Gov. Christie and Legislature Fail to Fund School Formula, Create Crisis for Newark’s Schools | janresseger

Gov. Christie and Legislature Fail to Fund School Formula, Create Crisis for Newark’s Schools | janresseger:

Gov. Christie and Legislature Fail to Fund School Formula, Create Crisis for Newark’s Schools

The Prize—Dale Russakoff’s book about the plan put in place by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and then Newark Mayor Cory Booker to charterize Newark’s schools and recruit Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg to pay for it—is listed by the NY Times as one of the top 100 books of the year.  It is a fascinating tale of political intrigue and the imposition of the ideology of “school disruption” on the public schools in a very poor community. In September, this blog covered The Prize here and here.

Russakoff’s book isn’t, however, as strong on the gritty fiscal realities for the Newark Public Schools, though the book does demonstrate many of the ways Christie’s overseer superintendent, Cami Anderson, squandered a lot of Zuckerberg’s money, nearly a quarter of it on expensive consultants. Right after Thanksgiving,  the Education Law Center released a report that clarifies the financial realities for the Newark School District that are harder to patch together from Russakoff’s book.

Mark Zuckerberg’s one-time gift of $100 million to underwrite the Christie-Booker charter school experiment pales compared to what the Education Law Center’s new report explains is a $132 million shortfall in state funding for the current school year due to Governor Chris Christie’s refusal to fund the state’s court-ordered school finance plan: “Newark last received the increases required by New Jersey’s school funding formula—the School Funding Reform Act… in 2011-12, when the State Supreme Court ordered Governor Christie to restore the $42 million cut from Newark’s budget in 2010.  Since then, the Governor has refused to fund the formula, resulting in an over $132 million shortfall in state aid to Newark Public Schools in 2015-2016.”

Complicating Newark Public Schools’ problems has been the rapid expansion of charter Gov. Christie and Legislature Fail to Fund School Formula, Create Crisis for Newark’s Schools | janresseger:

Here Come the Public-School Consultants - The Atlantic

Here Come the Public-School Consultants - The Atlantic:

Here Come the Public-School Consultants

Many urban systems are so confusing—and so unequal—that some parents are hiring private experts to help them figure out where to send their kids.

“This school would be more of a safety,” Joyce Szuflita explained to the parents. She gestured at the colored paper handouts fanned out between them, and then pointed at another zoned school on a different sheet. “That’s a curated class of parents because they chose to move into the zone of the school that they wanted,” said Szuflita. “So, you don't have to have G&T if you have that," she added, referring to gifted-and-talented programs.

It was early morning at a diner in Brooklyn’s South Slope neighborhood, and the couple had contacted Szuflita for advice. The couple—an academic and a public-health researcher—was moving from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to New York City and was nervous about the schooling of their two-year-old and their not-yet-born child. They knew that securing a spot in one of the borough’s handful of coveted high-performing elementary schools was notoriously difficult.

Szuflita, a cheery, graying blonde woman of 56, wore a necklace of heavy, brightly colored beads, provided soothing information and swift judgments, and directed the couple through the city’s byzantine public system with precision. There were so many questions at sessions like these: zoned or lottery admissions? Regular public or charters? Which schools have families like yours? Which ones have room for kids who live in another zone? What’s most effective in getting a child off a waiting list and into a seat? These parents, as well as those I had observed during one of Szuflita’s frequent public speeches, hung on her answers as if she were a cult leader.

Szuflita is a public-school consultant. Her clientele consists mostly of college-educated professionals who are trying to balance their hopes for their children with the challenges of raising a family in one of the country’s most expensive cities. (She also consults on private schools.) A meeting like the one I observed in a Park Slope diner over iced coffee, hash browns, and a small pile of district maps can cost $400 to $550. (Fifteen minutes on the phone with her is $50.)Here Come the Public-School Consultants - The Atlantic:

One way to boost achievement among poor kids? Make sure they have classmates who aren’t poor. - The Washington Post

One way to boost achievement among poor kids? Make sure they have classmates who aren’t poor. - The Washington Post:

One way to boost achievement among poor kids? Make sure they have classmates who aren’t poor.

