AM News: AFT President Arrested for Protesting Philly's 23 School Closings

Philadelphia Commission votes to close 23 schools, spare four Philadelphia Inquirer: In a tense, dramatic conclusion to a months-long battle, the Philadelphia School Reform Commission voted Thursday night to close 23 schools across the city - and spare four it had considered shutting

Randi Weingarten, President of AFT, Arrested For Protesting Philadelphia School Closure Hearing HuffPostEdu: Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, was arrested Thursday afternoon for blocking a school reform hearing in Philadelphia, an AFT spokesperson told The Huffington Post. 

Diane Ravitch Launches New Education Advocacy Counterforce PoliticsK12: Education historian Diane Ravitch, a fierce critic of current education reform trends, is launching a new advocacy organization that will support political candidates who oppose high-stakes testing, mass school closures, and what her group calls the "privatizing" of public schools. 

Chicago Public Schools panel: Up to 80 schools could close ChicagoTribune: Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration could safely close or overhaul as many as 80 schools this year, according to the final report of a commission that just two months ago voiced misgivings about the district's ability to close a large number of schools without major upheaval.

Districts Tying Principal Reviews to Test Scores EdWeek: A growing number of school districts—including large ones like those in Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Hawaii—have become recent converts to new principal-evaluation systems that tie school leaders' appraisals to student test scores. 

Comments

[Bruce]

Re: "Districts Tying Principal Reviews" and Chicago's proposed school closings: too often the people making policy proposals like this fail to properly distinguish between primary and secondary education, and their proposals, while sometimes sensible for the older students, have disastrous backwash effects upon the younger. For thousands of Chicago school children, for example, to be commuting over a mile and a half through gang-infested streets to get to schools with marginally higher scores on dubious tests is doubtful public policy; whereas in Japan, by contrast, high school students regularly transport themselves across much greater distances on public transport for better opportunities that they themselves choose.