AM News: Reauthorization Rumblings

Early Draft Of NCLB Re-Write Reduces Federal Role HuffPost: An early draft of a Senate committee's sweeping rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act rolls back major accountability provisions of the law's current form, known as No Child Left Behind.

Subgroup Accountability at Issue in ESEA Renewal EdWeek: The comments point to dissatisfaction in the civil rights community with the Senate plan's accountability provisions. 

G.O.P. Candidates Take an Anti-Federal Stance NYT: Republican candidates who once backed the federal No Child Left Behind law now say the federal government has no place in state and local education decisions.

Education Officials Travel Paid by a Vendor’s Foundation NYT (Winerip): The Pearson Foundation, the nonprofit arm of a major educational publisher, has financed free international trips for education commissioners whose states do business with the company.

MUCH MORE NEWS INSIDE

Another GOP vs. Teachers' Union Battle Emerges, in Michigan EdWeek: The language of the measure specifically pertains to schools, and to unions representing 50,000 or more members—meaning that, as written, it would appear to target one union in particular: the Michigan Education Association.

State Ed Advocacy Group, 50CAN, Looks to Expand EdWeek:  The group wants to be in 25 states by 2015, and eventually have a presence in all 50 states, according to its president and founder, Marc Porter Magee.

L.A. Unified to consider expanding anti-dating violence programs  L.A. Times: The proposal comes in the wake of a fatal stabbing in which a high school girl was allegedly attacked by her ex-boyfriend. If approved, it would teach students to recognize when a relationship is becoming abusive.

YouTube and Lenovo Seek Student Experiments for Space Station NYT: YouTube and Lenovo, the computer manufacturer, announced on Monday a science contest called SpaceLab for students around the world ages 14 to 18, and it is not quite like any other science contest.

Undercover Student Tests A For-Profit College NPR: Host Audie Cornish talks to Christopher Beha, who discreetly enrolled as a student at the University of Phoenix, and wrote about it in a piece in this month's issue of Harper's Magazine.

Comments

[Bruce]

Re: the L.A. Times story on creating new relationships counselling positions in secondary schools: I read yesterday that 81% of Korean secondary schools forbid such relationships.

The cockamamie procedure whereby the school board is spending $2 million it doesn't really have (unless it plans to not rehire the teachers it has laid off) demonstrates why local public schools in Los Angeles haven't a ghost of a chance at producing competitive schools any time soon. The custom is, "Here's a problem: let's create a position for some out-of-classroom personnel [whom the students will never get to know without skipping class] to address it." This mentality has much to do with how educational spending continues to rise in America without seeing any payoff in student attainment or achievement.