By Dmitri Mehlhorn | The Huffington Post

“I remember sitting on a makeshift wooden platform between the front seats of my mom’s old Volkswagen van. As the red VW grumbled through the streets of Richmond, California, in the 1970s, my mom told me about her work as a public school teacher. She was proud of her profession. She spent nights and weekends writing comments on student papers. Like her immigrant grandmothers, who’d been seamstresses in New York City, she was in a union. Over her 35 years teaching, she even became a union site rep.

By the time she retired, however, she was frustrated with her union and with public education. As a public school student who sent my own child to public school, I have tried to understand why. Over decades of study and hands-on learning, I have learned four things.”

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By Keshia Clukey | Politico NY

“ALBANY — New York education stakeholders brought together by the state education department Thursday to discuss the department’s plans for complying with the new federal Every Student Succeeds Act are now questioning whether guidelines for the law provide the level of flexibility that had been touted after its passage.

Some are calling on the state to stand up to the federal education department and its leader, former New York state education commissioner John King Jr., warning that state officials may otherwise lose any trust they have built up in the past year as they’ve attempted to pacify the turbulent education environment.”

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By Selim Algar | New York Post

“Ninety-eight teachers who the Department of Education decided weren’t good enough for the city’s worst schools nonetheless get to keep their jobs — and find a position in another classroom.

The DOE initiated wholesale staffing changes at six so-called ‘Out of Time’ schools that have been threatened with closure without drastic improvement.”

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By Alejandra Matos | StarTribune

“State and school district lawyers asked a Ramsey County judge Thursday to dismiss a lawsuit that alleges state laws protect ineffective teachers.

The lawsuit, filed in April, alleges that state laws, such as the Teacher Tenure Act, grant layoff protection to teachers after three years on the job, require a lengthy procedure to fire them and set up a system where teachers with less seniority are fired first regardless of their performance, known as Last in First Out.

The plaintiffs in the case, known as Forslund vs. Minnesota, are four mothers from Duluth, St. Paul and Minneapolis. Their suit seeks to have state tenure and dismissal laws ruled unconstitutional, claiming they violate the state’s constitutional guarantee to a ‘thorough and efficient’ education.”

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By Solvejg Wastvedt | MPR News

“A group of Minnesota parents say state laws that dictate how teachers can be fired contribute to the state’s academic achievement gaps. Their lawsuit against the state and four school districts over state teacher tenure laws goes before a judge Thursday.

Tiffini Forslund is among the parents bringing the suit. She said she started getting angry about tenure laws years ago, when her now-teenage daughter was in fifth grade in the Anoka-Hennepin School District. Her daughter had a fantastic teacher, she said, who kept students engaged.”

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By Beth Hawkins | The 74

“In 2011, Joan Dobbert contacted the Minnesota Board of Teaching to enquire about getting a teacher license. She had a degree and 18 years of experience as an early childhood educator and an administrator at a nationally accredited preschool program. She wanted to show she was qualified for a license by using a process in which would-be teachers submit portfolios showcasing their skills.

The process was in fact so successful that in the seven years it had then been on the books more than 500 teachers had used it to obtain licenses. Some, like Dobbert, did not have the exact academic credential required for a particular license. Many were trained in other states and wanted to move to Minnesota.”

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By Susan Du | City Pages

“This claim, made by a group of seven parents and caregivers for Twin Cities students, is the focus of a class action lawsuit filed against the state of Minnesota last November.

The suit, Cruz-Guzman v. State of Minnesota, blames the state for depriving kids of color of a quality education by allowing segregation in schools to persist. As of last week, parents upset with school segregation in the Twin Cities are one step closer to having their day in court.”

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By Christopher Magan | Twin Cities Pioneer Press

“A Ramsey County District Court judge will hear initial arguments Thursday in a lawsuit aimed at dismantling Minnesota’s union protections for public school teachers.

State and local leaders want Judge Margaret M. Marrinan to dismiss the case, saying the lawsuit is an attempt to change long-standing state laws through the court system rather than the Legislature.

‘Plaintiffs’ pithy and dismissive rhetoric aside, the actual allegations in the (lawsuit) are nothing but an attempt by a handful of parents to get a court to do what the Legislature would not do,’ attorneys for the St. Paul Public Schools wrote recently in a legal brief supporting the dismissal request.”

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By Beena Raghavendran | StarTribune

“A class-action lawsuit that claims the state is failing to meet its responsibilities to poor and minority students will be moving to trial.

In a ruling Friday, Hennepin County District Judge Susan M. Robiner found that the November lawsuit from a group of Minneapolis and St. Paul school district parents and a community organization had enough legal grounds to continue and refused a move by the state and a group of charter schools and parents to dismiss the case.

The case should go to trial next September, said Dan Shulman, an attorney for the plaintiffs.”

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By Michael Petrilli | Education Next

“Helping lots more young Americans get ‘to and through’ four-year college degrees is a major goal of public policy and philanthropy. In 2009, President Obama set the target of leading the world in college completion by 2020. The Lumina Foundation aspires to increase the proportion of Americans with high-quality degrees, certificates, and other credentials to 60 percent by 2025. And the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has spent over seven years and half a billion dollars on strategies aimed at increasing college completion.”

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