The Dangers of ‘Outsourcing’ Public Education
Contracting out student lunches, bus transportation, and janitorial services have rippled across the nation’s 14,000 school districts since the 1980s, including teaching and learning. When it comes to outsourcing actual teaching and learning, whether online or in traditional classrooms, it’s hard to make the case that private companies save tax dollars and do the job as well as schools. Source: The Washington Post
No Name-Calling Week, January 21-25
The No Name-Calling Week Coalition, created by GLSEN and Simon & Schuster Children’s publishing, consists of over 40 national partner groups. The project seeks to focus national attention on the problem of name-calling in schools, and to provide students and educators with the tools and inspiration to launch an on-going dialogue about ways to eliminate name-calling in their communities.
Digital Tools Not Improving Parental Engagement
A Web application, called Parent Portal, makes an extraordinary amount of information available to parents. It shows students’ grades, attendance records and notes from their teachers on how they are performing. Parents can exchange private messages with teachers. The information is updated weekly. Over the past few years, the Dallas school district has expanded its online offerings to parents, including a smartphone app released a few months ago. But officials find that takers have been few. Source: Dallas Morning News