Protesters get up and shout ‘hey, hey, ho, ho, resegregation has to go’ after the Wake County, N.C. school board voted in 2010 to end the county’s diversity-based assignment policy. (Photo by Ethan Hyman/News Observer)

Race-based school integration plans helped boost black students’ achievement after Brown v. Board of Education, but those plans fell out of favor in recent decades as districts persuaded courts that they had moved beyond their separate-but-equal past.

The result in many places? A system of resegregated schools.

But in a small number of school districts, officials are trying a different approach, assigning children to school based in part on their family’s income. And when poor kids mix with richer kids in class, they tend to do better academically, especially in math, according to a new study of large North Carolina school districts that was published in the journal Urban Education.

The researchers examined Wake County, the only one of North Carolina’s largest districts that replaced its race-based school assignment plan with an effort to integrate schools by family income. The move caused a furor in Wake County, where voters ousted some school board members because of the plan.

“I was curious as to whether it had much of an effect, since people were so upset about it,” said William A. Darity Jr., a professor at Duke University and co-author of the study. “Our answer is: It doesn’t do as well as the race-based plan in terms of producing higher levels of diversity. But it does appear to have some benefit for student performance.”

[GOP school board backed by tea party conservatives abolishes integration policy]

Adopted in 2000, the plan said that no more than 40 percent of children in a school should be low-income, as measured by free lunch eligibility, and no more than 25 percent should be performing below grade level on state tests.

The state’s other four largest districts were less aggressive about trying to maintain diversity. Generally, they assigned children to schools based on their One way to boost achievement among poor kids? Make sure they have classmates who aren’t poor. - The Washington Post:

What Happened to Education Strategies that Promoted "Community-Centered Pedagogy?" - LA Progressive

What Happened to Education Strategies that Promoted "Community-Centered Pedagogy?" - LA Progressive:

What Happened to Education Strategies that Promoted “Community-Centered Pedagogy?”

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, responding to a wave of violence sweeping through urban America, educators of color began proposing that public schools transform their pedagogy to enhance the self esteem and historical understanding of young people in the hardest hit communities. They called for the transformation of social studies curricula to incorporate more Black and Latino history, for the creation of new public schools in which Black and Latino history were integral parts of the school culture, for the development of strategies to recruit more Black and Latino teachers, especially from communities that were most at risk.

There was a tremendous amount of energy and idealism accompanying this vision of Urban Education, and controversy as well. Supporters claimed these measure were necessary to save a generation of youth at risk; critics claimed they would intensify racial divisions, promote hostility to white teachers and administrators and, in the most extreme cases, undermine patriotism and national unity.

Fierce debates about such strategies occurred all through the 90s, but by the time George W Bush had taken office, the critics had largely won the day. When No Child Left Behind was passed, its architects decided to base their vision of compliance and equity entirely on conformity to National Standards, which allowed little if any adaptation to community traditions. The same approach was incorporated, in even more restrictive form, by
Barack Obama’s “Race to the Top,” which called for mandatory closing of schools that did not perform well on standardized tests as a condition for receiving federal grants. Not only were inner city schools not rewarded or honored for adapting pedagogy to the cultural traditions of the communities they were located in, they were penalized for doing so if their efforts did not raise scores on standardized tests.

The rise of “standardization” as the centerpiece of national education policy had a powerful impact on the charter school movement, which in its early stages had proponents who tried to create What Happened to Education Strategies that Promoted "Community-Centered Pedagogy?" - LA Progressive:

Minneapolis selects Massachusetts candidate as school superintendent | Minnesota Public Radio News

Minneapolis selects Massachusetts candidate as school superintendent | Minnesota Public Radio Minneapolis selects Massachusetts candidate as school superintendent

Sergio Paez, 48, will become the next superintendent of Minneapolis Public Schools after winning the support of six of the nine board members. He previously served as the superintendent of Holyoke Public Schools in Massachusetts. Michael Beswick | The Republican 2014

1. LISTEN Story audio

   Dec 8, 2015
   3min 17sec

Updated: Dec. 8, 9:47 a.m. | Posted: Dec. 7, 8:46 p.m.

The Minneapolis Board of Education has picked a Massachusetts candidate as the next superintendent of Minneapolis Public Schools.

After a nearly 10-month search, the board on Monday selected Sergio Paez. He won the support of six of the nine board members.

