By Kate Taylor
The New York Times

“Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York has been laying the groundwork for an aggressive education agenda as he begins his second term, signaling that he will seek several major changes that, atypical for a Democrat, will put him in direct conflict with teachers’ unions.

In speeches, interviews and a letter over the past few weeks, the governor has said that he thinks the state’s teacher grading system, only in its third year, is too easy to pass, making it too difficult to fire underperforming educators. He has suggested that a current limit on the number of charter schools needs to be raised or eliminated. He has also expressed support for a tax credit for people and companies donating money to public schools and private school scholarships.”

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By Geoff Decker
Chalkbeat NY

“After hinting for months that he will pursue aggressive changes to state education policy this year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo will offer the first real glimpse of his agenda on Wednesday.

Cuomo has released few details about his plans to address K-12 education issues in his State of the State address, which he will deliver Wednesday in Albany. But he is likely to focus on overhauling teacher evaluations and termination rules and dealing with the state’s lowest-performing schools, items the governor said on Tuesday were at the top of his education agenda.”

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By Beth Fertig / Karen DeWitt
WNYC

“Gov. Andrew Cuomo said education will be at the top of his agenda Wednesday when he gives his combined State of the State speech and budget presentation. But on the day before, the hard-charging governor blunted some of his recent criticism of teachers, which included comparing the current school system to a public monopoly.

“I love teachers,” he told the Association for a Better New York on Tuesday. “My mother was a schoolteacher. And I respect the profession. But we have to get the orientation and the priority back to the students and not the system.””

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By Eli Rosenberg & Ben Chapman
New York Daily News

“A Queens lawyer whose children’s school was rocked by a corporal punishment scandal has joined his high-powered law firm in the legal fight to overhaul teacher tenure.

Adam Masin, a partner at Reed Smith, said he was inspired to take on tenure laws because his son and daughter attend Public School 101 in Forest Hills, which grabbed headlines when a teacher returned to work there after allegedly choking a 5-year-old student.”

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By Bob McManus

“Mrs. Barnes is more a gauzy image than a firm memory. She taught fifth grade at Alexander Hamilton Elementary School in upstate Binghamton a very long time ago — and while the details have faded, the sense of warm support and gently demanding classroom encouragement endures.

As do the results.

Mrs. Barnes, you see, was the very model of the teacher who made a positive difference, the iconic figure so central to every state budget-cycle argument that runs, teachers, by golly, you just can’t pay ’em enough.”

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By Lyndsey Layton
The Washington Post

“For the first time in at least 50 years, a majority of U.S. public school students come from low-income families, according to a new analysis of 2013 federal data, a statistic that has profound implications for the nation.

The Southern Education Foundation reports that 51 percent of students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade in the 2012-2013 school year were eligible for the federal program that provides free and reduced-price lunches. The lunch program is a rough proxy for poverty, but the explosion in the number of needy children in the nation’s public classrooms is a recent phenomenon that has been gaining attention among educators, public officials and researchers.”

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By Layla Avila
TNTP

“Earlier this week, oral arguments opened in Wright v. New York, a lawsuit challenging New York statutes that make it nearly impossible to replace teachers who are not up to the job. This first motion will determine whether or not the case should proceed at all. It should. Like Vergara v. California before it, Wright v. New York forces a much needed examination about whether the state is delivering on its legal obligations.”

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By Vanessa Grigoriadis
NY Magazine

“Don’t you love the energy here?” asks Campbell Brown, bouncing down the hall at the offices of “co-working” office-share WeWork. Forty-five and wearing a gray turtleneck sweater and mom jeans, Brown has small, curious brown eyes, a volleyball player’s carriage, and a deep voice that’s pleasant no matter what she’s saying. “You know, an Israeli guy [co-founder Adam Neumann] started WeWork with one office,” she says, swishing by row after row of glassed-in spaces for companies like Parking Panda, which helps find a spot for your car, and Unroll.Me, which has something to do with cleaning up a messy in-box. “And now it’s ­international and it’s huge!”

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