Thompson: Reviewing Tavis Smiley's "Too Important To Fail"
It took three viewings of much of Tavis Smiley's PBS report, "Too Important to Fail," in order to fully appreciate it. I encourage you to take at least one look. In the report, Smiley synthesizes the best of all types of reforms in overcoming the challenges faced by black males, celebrating the best of the new generation of accountability hawks, and showing why we need schools like Chicago's Urban Prep Academy and Philadelphia's Promise Academy. He also addresses issues like emotional trauma and peer influences in poor schools, the need for preschool and reading for
Charts: Denying Poverty Versus Ignoring It
Conservatives are raising questions about what the new poverty rates really mean. Reformers just ignore the
AM News: Republican Candidates Differ Over Immigrant Tuition
White House details plans for more digital learning USA Today: The White House will unveil plans Friday for a research center that aims to bring more digital learning into the nation's classrooms.
Huntsman: Don't punish children of illegal immigrants USA Today: GOP presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman said today he's with his rival Rick Perry when it comes to providing in-state tuition to some children.
L.A. Times wins press award for controversial teacher grading HuffPost: The Los Angeles Times won the Associated Press Media Editors First Amendment Sweepstakes Award on Thursday for "Grading the Teachers," a groundbreaking analysis of public school test scores that showed good teachers make a measurable difference in the classroom but often go unrecognized and unrewarded.
New York’s Race to the Top setbacks more extreme than most Gothamist: Tisch called the legal decision “a setback in the court system.” And the city Department of Education’s second-in-command, Shael Polakow-Suransky, said, “I’m confident we’re going to get to an agreement around this in the coming period, because we have to.”
Newark Is Betting on a Wave of New Principals NYT: Cami Anderson, the new schools superintendent, has recruited 17 new principals to run nearly a quarter of the city’s schools, part of an ambitious plan to rebuild the troubled district.
MORE NEWS ITEMS BELOW
Pursuing teaching as a second, third career NYT: As the baby boomers reach retirement age, some of those anticipating a new career are enrolling at community colleges and in state-approved or private programs to convert their professional expertise to the classroom.
N.Y. hands off part of teacher evaluation effort NYT: New York City will not rank educators based on their students’ standardized test scores, but will use similar effectiveness scores developed by the state.
Despite court order, Tacoma teachers stay out Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Teachers overwhelmingly voted to continue their strike Thursday afternoon and defy what the school district believes is a court order mandating they return to work.
D.C. schools prepare for nation's first sex-education standardized testing Washington Post: D.C. public and public charter schools, which annually test student progress in reading and math, will also measure what they know about human sexuality, contraception and drug use starting this spring.
PBS documentary on Baltimore schools premieres Baltimore Sun: Baltimore city schools are featured in a documentary set to debut on PBS stations nationally Tuesday. 'The Learning' looks at lives of Filipino teachers in city schools.