• Listen: Paez discusses his goals for Minneapolis schools

"We need someone that can come into our district and show that commitment as well as demonstrate bringing our community together, rebuilding trust and continuing the work that has already begun here," said Board Member Tracine Asberry.

Paez says he will focus on addressing the achievement gap between whites and students of color, and making sure students are safe in schools.

"Safety and the well-being of our students, our teachers and the community is paramount. If students are not ready to learn because of trauma issues, social/emotional issues or safety issues, learning won't happen," he said in an interview with MPR News' Phil Picardi. "So it is a top priority for me to ensure that happens in every single environment."

Paez, 48, will come to Minneapolis from Holyoke Public Schools in Massachusetts, where he served as superintendent from 2013-15. The district — with 11 schools and 5,600 students — is far smaller than Minneapolis, which has about 35,000 students. Previously, he was an assistant superintendent for Worcester Public Schools.

Paez will replace interim Superintendent Michael Goar, who has been leading the district since previous Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson resigned in January.

He left the Holyoke job last summer amid a state takeover of the district, which the Massachusetts board of education declared "chronically under-performing." Its graduation rate was 60 percent in 2014, and it's facing a $3 million deficit.

Paez will face similar challenges in Minneapolis, where the school system is dealing with about the same graduation rate, according to district stats, and a stubborn achievement gap between white students and those of color.

Minneapolis School Board member Carla Bates was one of the three members who did not vote for Paez. At Monday night's meeting she pointed out that his Massachusetts district is largely Hispanic, with African-Americans making up just Minneapolis selects Massachusetts candidate as school superintendent | Minnesota Public Radio 

TeachingWorks (or Doesn’t) at the University of Michigan: The Corporatization of Teacher Education

TeachingWorks (or Doesn’t) at the University of Michigan: The Corporatization of Teacher Education:

TeachingWorks (or Doesn’t) at the University of Michigan: The Corporatization of Teacher Education

It is with concern that I write about the Gates influence on the University of Michigan’s College of Education and the new program called TeachingWorks. The Gates Foundation is giving $6.8 million to the U of M to influence how they will transform teacher preparation. The Helmsley Charitable Trust Grant also provided $1.1 million. This program will affect how teachers are made in universities across the country.

Valerie Strauss had an interesting piece by Kenneth Zeichner, a professor in teacher education at the University of Washington at Seattle, indicating that the new Every Student Succeeds Act has provisions to primarily support non-traditional, non-university programs such as those funded by venture philanthropists.Many of us see these programs rapidly popping up in colleges and school districts near where we live.

Both parents and educators should be concerned about TeachingWorks. It is taking place in a major university that once had a dynamic teacher education program, it focuses on novices, and it will affect the kind of teachers children will get for years to come.

They are using the worn out excuse that teachers are retiring, so they have to make teachers fast, but there has been a push by groups like The New Teacher Project, and others, to drive veteran teachers out of the classroom for years.

TeachingWorks is dancing the cha cha with Teach for America, Teach First (England) and the Relay Graduate School of Education, to name a few, claiming TeachingWorks (or Doesn’t) at the University of Michigan: The Corporatization of Teacher Education:

John Thompson: Why Raj Chetty Is Wrong | Diane Ravitch's blog

John Thompson: Why Raj Chetty Is Wrong | Diane Ravitch's blog:

John Thompson: Why Raj Chetty Is Wrong

John Thompson, historian and teacher in Oklahoma, has reviewed the work of economists Raj Chetty. You may recall that Chetty, a Harvard professor, was co-author of a study that purported to show that teachers could be evaluated by the test scores of their students. An effective teacher, one who raised test scores, would raise lifetime income, increase high school graduation rates, prevent teen pregnancies, and have lifelong effects on students. Raj and his colleagues John Friedman and Jonah Rockoff were cited on the first page of the New York Times(before the study was peer-reviewed), appeared on the PBS NewsHour, and were hailed by President Obama in his State of the Union speech in 2012. Their study became the #1 talking point for those who thought that using test scores–their rise and fall–would be the best way to identify effective and ineffective teachers. As Professor Friedman told the New York Times, “The message is to fire people sooner rather than later.”

