Staffers at Cayuga Elementary School in Philadelphia were ordered to do whatever they had to do — even cheating — to get better test scores, according to sources. Principal Evelyn Cortez reportedly met with teachers days before the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA), a yearly standardized test, to make sure the message was clear. (more)
Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio wrote to Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan on Tuesday, criticizing an Obama administration plan to grant No Child Left Behind waivers to states that adopt national standards backed by the administration.“I am concerned,” Rubio’s letter says, “that the administration’s requirements for granting a waiver from NCLB would entail states having to adopt a federally-approved ‘college and career ready’ curriculum: either the national Common Core standards, or another federally-approved equivalent.” According to Rubio, the practice of granting conditional waivers is “detrimental to our country’s shared goal of educational success for every student.” And, he claims, it’s also against federal law. (more)
In 2008, teacher assistant Johanna Munoz helped her Orlando-area fourth-graders on the state achievement test. (more)
A just-released study from the Government Accountability Office uncovers massive duplication in federal government programs. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) estimates that the resulting waste costs taxpayers more than $100 billion a year. (more)
In what is becoming a signature move of a defeated political coalition, Democratic members of the Indiana state legislature followed their Wisconsin counterparts and fled Hoosierland this week. Ostensibly done to avoid voting on legislation that would make Indiana a “right-to-work” jurisdiction, the real devil for Indiana Democrats may not be this “union-busting” legislation. After all, private-sector unionization — the bill’s key target — is now the sick old man within labor’s empire. Rather, the real fear of fly-by-night Democrats is recently introduced legislation that would establish path-breaking statewide tuition scholarships enabling students from low and middle income families to choose their own school. By running, these politicians are signaling blanket opposition to the education reform proposals of a conservative coalition led by Governor Mitch Daniels. (more)
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released results Tuesday of a study that ranks international students in reading, science and math. Their release came as a blow to the United States. (more)
In some struggling school districts around the country, students transferring from failing schools are overwhelming the few successful schools in their areas, an unintended byproduct of the No Child Left Behind law. (more)
In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, President Obama recently spoke at the Congressional Hispanic Institute’s 33rd annual gala, covering a broad range of issues in hopes of driving Hispanics to the polls for this fall’s midterm elections. With the elections only about a month away, it’s understandable that the president’s remarks read more like a campaign speech than a serious policy discussion. (more)
When I started on the education beat in the late 1950s in New York—having been an alumnus of the high expectations and discipline of the public Boston Latin School—whose other alumni included Samuel Adams and Ralph Waldo Emerson—I used to take careful notes of the annual city-wide school test scores. I paid particular attention to a Brooklyn elementary school in a low-income neighborhood with many “disadvantaged” students, as black youngsters were called then. (more)
Black, Hispanic, and low-income Florida fourth graders now outperform all California fourth graders in reading, according to National Assessment of Educational Progress results released last month by the U.S. Department of Education. Also known as the Nation’s Report Card, experts consider NAEP fourth-grade reading a leading predictor of success since students who have not mastered reading by fourth grade tend to fall further behind each year, increasing the likelihood they will ultimately drop out. (more)
A few weeks ago, a National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) report entitled “The Nation’s Report Card: Reading 2009” was released. The document records the results of reading-abilities tests given to 178,000 fourth graders and 160,000 eighth graders. The results showed that, while a slim group (33 percent) in fourth grade, and 32 percent in eighth grade, scored at or above the “Proficiency Level,” the vast majority of young people in the study, 34 percent in fourth grade, and 43 percent in eighth grade, performed at the “Basic Level.” The study also showed that 26 percent of eighth graders and 34 percent of fourth graders performed below the “Basic Level.” (more)
The Obama administration plans to send a wide-ranging overhaul of the No Child Left Behind education law to Congress on Monday, arguing that the current legislation has pushed schools to lower their standards to meet federal requirements. (more)
With CPAC attendees descending on Washington this week, with a new conservative manifesto being penned to protect the Constitution, and with Tea Parties being planned for the spring, I find myself hoping and praying that such small-government fervor infiltrates the ranks of education reformers. (more)
The Obama administration outlined on Monday morning some of the proposed changes it would like to make in a sweeping overhaul of President Bush’s signature education law, No Child Left Behind. The changes, which are outlined in a document discussing the Department of Education portions of the president’s $3.8 trillion budget for the 2011 fiscal year, include the replacement of the current system for judging schools based on student test scores and the shift toward increased competition in distributing federal education dollars. (more)
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