November 12, 2014
Education Week, Vol. 34, Issue 12
Standards
News in Brief
Where's the Training?
The United States has produced plenty of inspiring, fresh approaches to teaching math. The problem is that it has dropped the ball on implementing them.
Standards
News in Brief
'Plus' Standards Spur Course Changes
Close readers of the common-core standards for math will notice that in the high school section, some items are marked with a plus sign (+). Those are the so-called "plus standards," designed to go beyond the general expectations and prepare students for advanced math courses.
Standards
News in Brief
Math Instructional Materials Vetted
A new group billing itself as a "Consumer Reports for school materials" will soon begin posting free online reviews of major textbooks and curricula that purport to be aligned to the Common Core State Standards—an effort, some say, that has the potential to shake up the market.
Standards
News in Brief
NCTM Issues Practice Guide for Teachers
The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics has released a document that aims to describe in detail what teachers and education leaders need to do in practice to help students meet the expectations of the Common Core State Standards for math.
Standards
News in Brief
Researcher Isolates Common-Core Math Implementation Problems
In a recent talk for education journalists, William Schmidt, a researcher and education professor at Michigan State University, in East Lansing, laid out what he sees as the four major problems with how the Common Core State Standards for math are being implemented in schools.
Classroom Technology
Dissecting Districts' Ed-Tech Buying
A newly released study probes the frustrations that digital developers and K-12 officials have with various aspects of district procurement.
Assessment
Opinion
Grading Standards Can Elevate Teaching
An accurate and fair grading system empowers teachers and students while also building trust, writes Joe Feldman.
IT Infrastructure & Management
Perceived Threat to Net Neutrality Sparks Furor
The Federal Communications Commission, weighing new rules, received a flood of responses from educators and educational technology companies urging the agency to preserve the open Internet for schools.
School & District Management
California Chief's Win a Bright Spot for Teachers' Unions
The battle for the Golden State's top K-12 spot—with teachers' unions backing incumbent Tom Torlakson's successful re-election bid—became a proxy war over K-12 policy.
Recruitment & Retention
Study: Close Screening Process Can Improve Teacher Hires
Districts could boost their ability to hire more effective teachers who stay on the job longer by improving their screening techniques, a newly released working paper concludes.
Equity & Diversity
Opinion
How We Can Help Black Female Students
Directing philanthropic support toward supporting black girls is one way to lift this neglected group of students, Fatima Goss Graves says.
College & Workforce Readiness
Study: Payoffs Are Small for Short-Term Career Certificates
Longer-term certificates and associate degrees yield more of a wage boost than the short-term, occupational certificates that students earn at community colleges.
Professional Development
Report Roundup
Study Finds Principal Mobility Takes Toll on Budgets, Learning
The high rate of principal turnover is costing school districts dearly, particularly teachers and students in high-poverty systems, says a new report by the School Leaders Network.
Equity & Diversity
Report Roundup
Cliques in School
Students are more likely to organize in homogenous and hierarchical cliques in schools that offer them more choices, says a study published last week.
Classroom Technology
Report Roundup
Digital Access
Enrollment in state-run online schools is on the rise, though broad gaps remain in the availability of digital resources and tools across the country's large, midsized, and small school systems, a new report concludes.
Early Childhood
Report Roundup
Child Care
Thirty-three states made policy changes this calendar year that either make it easier for families to get child-care assistance or provide a more substantial benefit, says a report from the National Women's Law Center in Washington.
Assessment
Report Roundup
Common-Core Testing
High school students who took the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium field test last spring found it far more difficult than younger students did, especially in mathematics, according to a new report.
College & Workforce Readiness
News in Brief
Harvard Launches Initiative to Prepare Seniors to Enter Teaching
Harvard University plans to launch a fellowship program to prepare seniors at the college to become K-12 teachers, giving them more than a year of student-teaching, a lightened courseload, and follow-up supports once they've started to lead their own classrooms.
School Climate & Safety
News in Brief
Delaware School Gets Bulletproof Whiteboards
As part of a pilot program, all staff members at Gunning Bedford Middle School in New Castle, Del., have been given hand-held whiteboards that double as bulletproof shields in case of a school shooting.
School Climate & Safety
News in Brief
Teachers in New York State to Give EpiPen Injections
New York state has crafted new rules allowing trained teachers to administer epinephrine injections to students facing medical emergencies.
Law & Courts
News in Brief
Rural District Under Fire for Authorizing Charters
A rural district in Southern California is the subject of several lawsuits after it authorized charter schools that have opened in neighboring districts, according to LA School Report.
Law & Courts
News in Brief
N.Y. Teacher Challenges State Evaluation System
A Long Island teacher has filed a lawsuit against the New York state education department, charging that the teacher-evaluation system is statistically flawed.
School Climate & Safety
News in Brief
Teacher Told to Stay Away on Return From Africa
A teacher in a Roman Catholic school was told to take a leave of absence for 21 days when she returned from a mission trip to Kenya, even though the country is thousands of miles from the center of the Ebola outbreak.
Law & Courts
News in Brief
New Orleans Not Liable for Post-Katrina Job Losses
A Louisiana Supreme Court panel has overturned a lower-court class action stemming from the dismissal of teachers after Hurricane Katrina, a decision that for now spares the New Orleans district and the state of Louisiana from having to pay up to $1.5 billion in back pay.
Law & Courts
News in Brief
Parents Sue School Districts After Football Player's Death
The parents of a 16-year-old who died last fall from football-related brain trauma are suing the New York districts he played for and the medical responders who tended to him.
School & District Management
News in Brief
District Technology Chief in Los Angeles Resigns
Following the botched rollout of an ambitious plan to provide iPads to students and an ongoing software fiasco that has undermined class scheduling and the ability to verify the accuracy of students' transcripts, the chief information officer of the 651,000-student Los Angeles Unified School District has stepped down.
Equity & Diversity
News in Brief
More Black Students Expelled Over Social-Media Use in Ala.
The Huntsville, Ala., district expelled 14 students last year based on the findings of a private contractor who monitored students' social-media activity as part of greater school security efforts, according to a review by The Huntsville Times. Twelve of them were black, drawing concerns that the program unfairly targeted African-American students.
School & District Management
News in Brief
Urban School Chiefs' Tenure Falls Off, Survey Finds
The average time that urban superintendents stay on the job dropped this year, new survey results show.