Critics thought the findings were fairly modest. Even the Times said:

The average effect of one teacher on a single student is modest. All else equal, a student with one excellent teacher for one year between fourth and eighth grade would gain $4,600 in lifetime income, compared to a student of similar demographics who has an average teacher. The student with the excellent teacher would also be 0.5 percent more likely to attend college.

That works out to about $105 a year for a 40-year career, or $2 a week. But the Times then looked at the results in the aggregate and calculated that the aggregate of gains for an entire class would be $266,000 over the lifetimes of the entire class, or millions of dollars in added income when multiplied by millions of classrooms. Pretty great stuff, even though it means only $2 a week for one student.

The Obama administration bought into the Chetty-Friedman-Rockoff thesis whole-heartedly. Fire teachers sooner rather than later. Use test scores to find out who is a great teacher, who is a rotten teacher. It all made sense, except that it didn’t work anywhere. The scores bounced around. A teacher who was great one year was ineffective the next year; and vice versa. Teachers were rated based on the scores of students they never taught. Tests became the goal of education rather than the measure. It was a plague of madness that overcame public education across the land, embedded in Race to the Top (2009) and certified by Ivy League professors.

Thompson writes:

As it becomes more clear that value-added teacher evaluations are headed for the scrap heap of history, true believers in corporate reform continue to respond with the same old soundbites on the ways that their statistical models (VAMs) can be valid and reliable under research John Thompson: Why Raj Chetty Is Wrong | Diane Ravitch's blog:

L.A. school board holds its first interview for job of superintendent - LA Times

L.A. school board holds its first interview for job of superintendent - LA Times:

L.A. school board to hold second round of interviews for superintendent

L.A. schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, left, confers with school board president Steve Zimmer at district headquarters. The board on Sunday interviewed one or more candidates to replace Cortines, who wants to retire at the end of the year.

 (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

The Los Angeles Board of Education on Tuesday will begin its second interview session with candidates seeking the job of superintendent for the nation’s second-largest school system.

The closed-door meeting is scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. And board members also could conduct interviews — or a discussion about the potential leader — at the end of the day, after two unrelated meetings are held to handle other business.

“The board is approaching this with both the intensity and the focus that a decision that stands to affect so many children mandates,” board President Steve Zimmer said Sunday.

The first interview session took place Sunday, and if it is any guide, the public will learn little from these meetings until the board makes its choice.

Except for brief periods to open and close the meeting, the entire gathering took place out of public view, and no announcement was made at the conclusion.

About seven candidates initially are being considered from a pool of more than 100 brought forward by a search firm; their names have not been released.

Besides taking place Sunday, the most unusual aspect of the first meeting was that, after beginning in open session for one minute, board members then moved to the 63rd floor of the U.S. Bank Tower to conduct interviews.

Zimmer declined to say why the closed session moved to another location. But observers speculated that the purpose was to frustrate any effort to spot applicants on their way in or out of district headquarters, which is practically deserted over the weekend.

After meeting for eight hours in private, board members returned to headquarters, reconvened in open session and adjourned. Board members also have set aside time next Sunday and on several other days this month.L.A. school board holds its first interview for job of superintendent - LA Times:

The Times receives funding for its digital initiative Education Matters from the California Endowment, the Wasserman Foundation and the Baxter Family Foundation. The California Community Foundation and United Way of Greater Los Angeles administer grants from the Broad Foundation to support this effort. Under terms of the grants, The Times retains complete control over editorial content.

Raising Status of Profession Critical in Recruiting Teachers of Color - NEA Today

Raising Status of Profession Critical in Recruiting Teachers of Color - NEA Today:

Raising Status of Profession Critical in Recruiting Teachers of Color

Tiffany McClary attended Palm Beach County, Florida public schools from grade school to high school. She excelled, but McClary who is black, says she never really felt like she belonged.

Today, McClary,  a senior elementary education major at Florida A&M University (FAMU), says her Historically Black University makes her feel right at home. “After experiencing four years at Florida A&M University, and being taught by many teachers of color, I must say it feels better to be taught by your own,” McClary adds.

That’s an experience a growing number of students of color in the nation’s public schools don’t have and may never know. That’s because students of color make up almost half of the public school population, but teachers of color represent just 18 percent of the profession.

Recent data from the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education point to a small pool of future educators of color in the pipeline: of the bachelor’s degrees awarded in 2013-2014, Black teacher candidates earned just 5 percent and Hispanic candidates 6 percent.

