AM News: Romney's "Meh" Education Record In MA

Mitt Romney’s education proposals met with mixed success Boston Globe via GothamSchools: While he is widely credited for holding out for high standards and more charter schools, the high-profile initiatives proposed by the former private-equity businessman suffered from a variety of practical problems... Ironically, some of what Romney unsuccessfully lobbied for has come to fruition in recent years, after once having been deemed too radical. 

Special Education Overhaul Brings New Concerns About Students' Programs SchoolBook: In September, most students with disabilities will be able to attend their neighborhood school. To do that, schools will have to figure out how to follow the student's individual education program, or I.E.P. It’s a legally-binding document that spells out the needs of the student, sets goals and formalizes a plan to achieve them. And it's not always easy to get the plan right.

L.A. district weighing graduation of students who failed class Los Angeles Times: Los Angeles school officials are examining whether three students who flunked a required course should have been allowed to make up the class in a few days at another campus and then return to graduate with their classmates.

Chicago student gets chance to study in China NBC News: Sixteen year old DeShun Peoples is one of 10 students from Chicago who will along with dozens of others from across the country who will spend four weeks studying in China. They are part of President Obama's '100 Thousand Strong' initiative. NBC’s Katy Tur reports.

Bullied School Bus Monitor 'Fine' With Bully Punishment AP:  The upstate New York school bus monitor who was bullied by four seventh-graders says she's satisfied that they're being suspended for a year.

Comments

[Bruce]

The combination of the NBC story and the L.A. Times story calls into question the issue of what we as a society are willing to give credit for in the last years of high school. I would think the flimsy two-day course credits granted by Alonzo Community Day School and uncritically accepted by the administrator at the STEM Academy of Helen Bernstein High School might prompt a review of both schools' accreditation by WASC (the Western Association of Schools and Colleges). The low standards attached to Los Angeles Unified's high school diploma also raise doubts about their equivalence with the work of someone like DeShun Peoples, and remind us of why colleges insist upon some standardized testing: the latter represents a means of verifying the credentials of applicants with identical-appearing transcripts whose actual preparation may be very different indeed.

[Sarah]

It’s actually kind of insulting, considering the school I went to as a kid had comparatively high standards for graduation. I don’t know if I’d say they were quite up to the level of making a high school diploma legitimately mean something substantial, but I certainly feel as though I accomplished something as a kid. I wonder if modern high school graduates who attend high schools where a 2-day class can get you a credit honestly think they’ve achieved something. If we as a society have let them, we’ve failed.

[Sarah]

And while I’m glad to see the bus monitor bullies get their comeuppance, I highly doubt, had the story not been so televised, had it not gone viral, that they would have been seriously punished at all.