Education News from Washington Post

A coalition of educators, researchers, parents, activists and elected officials issued what signees are calling an "Education Declaration" on Tuesday that lists seven key principles on which genuine school reform should be guided for the 21st century and starts from the premise that public education is "a public good."

Robert C. Russell, a former Fairfax County music teacher and principal who served as the superintendent of Fairfax City public schools from 1984 to 1995, died June 2 in Elkins, W.Va. He was 83. Fairfax City Public Schools announced the death in a statement.

Several recent Washington Post stories have focused on revelations that a high percentage of students have failed, or nearly failed, math final exams in the highly regarded Montgomery County Public School system every year over the last five years. In fact, a majority of the 30,000 high school students in the county taking several end-of-semester math exams flunked -- and no high school in the Maryland district was spared. Furthermore, final exam scores for some high school biology, English and history courses in Montgomery County show failure rates of 37 to 50 percent, according to this story.

The chairman of Howard University’s Board of Trustees declared Monday that the school’s future is bright, rebutting concerns raised in another trustee’s scathing critique of the university’s leadership.

Anne Arundel school officials turned down a request to expunge school records for a second-grade boy disciplined for chewing his Pop-Tart-like pastry into the shape of a gun, according to the family and a lawyer.

In recent days I have published two pieces on the practice of grouping students by ability in schools, one post against and one post in favor of it. Here is a new piece on the subject in the form of a response to a story in Monday's New York Times, titled, "Grouping Students by Ability Regains Favor in Classroom." This post was written by Kevin Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center, housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education.

A former temporary employee of a D.C. charter school pleaded guilty Monday to stealing more than $75,000 from the school, according to federal prosecutors.

Darlene Ford, 46, worked for three months in 2010 as an accountant in the finance department at César Chávez Public Charter Schools for Public Policy, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Bending to popular outrage over high-stakes standardized testing, Gov. Rick Perry signed school reform legislation Monday that revamps high school graduation requirements and cuts the number of mandatory end-of-course exams from 15 to 5.

A little diversion from the school reform fare: An Illinois school has 24 sets of twins in a single grade.

This Associated Press story reports that the discovery was made by 11-year-old twins Luke and Ryan Novosel, who attend Highcrest Middle School in Wilmette, a northern suburb of Chicago, when they were looking around for a way to get into the Guinness Book of World Records.

New discipline policies approved last week by the Fairfax County school board follow a steady decline in the number of such cases considered by the school district in recent years.

The substantial policy changes, the latest effort by the school system to address the evolving discipline process, are expected to reduce the number of suspensions and possible expulsions students face every year for the most serious offenses.

Editor’s note: Following is the text of a letter written by Howard University trustee Renee Higginbotham-Brooks. In the letter, disclosed Friday, she charges that the historically black university in Northwest Washington is “in genuine trouble” because of fiscal and management issues. Higginbotham-Brooks confirmed to The Post on Saturday that she wrote the letter, but declined further comment.

Along with her maroon graduation gown, Taylor Klein planned to wear her most prized possession when she accepted her diploma from Broad Run High School on Sunday night — a blue-and-yellow bracelet honoring her neighbor, a little girl who fought two different cancers before she turned 5.

Here is an insightful look at the consequences of corporate-influenced school reform on class and race divisions in this country. It was written by Natalie Hopkinson is a contributing writer to The Washington Post. You can reach her at NHopkinson@hotmail.com. Join her, Allison Brown Consulting and The Root DC for a discussion on race and class in D.C. public schools at noon on June 15 at Hill Center, 921 Pennsylvania Ave. SE in Washington D.C. This appeared on The Root DC.

The National Security Agency is the super-secret organization that has been in the news because of disclosures that it has, for years, been conducting U.S. surveillance programs. But in at least one area, the NSA hasn't tried to be so secret: schools.

Flora M. Singer was never shy about sharing her experiences as a Holocaust survivor.

She recounted the adversity she lived through in tales she told in her memoir, through her work as a volunteer at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and as a teacher in Montgomery County.

As Joshua P. Starr enters his third year as superintendent of Montgomery County’s schools, he’ll have Andrew Zuckerman as his new chief of staff to help lead the system.

Zuckerman, 36, is scheduled to start working in Montgomery on June 17 after spending five years as an administrator in Prince George’s County, most recently working as an associate superintendent overseeing 88 schools with 46,000 students. With 14 years experience in education, Zuckerman has also worked in charter and traditional schools in Washington, Brooklyn and New Haven, Conn. Zuckerman lives in the District and has two daughters who are not yet school age.

I am afraid the White House is pushing high speed Internet to make testing platforms easier.

— Wilhelm II (@knightofgood) June 9, 2013

For those who missed it last week, President Obama announced a new initiative to bring broadband and wireless Internet access to nearly all of the nation's public schools and libraries within five years. Click here to read the full text of the speech Obama gave at a West Virginia middle school explaining the new EdConnect program, assuming it can be funded as he proposes.

Privacy concerns are growing among parents, educators and some state officials about a Gates Foundation-funded project that is storing an unprecedented amount of personal information about millions of students in a $100 million database that cannot guarantee complete security.

The latest fashions in the American education system are, as usual, inspiring raucous debate. I try to take sides in these arguments. Isn’t it my job to explain who’s right? But I wonder.

There is much chatter, for instance, over education historian Diane Ravitch’s fiery assault on Ben Austin, founder of the Parent Revolution organization. The California “parent trigger law” Austin sponsored just cost a Los Angeles principal her job. Fifty-three percent of parents at the Weigand Avenue Elementary School in the city’s Watts neighborhood signed a petition to fire Irma Cobian after three years of low scores. The school board obeyed the law and let Cobian go.

A Howard University trustee acknowledged Saturday that she had written a letter asserting that the school “is in genuine trouble” for various fiscal and management reasons, but she declined to elaborate.