But if public schools are  going to keep pace and meet the needs of the rising population of minority students, they will  need to recruit more high-quality minority educators. Who teaches students of color matters, the research shows. When students have teachers who look like them and are more culturally responsive to their needs, they benefit academically and in other ways, too—they have fewer instances of absenteeism, suspension and expulsion, and higher test scores, levels of engagement, advanced-level course enrollment, graduation rates, and college enrollment. Also, teachers of color are more likely to work in urban and high-poverty schools and often feel it’s an important responsibility to fulfill.

As districts nationwide struggle to recruit teachers for underserved populations and for harder to fill teaching positions in math, science, and special education, (HBCUs and other minority serving institutions can be important resources. But understanding why more college and high school students aren’t drawn to the teaching profession in the first place, may be the first step.

Elizabeth Davenport, Ph.D., J.D., a FAMU College of Education professor, points to several reasons more students of color aren’t joining the ranks of educators. Their own negative school experiences are among them.

When North Carolina A&T researchers surveyed  high-achieving, African-American Raising Status of Profession Critical in Recruiting Teachers of Color - NEA Today:

Obama Unlearns His Classroom Lesson - Bloomberg View

Obama Unlearns His Classroom Lesson - Bloomberg View:

Obama Unlearns His Classroom Lesson 

By Editorial Board

As he approaches his last year in office, President Barack Obama seems weirdly passive about protecting one of his signature domestic achievements: education reform. It's a mistake that will undermine future efforts to help American students compete and succeed.

Obama once could claim to have one of the boldest education agendas of any president in recent history. Then, in October, he announced he would seek to limit testing. And now he's indicated he'll sign the bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act, a bill that reflects Republicans' unhealthy suspicion of the federal government and Democrats' unhealthy trust of teachers' unions. In other words, the worst of both worlds.

The legislation would weaken or eliminate every major piece of Obama's education agenda. His five-year Race to the Top grant program, for example, was widely admired: It offered more than $4 billion in federal funding to states that took specific steps to improve student performance. Because of Race to the Top, more states set higher standards, allowed charter schools to expand, intervened in failing schools, and used data to evaluate teachers and principals.

The federal government is no longer distributing Race to the Top grants. Yet if Obama signs the Every Student Succeeds Act, his successor would be hard-pressed create something similar, because the new law would make it very difficult to create a state-based incentive program. 

The legislation would also remove qualifications on some federal education funding, sharply reducing the Department of Education's ability to hold states accountable for student performance.

States would still be required to conduct annual tests and report results by race and income, and they would still be required to intervene in failing schools. But they could weigh factors other than test scores and student performance -- such as teacher engagement -- to determine whether schools are meeting standards. A state could determine that all its schools are succeeding even if they have low test scores and high dropout rates, and there wouldn't be much the Department of Education could do about it.

The legislation would also weaken the federal government's ability to encourage states to use data as part of evaluations for teachers and principals, a trend that unions have been fighting for years. Researchshows that the best way to improve schools is to put effective teachers in classrooms. This bill would make it easier for schools to leave failing teachers in place without giving them assistance and insisting on improvement.

Common Core

Of course, nothing prevents states from setting their own high standards and using data to evaluate teachers and principals -- and it would be great if all states did just that. Many Republicans insist that they largely support these reforms; they just don't want the federal government involved. But experience shows that without federal oversight and enforcement, many states tend to take the path of least resistance.

Instead of demanding changes to the bill, the White House seemscontent to praise its aims and the spirit of compromise that led to it. There's much to be said for bipartisanship. But not when both parties are wrong.

To contact the senior editor responsible for Bloomberg View’s editorials: David Shipley at davidshipley@bloomberg.net.Obama Unlearns His Classroom Lesson - Bloomberg View:

After No Child Left Behind, will shift to states help or hurt students? - Yahoo News

After No Child Left Behind, will shift to states help or hurt students? - Yahoo News:

After No Child Left Behind, will shift to states help or hurt students?

The Senate is expected to vote Tuesday on the Every Student Succeeds Act, which passed the House by a wide margin Dec. 2 and, among other things, shifts power from the federal government to the states.

