Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

The U.S. Department of Education announced today that this summer states will begin reporting high school graduation rates for the 2010-2011 school year using a more rigorous, uniform four-year adjusted cohort, first developed by the nation's Governors in 2005. Transition to the common rate reflects states' efforts to generate greater uniformity and transparency in calculating high school graduation data, and meets requirements of a federal regulation established in October 2008.

The debates surrounding Ohio's biennial budget and other education-related legislation during the first half of 2011 were intense, and it's no wonder. The state headed into the year facing a historic deficit, federal stimulus money was vanishing, and school districts were preparing for draconian cuts. Meanwhile, despite decades of reform efforts and increases in school funding, Ohio's academic performance has remained largely stagnant, with barely one-third of the state's students scoring proficient or better in either math or reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Achievement gaps continued to yawn between black and white students and between disadvantaged youngsters and their better-off peers. 

In New Jersey, more than half of the public schools don't meet the federal standards now, according to the state. Some predicted a failure rate as high as 80 percent nationwide in the next few years.

"Follow the money" can be good advice. Knowing who is footing the bill--for a political campaign, policy notion, or advocacy group--doesn't tell you all you need to know; candidates, policies, and organizational platforms need to be judged ultimately on their own merits. But you're right to put on your skeptic's glasses if Walton Family Foundation is sponsoring a conference on elected school boards; if the American Federation of Teachers is funding a study of charter schools; or if Eli Broad is supporting a grassroots group advocating for mayoral control.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan has made "extended learning time" a political catch-phrase, listing it as a top turnaround strategy across federal programs from Race to the Top to the School Improvement Fund.

From managing our nation's finances to designing policies that create more jobs for America's workers and graduates, federal leaders are consumed by capital related decisions.

The American Federation of Teachers has landed in a bit of hot water over a presentation, given by a regional affiliate lobbyist at its recent TEACH professional-development conference, that details how the Connecticut chapter "diffused" a "parent trigger" legislative proposal in that state.

The Department of Justice and four states on Monday filed a multibillion-dollar fraud suit against the Education Management Corporation, the nation's second-largest for-profit college company, charging that it was not eligible for the $11 billion in state and federal financial aid it had received from July 2003 through June 2011.

The city's plan for more than $255 million in federal Race to the Top funds has something for everyone -- especially educrats, data analysts and consultants, a Post review has found.

A New York-based education advocacy organization chaired by News Corp. Executive Vice President Joel Klein signed Blank Rome Government Relations to lobby the federal government on its behalf, according to paperwork filed with Congress Friday.

One out of three public school educators report pressure from bosses, parents or others to change grades, and nearly 30% say pressure to cheat on standardized tests is a problem at their school, according to a voluntary Free Press survey of Michigan educators. At schools that don't meet federal standards, the tension is higher: About 50% say pressure to change grades is an issue, and 46% say pressure to cheat on the tests is a problem.

"Federal money may have unintentionally funded the infamous 'dance of the lemons' that has been a harmful practice in districts for decades," said Tim Daly, president of the New Teacher Project, a nonprofit group that helps school districts recruit teachers.

Educators frustrated with federal policies and feeling increasingly under siege by their states will be converging on Washington, D.C., the last week of July 2011 for a rally, conference, and march to the White House. The organizers and endorsers-an array of teachers, advocates, researchers, and bloggers-have several issues that they're pressing with the Save Our Schools rally.

A slew of organizations representing colleges and universities have lined up to oppose a recently introduced federal teacher- and principal-training bill, urging the the chairman and ranking Republican on the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee not to support the proposal.

After years of work and more than $250 million in federal support, nearly all states and many districts have established longitudinal student data systems for accountability, yet many of those systems, even within the same state, still can't talk to each other, nor easily provide data to answer daily instructional questions from educators and policymakers. The Austin, Texas-based Michael and Susan Dell Foundation is hoping its new Ed-Fi data standard, released this morning, will allow educators and researchers to access information on kindergarten through 12th grade from state and local systems even before the systems have been aligned.

A group of tenants at a public housing development in Harlem said on Wednesday that they planned to sue the city and federal governments over the construction of a charter school on the grounds of the housing project.

"Some states currently are preparing proposals to engage in another round of Race to the Trough [otherwise known as Race to the Top]. They are seeking a share of the $700 million federal dollars allocated for early learning in the 2011 education budget. States can get this money if they design, develop, and administer pre-kindergarten assessments and kindergarten readiness tests. Common sense and research both suggest that this is really dumb!"

"A federal appeals court on Tuesday held that lower-court supervision of a desegregation decree for the Tucson, Ariz., school district, must continue in a case that began 37 years ago."

New federal grants and civil rights requirements have led states and districts to generate an unprecedented flood of data on students, from preschool through college, and states are now working to help districts make sense of it.

This year's payout of a three-year $416 million federal grant to struggling schools has been delayed for several California schools after monitoring teams found the state Department of Education and local districts not implementing required reforms.