Education News from Washington Post

Principal Carol Burris' recent post on why she is no longer a fan of the Common Core stirred wide interest and lively debate — enough that Carol decided to follow up with a piece that addresses some of the questions voiced in the comments following the piece, as well as in the emails she received after its posting. Burris, principal of South Side High School in New York, was named the 2010 New York State Outstanding Educator by the School Administrators Association of New York State. She is one of the co-authors of the principals' letter against evaluating teachers by student test scores, which has been signed by 1,535 New York principals. Here's her first post.

A growing number of states are drawing a hard line in elementary school, requiring children to pass a reading test in third grade or be held back from fourth grade.

Thirteen states last year adopted laws that require schools to identify, intervene and, in many cases, retain students who fail a reading proficiency test by the end of third grade. Lawmakers in several other states and the District are debating similar measures.

In the 1990s, Las Montanas High School (a fictional name for a real place) throbbed with excitement over technological advances in California’s Silicon Valley, where it was located. Forty-four percent of the students came from low-income families, but the school’s administrators and teachers vowed to override that handicap by turning the school into a high-tech magnet with a strong interdisciplinary focus.

Robert F. McDonnell ran for Virginia governor promising to reform public schools by offering parents more accountability and better teachers and giving them greater school choice by growing the state’s tiny list of charter schools.

Carletta Fellows, one of the newest members of the Prince George’s County Board of Education, campaigned as an outsider, someone who would fight against the status quo and fix a broken school system by pushing for transparency.

In the 1990s, Las Montanas High School (a fictional name for a real place) throbbed with excitement over technological advances in California’s Silicon Valley where it was located. Forty-four percent of the students were low-income but the school’s administrators and teachers vowed to override that handicap by turning it into a high tech magnet with a strong interdisciplinary focus.

Here is a powerful letter that a veteran teacher wrote and read to the Lafayette Parish School Board, explaining why she is sadly leaving the profession. It sums up many of the complaints teachers have with a school reform agenda that they believe is unfairly targeting them and hurting students too. This was written and tearfully read to the school board by Abby Breaux, who has taught for 25 years in Lafayette Parish in Louisiana. Since she gave the speech, she has been inundated with expressions of support from other teachers.

The latest report by the College Board on its Advanced Placement program talks a lot about the success of these courses. Here's a different look on AP, from Jack Schneider, an assistant professor of education at the College of the Holy Cross, in Worcester, Mass., and the author of "Excellence for All: How a New Breed of Reformers Is Transforming America's Public Schools." You can read an excerpt from that book, about the rise of Teach for America , here. This blog post appeared on Larry Cuban's School Reform and Classroom Practice blog.

More than two dozen D.C. education leaders met Thursday evening at the Hay-Adams hotel for a gathering with no stated agenda except conversation and good food and drink.

On the menu: Maine lobster bisque, artisan greens and filet mignon. In the offing: a chance to make a habit of more coordination and collaboration among the people who shape D.C. public education, according to the evening’s host, David A. Catania.

It’s hard to think of a higher education leader who faces more challenges than Timothy P. White.

The new chancellor of the California State University system, who started in December, oversees 23 campuses in the nation’s most populous state, with 44,000 faculty and staff and 427,000 students. The range of student backgrounds and needs is staggering, and the cutbacks in recent years in state funding have been immense.

For the you-can't-make-up-this-stuff category:

A French mother actually sent her 3-year-old son, named Jihad, to school wearing a shirt that had words on it that said, "I am a bomb," and "Born on Sept. 11."

Diane Ravitch, the education historian who has become the leader of a national movement opposing corporate-inspired school reform, has formed an advocacy group as a counter to Michelle Rhee's StudentsFirst and like-minded organizations that are pushing standardized test-based and other changes in education policy.

What does it mean for parents to support teachers? Philadelphia school activist and parent Helen Gym tells us in this post, which appeared on the Parents United for Public Education website.

By Helen Gym

Should Richard Trogisch, principal of the District’s selective and sought-after School Without Walls Senior High School, be able to hire his wife Cynthia?

Walls has been buzzing with that question since February, when attendees of a PTA meeting at Francis-Stevens Education Campus said Cynthia Trogisch introduced herself as an incoming assistant principal.

(Update: Adding vote by School Reform Commission to close schools plus video of Weingarten arrest)

The Philadelphia School Reform Commission voted tonight to close 23 public schools at a meeting where American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten was arrested along with 18 other activists during a protest at the entrance to the hearing. Four schools originally slated to be closed were given a reprieve and will stay open.

Here's the latest in a debate on tax credits for private school -- dubbed "neovouchers" -- that started with this post that I wrote enttitled, "Welfare for the rich? Private school tax credit programs expanding." Jason Bedrick of the Cato Institute wrote a dissenting March 1st statement on the Hoover Institution's Education Next Blog in support of these tax credit programs, and in turn, Kevin Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center, housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education, responded to Bedrick in this post. Bedrick took on Welner about his piece in this post on the Education Next Blog, and here is Welner's latest response. If you read it all, you should have a good education on neovouchers, Welner is the author of the 2008 book "NeoVouchers: The Emergence of Tuition Tax Credits for Private Schooling."

The School Reform Commission in Philadelphia is about to decide whether to go ahead with an unprecedented and controversial plan to close 29 public schools. (There were more schools on the list but activists got about 10 removed). To understand what is at stake for affected students and educators in Philadelphia -- and in other cities where closing schools has become a popular reform tactic -- here's testimony that Kate Shaw, executive director of Research for Action, recently gave to the education committee of the Philadelphia City Council. Research for Action is a non-profit education research organization that analyzes reforms at the local, state, and national levels to promote effective, sustainable, and equitable policies.

Education is the way to achieve far-reaching results, it is the proper way to promote compassion and tolerance in society.

— Dalai Lama (@DalaiLama) March 7, 2013

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Take six minutes and 12 seconds to watch this. Jon Stewart continues to be the best critic of silly education thinking with this "Daily Show" piece about the stupidity of some of the criticism of the idea of government support for high-quality preschool for all kids, an idea President Obama advanced in his State of the Union speech.

Who is speaking where at 2013 commencement ceremonies? Here's some of the big names and the places they will appear:

* President Obama is speaking at three graduations: the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Ohio State University and Morehouse College, the White House announced this week.