Across Minnesota, the number of native American kids heading to college is on the rise. The reading and math scores of black students are catching up to those of whites. Low-income students, kids whose native language isn’t English, and kids with disabilities are meeting the higher expectations teachers have been setting for them.

The state – a high performer by many education measures – still faces many academic gaps between groups of students. But it is well on its way toward a goal it set in 2012 to cut those disparities in half by 2017.

Minnesota offers an example of what can happen when a state puts a priority on closing achievement gaps. It developed its approach through a waiver to some of the requirements of the federal education law known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

Recommended: Take Action:Seeking progress and innovation in education

Now that old, and many say, broken, law is on its way out. State leaders for years have been clamoring for more flexibility in how they hold schools accountable for academic improvement – so they can prioritize and tackle issues as they see fit, not as the federal government dictates.

And Tuesday the Senate is expected to clear the long-awaited law that will finally grant them their wish. The bipartisan compromise known as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) alreadypassed the House by a wide margin Dec. 2. 

ESSA will leave the main tools in place to track achievement by categories such as race, income level, disabilities, and English-language learners. But a big question remains: Will this shift to empowering states help or hurt the equity agenda embedded in the original law from the 1960s civil rights era?

Historically, not all states have shown the political will to set high standards for all students, and some observers worry they’ll again feel somewhat off the hook. “There probably will be less attention now on the achievement gap: The [new] law doesn’t force that conversation the way it did under NCLB,” says Chad Aldeman, an associate partner at the nonprofit Bellwether Education Partners. 

Others are more hopeful that many states will stay the course or come up with newinnovations to address achievement gaps – recognizing the impact those can have on their future workforce and economic health.

Recommended: Take Action:Seeking progress and innovation in education

Minnesota’s current accountability system uses a range of measures for school achievement, including how well individual student and subgroup test scores improve from year to year.

The state legislature expanded the system in 2013 to cover all public schools, not just those that receive federal dollars for low-income students. It set up regional “centers of excellence” to provide assistance to schools that were struggling. And it’s dedicating more than $180 million in state funds to the effort.

“We’re focusing on the strengths of our schools and teachers and asking them to do more,” says Brenda Cassellius, the state’s first African-American education commissioner.

So far, two-thirds of the schools are on track to meet their gap-reduction targets.

At TrekNorth, a charter middle and high school in rural Bemidje, the state goals align with a mission to prepare as many students as possible for college through participation in Advanced Placement courses.

The school has been recognized five times in the state’s annual list of Reward Schools, recently scoring an 81 out of 100 on the Multiple Measurements Rating, which takes gap reduction into account.

The more sophisticated accountability system has contributed to a healthy “pressure to hone the subtleties of the craft of teaching,” says the charter school’s executive director Dan McKeon.

Many of the low-income or native American students that make up much of the TrekNorth After No Child Left Behind, will shift to states help or hurt students? - Yahoo News:

Alexander Hails No Child Left Behind Rewrite As Historic Devolution Of D.C. Power | Nashville Public Radio

Alexander Hails No Child Left Behind Rewrite As Historic Devolution Of D.C. Power | Nashville Public Radio:

Alexander Hails No Child Left Behind Rewrite As Historic Devolution Of D.C. Power

• 
  

  In recent years, No Child Left Behind has become so unpopular that conservative Republicans and left-leaning teachers unions have teamed up to replace the law passed in 2002.

  WOODLEYWONDERWORKS VIA FLICKR

Listen

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1:11

Hear the radio version of this story.

Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander is hailing a rewrite of the expired No Child Left Behind standards as the largest “devolution of power in 25 years,” citing a Wall Street Journal editorial. President Obama is expected to sign the legislation this week.

Most states already have waivers exempting them from the Bush-era education accountability system. But Sen. Alexander, who chairs the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, says the law had to be fixed because states are still jumping through hoops.

“Governors were having to play mother-may-I, coming to Washington to get permission to put in a teacher evaluation program or to come up with a way to fix a low performing school," Alexander told reporters gathered on a conference call. "This will end that.”

In broad terms, testing will still be mandated by the federal government.  But instead of prescribing a turnaround program for stuggling schools and districts, that would be left up to individual states.

Alexander, a former U.S. Secretary of Education, argues states know best what their students need. His proposal, known as the Every Child Achieves Act of 2015, passed with comfortable majorities in both chambers after months of negotiation.

