By Julia Marsh | New York Post

“The city’s bad-apple teachers have a surprising new ally these days — Manhattan judges.

The jurists are increasingly refusing to side with city education bigs to punish rogue educators fired for drug- and sex-related offenses, according to a review of recent cases by The Post.

At the heart of the troubling trend is a legal standard that requires the courts to defer to the city’s Department of Education when it terminates a teacher — unless the judge believes that the firing ‘shocks the conscience,’ experts said.”

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By Leslie Brody | The Wall Street Journal

“Gov. Chris Christie’s proposed budget keeps aid for operating New Jersey school districts flat for the 2018 fiscal year at nearly $9.2 billion, to the relief of education leaders who had feared drastic cuts.

In his final budget address, Mr. Christie, a Republican, called for leaders of the Democratic-controlled Legislature to work with him to come up with a new formula for funding schools before summer vacation.

‘If we don’t do it in 100 days, shame on us,’ he said. He called the current system ‘unfair and broken.'”

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By Max Pizarro | Insider NJ

“TRENTON – Denied the presidency, hampered by scandal and slogging through his final year in office with a dreadful job approval rating, Gov. Chris Christie this afternoon took pains to emphasize the positive and burnish his record as a tough guy anti-tax boss even as the state bumps up against a $135.7 billion public pension system shortfall.

He also made a plea to lawmakers in both parties for late in the game reform of public schools funding.”

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By Natalie Gross | The Atlantic

“Latino students in kindergarten trail their white peers in math by approximately three months’ worth of learning, a new study by Child Trends Hispanic Institute has found.

Researchers drew a nationally representative sample of students from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-2011 who were followed through the end of their fifth-grade year. Sixty-two percent of the 2,199 Latino students studied had at least one foreign-born parent, and 45 percent spoke only Spanish or predominantly Spanish at home. Nearly half lived in poverty.”

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By Solvejg Wastvedt | MPR News

“School superintendents from around the Twin Cities metro are holding meetings to ask parents, students and communities how to create more equitable schools.

The meetings are set for February and March and aim to create a list of steps to improve racial integration and outcomes in schools.

The plan was spurred by a lawsuit against the state that claims segregation leads to inadequate education at some metro-area schools.”

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By Pioneer Press Editorial Board

“Regardless of how a lawsuit over Minnesota’s teacher tenure and layoff laws plays out, the issues it raises are worth a closer look.

The suit was dismissed last fall by Ramsey County District Court Judge Margaret Marrinan. She said it failed to make a connection between teacher-union rules and the achievement gap, and wrote that the issues should be resolved in the Legislature, rather than in court, according to a Pioneer Press report.”

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By Melissa Klein and Susan Edelman

“Despite a rising citywide graduation rate, the number of students with the skills to succeed in college is alarmingly low — even at some schools that hand out the most diplomas, a Post analysis found.

College readiness sunk to 1.9 percent last year at the FDNY HS for Fire and Life Safety in Brooklyn, which had an 83 percent graduation rate in 2016, city reports show.”

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By John Mooney | NJ Spotlight

“It was a long-shot bid to begin with: Gov. Chris Christie’s petition to the state Supreme Court asking it to strike down teacher seniority and rewrite its landmark Abbott v. Burke school-funding rulings.

Yesterday, the high court announced it would not hear the case, saying the administration would have to start at a lower court with the seniority challenge and not even indicating an avenue for the Abbott challenge.”

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By JT Aregood | Observer New Jersey Politics

“New Jersey will not be reopening a landmark case on school funding for the state’s poorest districts. The state Supreme Court issued an order Tuesday denying Governor Chris Christie’s motion to reopen Abbott v. Burke in an attempt to change the terms of collective bargaining agreements with teachers and freeze state aid at current levels while the legislature devises a new school funding formula.”

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By John Reitmeyer | NJ Spotlight

“School officials in communities all over New Jersey have complained for years about state education-funding inequities, and now lawmakers are holding a series of hearings on the issue — giving clear indications that they plan to address the school-aid problems in the next state budget.”

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