AM News: Union Support For Republicans Doubles To 8 Pct.

Seeking Allies, Teachers’ Unions Court G.O.P., Too NYT: Over the past few years, even as Republicans have led efforts to thwart unions, lawmakers previously considered solid supporters of teachers’ unions have tangled with them over a national education agenda that includes new performance evaluations based partly on test scores, the overhaul of tenure and the expansion of charter schools.

Race to Top Winners Push to Fulfill Promises EdWeek: As the 12 Race to the Top winners reach the midpoint of their four-year, $4 billion federal grant program, states are shifting their work from the planning stages to what is perhaps the more difficult part: implementing new programs and school improvement efforts in the classroom.

Miller to Duncan: Waivers May Offer Too Much Leeway on Grad Rates PoliticsK-12: Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Education committee, is worried that the department isn't holding states' feet to the fire when it comes to monitoring graduation rates in states that have received waivers from parts of the No Child Left Behind Act.

Chicago Schools Chief: 'I've Never Been A Yes Person' Huffington Post: "I got in a car and drove from school to school," he told The Huffington Post in his first lengthy interview since the strike ended on Sept. 18. From the beginning of the strike, Brizard said he engaged with teachers on the picket lines from 6 a.m. until lunch.

SAT Scores Fall as More Students Take Exam WSJ: SAT scores for the high-school graduating class of 2012 fell in two of the test's three sections, with reading dropping to the lowest level in four decades on the college-entrance test, according to data released Monday. ALSO SAT reading scores hit a four-decade low Washington Post

Comments

[Bruce]

Educators should be prepared to work with any political leaders who are willing to help with the growing problem of young people who are unable to pay back their loans because they were ill prepared for the colleges that their ambitious advisers of a different social class urged them to attend. The narcissism and urge for cultural reproduction evident among younger educators is having these effects, which show up in the SAT scores that are falling for all but the most test-obsessed social groups yet which still predict with some validity success in the first year of college, after which many young adults do not return. I was first struck by this phenomenon when I was managing accreditation renewal for Green Dot: only 54 percent of the graduates of a Green Dot school that was then ranked #22 in the nation returned for a second year of college after their first.