AM News: Renaming 24 Schools To Win SIG Millions

For 24 Schools Getting New Start, 24 New Names NYT: Two dozen public schools are being renamed as part of New York City’s strategy to qualify for nearly $60 million in federal grants to help the so-called struggling schools get fresh starts.

Test Errors Draw New Criticism WSJ: A top New York state education official acknowledged Wednesday that the mounting number of errors found on this year's math and English tests has eroded public trust in the statewide exams.

LA Unified approves college prep requirements for all students SCPR:  Next year’s high school freshmen will have to take every class required to meet the minimum application standards for the University of California and Cal State systems. 

 Tennessee Tech policy violated First Amendment USAT: A federal appeals court ruled that Tennessee Tech violated the First Amendment in a case involving religious beliefs.

Unions, parents blast school austerity plans Philadelphia Inquirer: A coalition led by parent groups and Philadelphia school employee unions Wednesday blasted the district’s proposal to make drastic cuts and structural changes.

Where the Teachers Union and District Love Each Other VOSD:  If both the district and its teachers in San Diego are serious about repairing the relationship, then Poway is as good a place as any for them to study.

MORE NEWS ITEMS INSIDE

State report slams college savings program Chicago Tribune: The underfunded College Illinois savings program was plagued by weak financial controls and conflicts of interest between top administrators and companies hired to invest millions from the prepaid tuition fund, according to a report issued Wednesday by the state auditor general's office.

City Instructs Schools to Expand Common Core Introduction NYT: In an effort to expand the introduction of a new set of learning standards into the city's public schools, officials are asking science and social studies teachers to introduce more reading and writing into students' classwork. This school year, English and math teachers have already begun to adapt their lessons to the new requirements.

K12 Inc., Virginia-based virtual schools operator, reports third quarter growth Washington Post: Herndon-based K12 Inc., the nation’s largest operator of public virtual schools, continues to grow despite questions about whether its full-time online education is effective for students and taxpayers.

Comments

[Sarah]

Naturally, an entirely mechanized process such as standard testing is going to be fraught with error. What I don’t understand is, considering the inevitable cost of having to reexamine all tests after such errors occur, why the system remains in place.

[Sarah]

Re: Schools to Expand Common Core. It’s excellent that New York at least seems to be expanding learning goals to include writing in science. I did essentially no writing in science class prior to college, and it came as a bit of a shock. Lab reports are something I think a lot of schools are lax about teaching, hopefully this changes things.

[Bruce]

You're dead right on that comment about teaching writing in science via the Common Core, Sarah. Reading the article, I got the impression that New York is doing a lot of things right in getting out front on introducing the Common Core; although reading through the local complaints at the bottom of the article, I thought they may be having problems with the details of the implementation. It would be nice if we could get more kids fired up about science.