Education News from Washington Post

How reliable are the District’s standardized test scores, especially given persistent allegations of cheating on those tests?

That’s a key question for the members of an independent panel at the National Research Council charged with evaluating the progress of D.C. schools during the past five years, a period of sweeping and controversial policy changes.

Maryland state Sen. Karen Montgomery (D-Montgomery) said she will continue to advocate for reform that would make it easier for parents to dispute their children’s special education learning plans even though the bill she introduced this legislative session effectively died Monday.

The Virginia School Boards Association announced that staff member Gina Patterson will become the organization’s executive director beginning Jan. 1, 2014.

Patterson, who is currently serving as the deputy executive director, will succeed Barbara Coyle, who is retiring as executive director at the end of this year.

Prince George’s County Executive Rushern L. Baker III (D) will hold a telephone town hall at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday to discuss his plan to takeover the county school system.

Baker wants to have direct control over the school superintendent and the system’s $1.7 billion budget, a move that would significantly limit the role of the county Board of Education.

Sen. Rand Paul, a rising star in the Republican Party, is pushing for a federal voucher program that sounds similar to one advanced by Mitt Romney when he was running for president.

Paul, from Kentucky, co-sponsored an amendment to Senate budget legislation with Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Republican from Tennessee who was once secretary of education. The "school choice" amendment calls for using $14.5 billion in current Title 1 funds, which are targeted to students who attend high-poverty schools, to cover 11 million students, at $1,300 per child. The money would follow a student at any accredited public or private student a family chooses.

It's safe to say that a few weeks ago not many people outside South Florida had heard about Florida Gulf Coast University. Now, thanks to the school's basketball team and its historic forward march in March Madness, it's the new "it" school, at least for the moment. What exactly is it? And where is it?

The classroom for Gail Coleman’s son wasn’t the right fit. Diagnosed with both ADHD and autism, he was learning little to nothing in school for months and started threatening suicide.

“Why don’t you just chop my head off and get a gun and shoot me?” Coleman recalls her son saying once.

Hoping to head off a push to expand police presence in the nation’s 100,000 public schools, a national civil rights group plans to issue an alternative this week to beefing up school security.

The plan focuses on counselors, campus safety teams, secure entrances and communication. It does not support adding more armed police.

At 22, Sarah McBride’s resume shows a passion for public service. Former president of American University’s student government. Intern with the White House Office of Public Engagement. Aide to Delaware Gov. Jack Markell (D).

My eldest grandson, Ben Mathews, just turned four. According to the New York Times, that is a perilous age in that big city. Many four year olds are toiling through exercises designed by their parents and tutoring companies to prepare for kindergarten gifted program entrance tests.

The chairman of the Prince George’s school board on Saturday lashed out at County Executive Rushern L. Baker III, calling his plan to take over operations of the county’s public schools a “last minute power grab.”

There are many distressing stories about high-stakes standardized tests, but this may be the most hideous I have heard. This involves the issue of who must take state standardized tests, and whether parents have a right to opt out their children from the testing. In Florida, opting out is extremely hard to do. This post was written by veteran educator Marion Brady, who in 2011 introduced us to Rick Roach, the Orange County school board member who took a version of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. Roach is back in this post.

Superstar Rihanna was due to appear at a suburban Chicago high school after students there won a contest she sponsored that had kids create a video set to one of her songs. But things didn't go as scheduled.

Representatives from teachers’ unions and parent organizations expressed support Thursday night for the Prince George's County Board of Education in its fight against the county executive’s proposal to take over the county school system.

When Michelle Rhee told D.C. school residents that she, as chancellor of public schools in the nation's capital, was closing 23 under-enrolled schools, she promised that a lot of money would be saved that could be plowed back into academic programs in remaining schools. It didn't happen; an audit years later found that the closings actually cost the city $40 million.

With March Madness in full gear, Education Secretary Arne Duncan is proposing that colleges and universities start penalizing coaches financially if the athletes on their teams don't graduate.

In this op-ed in USA Today, Duncan and co-author Tom McMillen, chairman and chief executive officer of the Timios National Corporation, argue that big-time coaches make enormous salaries and are awarded bonuses for athletic performance. But, they said, there is no penalty when athletes who get big scholarships don't graduate from the institution. Their prescription:

The University of Maryland did not retain a copy of the contract that its president signed with the Big Ten Conference in November, which reportedly contains the terms of the public institution entering into a long-term business deal with the private athletic conference.

Where was Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel when city officials made the controversial announcement that the district would close 54 public schools this year, the largest number of public schools to close in a mass action in the country's history?

The public schools on the isolated, windswept Fort Peck Indian reservation here are at the frontier of the federal sequester, among the first to struggle with budget cuts sweeping west from Washington.

Chicago officials finally announced what was widely rumored: They will close 54 under-enrolled schools this year in the country's third largest district to help close a $1 billion budget deficit. It is the largest mass district closing of schools ever in the United States, and it is fiercely opposed by many teachers, parents and education activists.