New York Post
“After months of study, state educrats at last have a timeline for ‘fixing’ the master public-school curriculum. Step One: Study the issue some more.
Yes, it’s a joke — on New York.
On Monday, the state Regents considered a plan to 1) re-jigger the Common Core curriculum, and 2) produce annual student tests based on it. New committees are to start reviewing new standards next month. Then come months of ‘public input,’ followed by months more of added tweaking.”
The 74
“Nearly two years after Vergara v. California trial first began, the case is set to move forward as judges from a state appeals court will hear arguments this Thursday, Feb. 25.
The plaintiffs – nine students in five California public school districts – argue that five laws governing teacher dismissal, tenure, and ‘last in-first out’ layoff policies deprive them of their right to a quality education, in violation of the state’s constitution. Those policies disproportionately harm minority and low-income students, they say.”
Education Post
“I distinctly remember the day I stepped into the courtroom for the very first time.
My story made headlines throughout the country—the day a Los Angeles County Superior Court began to hear our lawsuit, Vergara v. California. I am one of the nine student plaintiffs in Vergara who publicly shared their story in hopes of making a difference for public school students throughout California just like us.”
San Jose Mercury News
“On Thursday, the California Court of Appeal will hear arguments in Vergara v. California.
The nine public school students — including Brandon DeBose Jr. from Oakland — who filed the lawsuit against the state will ask the court to uphold the trial court’s decision that found current California law regarding teacher tenure, dismissal and seniority-based layoffs unconstitutional and disproportionately harmful to low-income and minority students. The story of Learning Without Limits Elementary School, where I serve as principal, illustrates the importance of this decision.”
The 74
“This week, I was horrified to learn that Mayor de Blasio has been painting a false picture of how safe our schools really are. The de Blasio administration claims that crime is down, but New York State data highlighted in a new Families for Excellent Schools report, Safety Last: New York City’s Public Schools Are More Dangerous Than Ever, shows that 2015 was actually the most violent year in the city’s public schools in at least a decade.”
New York Post
“Violence in the city’s schools has soared to its highest levels in at least a decade — even as Mayor Bill de Blasio tells New Yorkers schools are safer.
This month, the mayor hailed a 29 percent drop in school crime since the 2010-11 academic year. That now looks like a carefully misleading statistic.
On Thursday, Families for Excellent Schools used state data to highlight actual trends in city schools. The number of violent incidents shot up a whopping 23 percent last year (the first full year under Mayor de Blasio) — from 12,978 to 15,934.”
The Hechinger Report
“Looking back on her junior year at Saint Agnes Academic High School in the College Point neighborhood of Queens, Viktoria Mertiri admits that trigonometry ‘was the death of me. I never understood it.’
But Mertiri scored a 70 on the New York Regents Examination, a state standardized test of core high school subjects. It was a pleasant surprise: five points better than she needed to pass. In geometry, she scored an 85. She also passed the English language arts, U.S. history, global history, and a science Regents — with math, the five exams a student must pass, by law, to graduate from high school in New York State and receive a Regents diploma.”
LA School Report
“Nearly two years after the trial in Vergara v. California first began, the case is set to move forward as judges from a state appeals court hear arguments Feb. 25.
The plaintiffs – nine students in five California public school districts – argue that five laws governing teacher dismissal, tenure, and ‘last in-first out’ layoff policies deprive them of their right to a quality education, in violation of the state’s constitution. Those policies disproportionately harm minority and low-income students, they say.”
The 74
“Over the weekend, USA Today published a damning year-long investigation of the way school districts across the country do — or rather, do not — keep tabs on teachers who’ve gotten into serious trouble. This includes teachers who have been disciplined for beating or sexually assaulting their students.”
USA Today
“A state-by-state audit of the nation’s only database for tracking teacher misconduct is being ordered in the wake of a USA TODAY NETWORK investigation that found thousands of missing names in the listing of troublesome educators.
Education agencies in every state voluntarily report to a privately run database operated by the non-profit National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification when they take a disciplinary action against a teacher for anything from minor infractions to serious cases of physical or sexual abuse.”