Education News from Washington Post

The Fairfax County School Board late Thursday approved a boundary change that will move about 500 students in the fall of 2014, an effort to address crowding at two schools in Fairfax City.

The vote came 11 months after the city requested that the board consider a change to alleviate over-enrollment at Fairfax High School and the potential for over-enrollment at its feeder school, Lanier Middle. Although the schools are within city limits, and part of the Fairfax city school system, about 65 percent of their students come from surrounding county neighborhoods.

The wait-list started as a backup plan for college admissions officers who needed to fill remaining seats in a freshman class if not enough of the accepted students committed to attending by the May 1 deadline.

A New York City elementary school student who couldn't stand the way his school lunch tasted made a secret documentary that is now winning audiences and awards at film festivals.

The boy, who is called Zachary Maxwell in the film, which is called "Yuck: A 4th Grader's Short Documentary About School Lunch," was in fourth grade when he embarked on his project last year. He was sick of reading the lunch menu posted online by the Department of Education, with descriptions that made the food sound delicious, only to be sorely disappointed day after day after day.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan just visited Michigan where he visited schools in Detroit and the Perry Child Development Center in Ypsilanti. Here's an open letter to Duncan, put out before the visit and written by Steve J. Norton, executive director for Michigan Parents for Schools, a nonprofit advocacy group pushing for quality local public education. The intent of the letter was to point out the conflict between Duncan-espoused education reform Duncan and the educational values underpinning Perry's High/Scope model, as well as what Norton considers the dangerous direction of education policy in Michigan.

With one decision about one elementary school, D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson is filling in the picture of the future of the District's long-troubled public school system.

It's been clear for some time that the public school system in the nation's capital has been moving toward charter dominance. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out: There are now about 45,000 students in 117 traditional public school buildings under Henderson's control, and there are about 35,000 students in 57 public charter schools beyond her control, run by the D.C. Public Charter School Board. Henderson is planning to close 15 schools this year, and more charter schools are being approved every year.

Stephen Hawking, the famous physicist, just backed out of a major international conference scheduled in Israel this June on the advice of Palestinian academics who have been pushing an academic boycott against Israel for years.

This is Teacher Appreciation Week (so declared by the National Education Association), a fine moment to say something nice to or about teachers, who have been put through the ringer in recent years.

Why has teacher morale been plummeting, as evidenced in poll after poll? You can, in large part, thank reformers who have moved to end or reduce teacher tenure, make teacher evaluation partly dependent on student standardized test scores, tell teachers what and how to teach, etc., etc.

The Massachusetts university where one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects attended is restricting the number of people who can attend this weekend's graduation ceremonies as colleges and universities around the country tighten security for commencement in reaction to the deadly April 15 attack.

Earlier this week I published a piece by UCLA Professor and author Mike Rose titled, "Leave No Unwealthy Child Behind," in which he discusses how economic inequality is reflected in educational achievement. Here's a response from Robert Bligh, former general counsel of the Nebraska Association of School Boards. Bligh's research interest involves the efficacy of the school reform efforts promoted by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act since its original adoption in 1965. He served as assistant professor at Doane College and was editor and publisher of the Nebraska School Law Reporter.

The tiny Buena Vista School District in Michigan has laid off all but three staffers and is closing down now because it says it can't afford to operate for the rest of the school year. Though teachers in the three-school district in Saginaw voted to keep working for free, officials decided they are keeping the schools closed unless some way out of the crisis can be found.

I often despair over the sorry state of writing and research in our high schools. Only private schools and public schools with the International Baccalaureate diploma program require research papers of significant length. Two million new high school graduates head to college every year — but only 10 percent, by my reckoning — have had to write a long paper or do a major project.

Chancellor Kaya Henderson is seeking to merge a long-struggling Southeast Washington elementary school with a high-performing charter school, creating what she describes as a first-of-its-kind partnership between the two types of schools.

Prince William County high school students can look forward to fewer tests next year, as school officials have eliminated mandatory midterm exams.

The county’s high school principals unanimously signed on to a one-year pilot program that will free teachers from administering required semester exams in January and give them more time to prepare for end-of-year tests.

Have you heard about the two 7-year-old boys who were suspended from their Suffolk County, Va. school for pointing pencils at each other while making shooting sounds? One boy was pretending to be a Marine and the other a bad guy.

Fairfax County schools Superintendent Jack D. Dale underwent emergency heart surgery Tuesday evening after he suffered an aortic aneurysm at work, and it is possible he will not return to his job before his planned retirement this summer, according to school officials.

A new report that reviewed years of research says that it is hard to accurately monitor levels of bullying in schools because there is still no consensus on exactly what it is and that educators and scholars "should not limit themselves to the traditional definition" as they seek ways to combat it.

Four legendary investors gathered at the University of Virginia in late April to share their philosophies and strategies for success, personal fulfillment and philanthropy. All four were men, white and aging, and that prompted several audience members to submit questions wondering: Where are the women?

First came free online courses. Now come — with a few conditions — free online textbooks.

Coursera, a provider of massive open online courses, or MOOCs, from dozens of universities, announced Wednesday a partnership with several publishers to provide portions of certain textbooks free for students to use while they take the courses.

What do I want for teacher appreciation week @networkpubliced? For teachers to not be thrown under the bus in the name of ed reform.

— Michelle Gunderson (@MSGunderson) May 8, 2013

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Here's a piece from an eighth grade student named Isaiah Schrader about his recent experience with the new Common Core-aligned assessment tests he and other New York students just took. Isaiah, who is 14 years old, attends Anne M. Dorner Middle School, in Ossining, New York. He is a 2012 Caroline D. Bradley Scholar (awarded to exceptionally gifted middle school students), and will attend the Trinity School in New York City next year.