Happy Viernes everyone!
As we enter the second weekend of spring, here are a few reads for you to tackle in all that “spare time.”
- Carol Marin, a Chicago Sun-Times columnist is left without words to describe all the shootings of school children in the city. As of last Saturday,143 Chicago Public Schools students have been shot so far this school year, and 20 have been killed. More Windy City school children were killed this school year than Chicago-based service members have died in Iraq and Afghanistan over the course of both wars.
- Check out this story I wrote about a Web-based professional-development portal being used by principals and other educators associated with New Leaders for New Schools. They are stoked about having video case studies and other documentation from schools that have made great gains.
- Everyone’s been talking about the decision in Wake County, N.C. to end the three-decade diversity policy for student assignment. I’ll be taking a deeper look at this next week.
A bittersweet story from Detroit. Jeff Seidel of the Detroit Free Press takes a look at Carstens Elementary School, where nine out of ten children have passed the state’s exams. Despite that, it is one of 41 schools slated for closure this summer in a district with a large deficit and plummeting enrollment. Check out the awesome photo gallery that accompanies the story, too.
- D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee, and George Parker, the Washington Teachers Union’ s president are signaling that we should finally see details of a proposed contract around April 6. Of course, Rhee and Parker have said the contract was coming “soon” before, so we shall see. The contract talks have been off and on since Rhee took over the district in 2007.