AM News: Third Grade Literacy Gateway Returns
Third Grade A Pivotal Time In Students' Lives NPR: In a growing number of states a single reading test determines which third-grade students advance to fourth grade. Proponents of the rule say that kids learn to read until third grade, and then read to learn. But critics argue that holding students back does more harm than good in the long run.
Boosting Reading Skills: Will 'Common Core' Experiment Pay Off? PBS: Called the "Common Core," a new set of state guidelines spell out what young students are expected to learn and what books they're expected to read. Forty five states and the District of Colombia have already adopted the standards. Learning Matters' John Merrow reports on the design and the aim of the new guidelines.
American teacher blasts off to space USA Today: The former high school teacher is headed to the International Space Station on a Russian Soyuz rocket.
SLICE Act Would Cut Pizza-as-a-Vegetable Provision Politics K12: In response to congressional action last fall that allows a small amount of tomato paste to count as a serving of vegetables in school meals—and in turn making a slice of pizza the equivalent of a half-cup of broccoli on lunch trays—U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat, introduced a bill Monday that would put an end to the practice.
MORE NEWS ITEMS INSIDE
Governor To Announce New State Spending Plans After Huge Budget Shortfall AP via HuffPost: California's sputtering economic recovery is putting a heavier-than-expected drag on state tax revenue, leading Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday to propose deep budget cuts across an array of government services and warn again that even more cuts are ahead if voters reject his tax-hike initiative in November.
Mapping a Solution to School Zoning Questions NYT: Like many other New Yorkers, Kristi Barlow found herself consumed with the process of finding the right neighborhood and the right school for her child, and when she couldn't find an accurate map showing, block by block, which neighborhoods were zoned for which elementary schools, she made one of her own. Out of that obsession was born a small business.
At Explore Charter School, a World and a System Divided NYT: One large segment of New York City remains segregated, and that is in the city's schools. As the latest in a New York Times series, "A System Divided," illustrated on Sunday, black children are often taught in schools that are disproportionately black, by teachers who are likely to be white. The article takes a close-up look at one such school, the Explore Charter School in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, and is accompanied by a graphic presentation of the citywide issue.
DCPS, union reach accord on teacher retirement Washington Post: It took nearly two years, but it appears that DCPS is finally prepared to comply with the early retirement provision ofthe contract it signed with the Washington Teachers’ Union (WTU). The 2010 collective bargaining agreement says that teachers with good evaluations and 20 years of service who lose their jobs in the annual “excessing” process are eligible for early retirement with full benefits.
In two separate rulings, state’s labor board sides with the UFT GothamSchools: For the second time, the state’s labor relations board has ruled that the city must accept mediation in its teacher evaluation talks with the United Federation of Teachers.
Re: SLICE Act - It seriously took Congress this long to propose discrediting pizza as a vegetable? By now, the childhood masses could have consumed enough to remain obese for years.
Posted by: Sarah | May 16, 2012 at 07:20 AM
It’s also good to see space travel reaching education. American children need to get excited about things like this again.
Posted by: Sarah | May 16, 2012 at 07:22 AM