But Tennessee’s delegation was not united. Representatives Marsha Blackburn and Scott DesJarlais voted against it, saying the rewrite doesn’t sufficiently curtail the federal government’s role in education.Alexander Hails No Child Left Behind Rewrite As Historic Devolution Of D.C. Power | Nashville Public Radio:

California Revamps School Rankings | NBC Bay Area

California Revamps School Rankings | NBC Bay Area:

California Revamps School Rankings

School officials in San Francisco are explaining the many changes happening in education.

"We're implementing new curriculum to go with the new standards, to go with the new tests," says John Burke, a supervisor at San Francisco Unified School District.

Also new - a different way to evaluate schools. State law requires a move away from standardized test scores.

"It needs to be more than just, include more than just the academics," says Burke.

For 15 years, the API, the Academic Performance Index, has been the yardstick for school success. It's a three-digit number based on test scores. A Blue Ribbon school in the East Bay had an API of 945 out of 1,000. A school on the peninsula had a score of 831. A high-poverty school in San Francisco had a score of 726.

"It gives one number. And it's a nice because you can take that number and compare it to another number," says Eric Heins, the president of the California Teachers Association. "But really it's kind of misleading because it doesn't really tell you what's going on in the school."

Heins is involved in the overhaul of the API.

"Well they may not see an API at all. There won't be a ranking system because there is no point in comparing one school to another school," he says. "What you really want to look at is the school itself and then look at multiple indicators in that school."

Those multiple indicators could include attendance records and graduation rates.

"You want to look at all the different kinds of things that actually indicate whether students are learning in that school," says Heins. "So it's more than just looking at a test score."

Many advocacy groups across the state say the new system should be easy to understand, first and foremost.

"I'm sympathetic to folks saying we don't want to just be judged on a couple of numbers, I get that," says Ted Lempert, president of Children Now. "But on the flip side, accountability is essential to having confidence in our education system."

Lempert says the API aided in accountability.

"The API, with all its faults, was a very simple way to see how your school was California Revamps School Rankings | NBC Bay Area:

Wendy Lecker: Common Core math requires students to justify every answer. Does that make sense? - The Washington Post

Common Core math requires students to justify every answer. Does that make sense? - The Washington Post:

Common Core math requires students to justify every answer. Does that make sense?

Canyon View math teacher, Kylie Findley works with her students during her morning class Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2104, in Cedar City, Utah. Findley, as well as other teachers, are utilizing the common core curriculum in their classroom. (AP Photo/The Spectrum, Asher Swan)

Common Core math has sparked a great deal of contention across the country in the past few years. It has its supporters, those who say that it teaches students to better understand mathematical processes. They also so that many problems parents cite with Common Core math stem not from the standards themselves but from poor teacher training. Critics, though, say the standards throw out proven computational techniques in favor of overly complex methods and wind up confusing students. Some parents and educators have also expressed concern that written math materials for young students are sometimes at a reading level above students’ understanding, thus impeding their ability to stay on track with math.

In this post, Wendy Lecker, a columnist for Hearst Connecticut Media Group and senior attorney at the Education Law Center, takes at another aspect of Common Core math: the requirement that students explain critical look at what she says is a key problem of Common Core math: the requirement that students are supposed to explain and justify every answer. This appeared in the Stamford Advocate, and I am republishing it with permission.

By Wendy Lecker

At parents’ night this fall, a high school math teacher I know begged parents to teach their children long division “the old-fashioned way.” She explained that the new way students had learned long division impedes their ability to understand algebraic factoring. She lamented that students hadn’t been taught certain rote skills, like multiplication tables, that would enable them to perform more complex math operations efficiently.

It turns out that brain science supports this math teacher’s impressions. Rote learning and memorization at an early age are critical in developing math skills.

A study conducted by Stanford Medical school examined the role of a part of the brain, the hippocampus, in the development of math skills in children. The authors noted that a shift to memory-based problem solving is a hallmark of children’s cognitive development in arithmetic as well as other domains. They conducted brain scans of children, adolescents and adults and found that hippocampus plays a critical but time limited role in the development of Common Core math requires students to justify every answer. Does that make sense? - The Washington Post: