Education News from Washington Post

The achievement gap that separates white and Asian students from black and Latino students has grown wider in Montgomery County in several measures of academic success, according to a report released Tuesday.

Sometimes a nice little story is just the ticket, and here's one: A custodian at a Texas high school won the national LifeChanger of the Year award for his efforts to help and mentor students.

Charles Clark, head custodian at Trinity High School in Euless, Tex., was tapped as the national grand prize winner in the 2012-13 national LifeChanger of the Year contest. He beat more than 400 other people, including teachers, administrators and school district employees from 33 states, according to a release by the contest sponsors, the National Life Group, composed of financial service companies.

You won't believe what a bill called "The Reasonable School Discipline Act of 2013 and introduced in the Maryland legislature is intended to accomplish. (Or maybe you will.)

My colleague Michael Rosenwald calls it a bill "to protect Pop-Tart guns." Why? A 7-year-old in an Anne Arundel County school bit a Pop-Tart into the shape of a gun, apparently said, "Bang bang," and was suspended.

U.S. Department of Education officials announced last month that the University of Virginia’s accrediting agency did not break any federal laws when it placed the public institution “on warning” for violations related to the U-Va. governing board ousting and then reinstating the university’s president in June.

A new study of a few thousand students found that homeschoolers get more sleep than students at traditional public and private schools. What are the consequences? It may be that home-schooled students are better prepared to learn on a daily basis because they get more sleep, researchers said.

A new parent group in Montgomery County is lobbying for healthier food in school cafeterias.

Real Food for Kids Montgomerywants to work with Montgomery County Public Schools to eliminate artificial additives, refined white flour, added sugar and processed foods from cafeteria meals. They want foods like colored slushies and flavored milk, which in some cases have either added dyes or added sugar, out of school cafeterias.

Here's an argument that the school choice movement doesn't really deliver on its promise of more choice, especially the "Parent Trigger." It was written by Jeff Bryant, a marketing and creative strategist with nearly 30 years of experience as a freelance writer, consultant, and search engine marketing provider. He's written extensively about public education policy. This appeared on the Campaign for America's Future website.

Hundreds of D.C. high school juniors have received excellent news in recent days: They are the recipients of Achievers scholarships, meant to help promising city students pay for college.

The Achievers scholarships, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and administered by the nonprofit College Success Foundation-District of Columbia, provide as much as $55,000 over five years of school.

Does a quality education help major-league baseball players up their game?

Not so much, according to this Washington Post story by James Wagner, reporting from Florida where the Washington Nationals are in spring training.

Black shoes, khaki pants and a maroon shirt — that’s the required uniform at Thurgood Marshall Academy in Anacostia. But the well-regarded college-prep charter school is no sea of sameness. Students’ hair comes in all colors of the rainbow, plus a few shades not seen in nature. Piercings decorate noses and cheeks. Lipstick is neon. “I don’t like being plain,” said senior Japaira Ellison, who on a recent weekday wore her hair blue and her lips a searing red. “I want to separate myself in some way.” Thurgood Marshall’s mission is to make sure that students from some of the roughest neighborhoods in the District make it to and through college. Ellison has already been accepted to Columbia College in Illinois, and she’s waiting to hear from a long list of others. Kijon James, whose hair and eyebrows are dyed a shocking crimson, recently got into Pennsylvania State University. And Joemese Malloy, who says her cheeks won’t be pierced forever, is aiming for Morgan State University. “We aren’t messing up our lives, we’re just living now,” Malloy said. “I’m not about to get a job now, so I’m just being young.”

Latino students, the largest minority group in Northern Virginia, are attending increasingly segregated schools, according to a report released Tuesday that examines enrollment patterns across the state over the past two decades.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten was arrested last week in Philadelphia while protesting a hearing of the School Reform Commission that voted to close 23 public schools. Here's a Q & A with her about why she went to Philadelphia, what teachers are worried about, and more.

As leaders of the Catholic Church prepare to choose a new pope in the Vatican City, two American Catholic cardinals are on many of the circulating lists of papal contenders: Se n Patrick O'Malley, archbishop of Boston, and Timothy Michael Dolan, archbishop of New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

One of the District’s highest-performing charter schools is proposing to build a high school on public land in Southwest, drawing mixed reviews from those with a stake in that part of the city.

KIPP DC officials said they are aiming to put a campus at the Randall Recreation Center, in the shadow of Interstate 395 on South Capitol Street. KIPP officials said they spent 18 months looking for a centrally located site for the school; Randall is within walking distance of four Metro stations and is about four blocks north of Nationals Park.

Flipping the classroom is in vogue.

The idea is to take the standard lecture and put it online or in some other format that a student can review on his or her own time — hence the term “flip.” Then students and instructors have classtime free to work on seminars, projects, homework or whatever. Or they can listen to a guest lecture.

How will the sequester affect America's neediest young people and their ability to function well in school? Here is a look, by Elaine Weiss, national coordinator of the campaign for a Broader Bolder Approach to Education, a national campaign that promotes reforms which address the impact of social and economic disadvantage on young students.

A D.C. high school teacher who was arrested last week on a child pornography charge has admitted to sending sexually explicit text messages to approximately 10 students during his career, according to court documents.

(This post has been updated with a response from Harvard.)

We at the Washington Post are all too familiar with important people who feel the need to find and close leaks to the media.

We knew back in the 1970s when Richard Nixon's 'plumbers' secretly tried to find who leaked classified information and then decided to expand their activities to include breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate building. A big scandal followed.

Parents in Montgomery County are leading efforts to make it easier for Maryland families to dispute a child’s special education plan in legal hearings.

The parents have been lobbying in favor of a bill that would require school systems to defend Individual Education Programs in due process legal disputes, regardless of who initiates the proceedings.

Colorado students are planning to walk out of the state's mandatory assessment this week and protest at the state Capitol, the latest in growing student pushback against high-stakes tests around the country.