AM News: NEA Opposes House-Passed Background Check Bill

U.S. House Approves Bipartisan Background Check Bill Politics K12: Mary Kusler, the NEA's director of government relations, wrote in a letter to lawmakers that the measure is "well intentioned" but could "run counter to existing state laws requiring background checks."

Senator Raises Questions About Protecting Student Data NYT: Senator Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, is investigating whether federal rules governing the sharing of student data provide adequate security and privacy protections.

Local Education Hiring is Up, Even With Sequestration Cuts PoliticsK12: Local government education employment posted a monthly increase of 9,500 jobs, according to the September jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That brought the overall gain to 56,400 jobs since June.

Common Core Reading Survey Shows Slow Start To Teaching Shift HuffPost: Based on an extensive survey of a small but nationally representative sample of teachers last year, the group suggests that teachers mostly have not yet overhauled reading instruction in a way that will herald change. "In summary, these results reveal that many teachers have not yet confronted the new text complexity demands of the Common Core," the report concludes.  [ALSO: Teachers Are Supposed to Assign Harder Books, but They Aren't Doing It Yet AtlanticEDU]

Teacher Who Died Trying To End Shooting Remembered As A Hero NPR: Michael Landsberry was a 45-year-old former U.S. Marine who served in Afghanistan with the Nevada Air National Guard.

Nevada School Shooting Draws Fresh Focus on Bullying, Harassment State EdWatch: A new law in Nevada requiring school districts to track and report incidents of bullying could be put to use after a school shooting on Oct. 21.

How will Booker's optimism be received in DC? MSNBC: Rachel Maddow surveys the political landscape in which the optimistic Senator-elect Cory Booker heads to Washington.

Malala inspires school curriculum AP: The 16-year-old Pakistani teen targeted for a Taliban assassination because she championed ...

One Year Later, a Middle School Revisits Sandy WNYC: Some of the students fled homes that flooded; one watched the stream behind his house rise over sandbags and another recalled a man dragging his dog out from under rubble.

Major Owens, 77, Education Advocate in Congress, Dies NYT: Mr. Owens, a state senator and a former chief administrator of New York City’s antipoverty program, went to Congress from Brooklyn and remained there for 24 years.