AM News: States' Waiver Reactions Generally Positive

States Hope For Relief With 'No Child' Waivers NPR: How much flexibility is the president really willing to give and what is he asking in return? ALSO AP: Florida Shows Why States Need Relief From 'No Child Left Behind' AP

Kline ESEA Bills Would Squelch the Federal Role in K-12 Politics K12: The federal role in K-12 education would be almost entirely eviscerated under a pair of bills introduced today by Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., the chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee.

Education Gap Grows Between Rich and Poor, Studies Show NYT: The widening achievement gap between affluent and low-income students has received less attention than the divide between white and black students, which has narrowed.

Suburban Chicago Schools Lag as Bilingual Needs Grow NYT: Chicago’s suburbs are home to an increasing number of Latino and other immigrant families, but schools there frequently fail to meet state rules to provide bilingual programs.

Google's first employee leaves to join education nonprofit Los Angeles Times: Google Inc.'s first hired employee, Craig Silverstein, is leaving the tech giant where he's worked since its founding to sign on with the rising education start-up Khan Academy.

MORE NEWS ITEMS INSIDE

Miramonte Reopens, Previous Staff On Paid Leave NPR: Miramote Elementary School in Los Angeles is open again but with an entirely new faculty and staff. Two former teachers there are charged with sex abuse and lewd acts with students. Some parents were happy with the clean sweep, but others thought removing everyone from the school was too drastic.

Amid Protesters’ Disruptions, City Board Votes to Close 18 Schools and Truncate 5 NYT: A city board voted to close 18 poor-performing schools and eliminate the middle school grades at five others, drawing howls of opposition from hundreds of teachers’ union members, parents and students.

Mich. governor ties extra school cash to learning AP via Boston.com: Michigan's governor said Thursday that the state should capitalize on its brightest economic outlook in a decade by opening its checkbook to school districts -- but only those that can show their students actually are learning from year to year.

OSSE narrows probe of suspect test erasures Washington Post: OSSE has winnowed from 128 to 35 the number of classrooms that it will ask an independent contractor to investigate for possible cheating on the 2011 DC CAS, the agency announced Thursday.

Let's Move Turns 2 AP via HuffPost: Michelle Obama busted out a few new moves Thursday to mark the second anniversary of her campaign against childhood obesity with a few new friends – 14,000 or so, it turns out.

 

Comments

[Paul Bruno]

I'm a little confused by the article on the education gap between rich and poor kids because - since I was just looking at the NAEP data - I know that the average score gaps between free-lunch-eligible students and students not eligible for the FRP lunch program have been steady or shrinking slightly. I should probably read the studies, and I know the FRP/not-eligible distinction doesn't map perfectly to the rich/poor distinction, but it's odd to me.

[Bruce]

Mr. Bruno, one hint might be found in the more extreme distinction between rich and poor that the Stanford researchers use compared with the FRP distinction. The Stanford researchers were comparing students at the 90th vs. the 10th percentiles of family income, a difference of almost ten to one in dollar terms. It could be that the gap is growing between students closer to the edges, whereas nearer the middle of the distribution it may be shrinking a bit.

I'm currently reading a book, "Superclass", which documents the growing distinction between people of the highest socioeconomic class and everyone else. The data years it uses (it was published in 2008) match those of the Stanford studies.