Rice said. "The way that my parents became educated, is just not gonna be there for a whole bunch of kids." The article also reports on attitudes on public education held by Republican presidential candidates Rick Perry, Ron Paul, and Michele Bachmann, all of whom believe in a more limited federal role in the nation's education system.

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Stats That Stick: November 16, 2011

Here are this week's Stats That Stick courtesy of our policy intern, Bill DeBaun:

Number of finalists receiving 2011 Investing in Innovation (i3) grants from the U.S. Department of Education: 23
587 applicants were competing for almost $150 million in funding. This is the second year of the i3 grant competition, which funds innovative and promising education strategies that have a good record of success. Last year, 49 grants worth approximately $650 million were awarded. The largest grant awarded this year is likely to go to Old Dominion University Research Foundation, which asked for almost $25 million for a grant “providing high-need middle schools with increased access to challenging math courses.”

Number of states (including DC) that have signed on to the Common Core State Standards Initiative: 47
Montana became the 47th state (including the District of Columbia) to support the English/language arts and math common core state standards on November 4. That number almost dropped back to 46 less than a week later, but Alabama’s State Board of Education passed a resolution by a 6–3 vote reaffirming its commitment to the standards.

Price poor families will pay for broadband internet service under an initiative from the FCC: $9.95 per month
One-third, or approximately 35 million, of American households do not have access to broadband internet. Starting next summer under the Connect-to-Compete initiative, homes with children eligible for free school lunches will also be eligible to receive broadband internet at a discounted rate for two years. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) “cobbled together” the deal, which includes all of the nation’s major cable companies. "The broadband adoption gap in the U.S. is very large, and the costs of digital exclusion are high and getting higher," FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said.

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Morning Announcements: November 11, 2011

This morning's announcements come to you courtesy of Alliance Policy Intern Bill DeBaun:

Good morning and happy Veterans Day, everyone. Before I get into the announcements, we here at the Alliance for Excellent Education want to extend a heartfelt thank you to all of our veterans and men and women in uniform. We remember your personal sacrifices on behalf of the United States of America and her citizens and are grateful for the freedoms and opportunities those sacrifices have earned for all of us.

It’s a relatively light day in the world of education news, but let’s get down to it.

And Montana makes 47. The Billings Gazette reports that Montana has adopted the common core state standards. With Montana now on board, a total of 46 states and the District of Columbia have adopted a common set of educational standards for K–12 English language arts and mathematics that are designed to ensure that students graduating from high school are prepared to succeed in college and a career.

Alabama’s State Board of Education has decided to keep the state involved in the Common Core Standards Initiative. The Montgomery Advertiser describes the 6–3 vote in support of the national set of math and English standards for students.

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