AM News: Debate Continues In Connecticut

Conn. Gov. continues education tour in Bridgeport Boston Globe:  Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy will be continuing his state tour on education in Bridgeport to promote his overhaul proposals.

Struggle over how to evaluate special ed teachers AP via Boston.com: Since the first day of class this school year, Bev Campbell has been teaching her students how to say their names. 

Reform-ey Groups to Congress: Fund Competitive Grants Politics K12: It's no secret that the Obama administration hearts competitive grant programs—particularly the ones they came up with themselves, like Race to the Top, Investing in Innovation, and Promise Neighborhoods.

Can a charter school be a neighborhood school? Washington Post: Charter purists don’t like it, but there is growing political energy behind the idea, as evidenced by Tuesday’s D.C. Council hearing for the FY13 budget.

District outlines radical overhaul Philadelphia Inquirer: The plan calls for drastic reduction in central office staff, closure of 64 schools and moving students to charters.

Confederate flag dress keeps Tenn. teen from prom USA Today:  Texanna Edwards' dress with bright blue stripes and white stars inside the stripes kept her out of the dance.

MORE NEWS ITEMS INSIDE

Public Applies More Scrutiny to Exams That Are Supposed to Be Secret NYT: This year has brought a heightened level of scrutiny to the state math and reading exams, as teachers and principals give the tests fresh consideration, knowing that under the new statewide teacher evaluation system and with schools in danger of being closed for poor performance, they could lose their jobs if students do poorly.

Principals Criticize Increased Costs of Test Scoring NYT: City principals say their teachers will have to spend more school days than usual scoring state exams this year because of budget cuts to a pot of money that was used to keep teachers working late to score the exams.

National resolution against high-stakes tests released Washington Post: A national resolution protesting high-stakes standardized testing was released Tuesday by a coalition of national education, civil rights and parents groups, as well as educators who are trying to build a broad-based movement against the Obama administration’s test-centric school reform program.

Comments

[Sarah]

I couldn’t be more divided on the issue of the article involving the student wearing that dress. On one hand, freedom of speech is important. On the other, I can’t understand why she’d want to wear such a thing in the first place, if the purpose wasn’t to display pride over the horrible thing that was the Civil War, and what it meant.

[Sarah]

As for the articles on the cost of test taking, rather than complain about the increased cost of test-taking, why don’t these men and women push to reform the system as a whole? There simply is no way to bring in more money without sacrifices.

[Sarah]

I couldn’t be more divided on the issue of the article involving the student wearing that dress. On one hand, freedom of speech is important. On the other, I can’t understand why she’d want to wear such a thing in the first place, if the purpose wasn’t to display pride over the horrible thing that was the Civil War, and what it meant.

[Sarah]

I apologize for the duplicate, and hope someone will remove one of them. The Captcha image came up and said I'd entered it wrong, so I redid it and then two showed up.