2 Polls Span 2 Poles On Testing : NPR Ed : NPR

2 Polls Span 2 Poles On Testing : NPR Ed : NPR:

2 Polls Span 2 Poles On Testing

Please read the following two sentences carefully. Choose which is correct, A or B.

A. According to a brand-new national poll, two-thirds of the American public supports annual federal testing, and 59 percent oppose letting students opt out of tests, while only 1 in 4 support opting out.

B. According to a brand-new national poll, two-thirds of the American public thinks there is too much testing in schools. As for opt-outs, they are split, with 44 percent opposing it and 41 percent supporting it.

The answer: C. Both A (poll released Aug. 17 by EdNext) and B (poll released Aug. 24 by Gallup/PDK). The two polls suggest public opinion on this issue isn't clearly staked out.

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Standardized testing is a cornerstone of federal education policy in the U.S. States must test every student every yearin math and reading from grades 3-8, and once in high school, and report the results.

These tests — and the many other tests that states and districts add on top of them — have drawn controversy. The pushback has been led by New York state, where 1 in 5 students "opted out" from taking the state tests this past spring. This act of collective civil disobedience may invalidate that state's compliance with federal accountability requirements.

At the same time, the federal law that requires annual testing is up for renewal, and some have proposed amendments that would affirm the right of parents to opt out. So this is the right moment for a national debate.

To understand what's behind a poll, you have to look closely at three questions: Who is asking the question? Whom are they asking? What are they asking?

Both of these polls are large, representative national samples. And their results on other questions, like whether you approve of your local school, are nearly identical. Therefore, it's likely that the mystery can be solved by looking closely at the phrasing of these specific questions on testing.

The poll that found Americans in favor of testing and against opting out was conducted by the education-policy journal Education Next. EdNext has three sponsors: the Fordham Institute, the Hoover Institution at Stanford and Harvard's Kennedy School. Both Fordham and Hoover have been associated with policies such as charter schools, the Common Core State Standards and test-based accountability.

EdNext put the testing question this way:

Do you support or oppose the federal government continuing to require that all students be tested in math and reading each year in grades 3-8 and once in high school?

In the responses, 35 percent the general public said they "completely" supported annual tests and another 32 percent said they "somewhat" supported them, for a total 2 Polls Span 2 Poles On Testing : NPR Ed : NPR:

Destroying Special Education through Common Core Testing and Funding Cuts

Destroying Special Education through Common Core Testing and Funding Cuts:

Destroying Special Education through Common Core Testing and Funding Cuts

Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. ~Mark Twain

The U.S. Department of Education says higher expectations mean more tests for students with disabilities (with Common Core’s PARCC and Smarter Balance), and college for everyone.

Along with this, we are also watching serious funding cuts to special education services in school districts around the country.

Stop Common Core NYS criticizes recent policymaking that claims there will be fewer alternative tests for students with disabilities. Students will instead be expected to take tests like PARCC and Smarter Balance connected to Common Core–and they will need to be college and career ready.

Decisions surrounding all of this should be between parents and teachers creating the IEP at the school. We know the U.S. Department of Education is overstepping their bounds.

We also saw this coming when the U.S. DOE recently refused to consider the New York Board of Education’s  attempt to lighten the load on students with disabilities when it came to testing. And then there was all the talk a year ago about needing to test students with disabilities and have “higher expectations.”

While the ante is being raised for students with special needs, they are also losing what Destroying Special Education through Common Core Testing and Funding Cuts:

Education commissioner begins plan to combat opt outs | POLITICO

Education commissioner begins plan to combat opt outs | POLITICO:

Education commissioner begins plan to combat opt outs

ALBANY — Education commissioner MaryEllen Elia already has begun a battle to stop the rapidly growing opt-out movement before next year’s state tests, reaching out to department attorneys and meeting with superintendents, she told POLITICO New York.

“We’re trying to pull together a tool kit, if you will, to support superintendents in how we can communicate in a much more effective way to people across the state,” Elia said.

That kit will include legal information, which is why she has reached out to lawyers, Elia said.

“I want the superintendents to understand the reflections and law that they can use as an information piece when they talk to people in their community … It’s important for them to be able to say, ‘Listen, it’s the law.’”

Elia said she already has been meeting with superintendents across the state and plans to have a review of the standards to get even more feedback.

“As you get more people involved in the process, you have more people understanding what’s going on and why you have assessments,” she said. “There are a lot of people that don’t know what the Common Core is."

Educators are hoping that the toolkit includes further guidelines, including what is and what is not ethical for teachers or school administrators to say publicly about the exams, an issue that has become controversial across the state.

In April, 20 percent of the 1.1. million eligible third through eighth graders statewiderefused to take the state math and English language arts exams.

Elia originally warned that the districts with the highest refusal rates could be penalized, potentially losing federal Title I money. Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch last week told the New York Times that there will not be federal sanctions, but did not rule out withholding money in the future if the state found district officials were encouraging opt outs.

When asked about possible sanctions, Elia said, “The bottom line is that at some point if it continues to rise, it’s against the law. Somebody could decide to do something. I can’t tell you what they’re going to do in Washington.”

At an Educators 4 Excellence event last week Elia said she believed opt out was “unreasonable,” and called it “unethical” for teachers to participate.

She told POLITICO New York that she anecdotally had heard teachers were calling homes and telling parents of low-scoring students to have their children refuse the tests.

“If this occurred, I don’t think that’s right,” Elia said. “I don’t have any proof that it occurred. I just don’t think that it’s appropriate for teachers to use their classroom and information about their kids to encourage people to opt out.”

The commissioner made those views clear when speaking with a group of education leaders in the Mohawk Valley last week, said Mark Vivacqua of the Herkimer-Fulton-Hamilton-Otsego BOCES. Those districts include Dolgeville schools, which had one of the highest opt-out rates in the state with 89 percent of its students refusing the English exam and 91 percent refusing math. 

But the line of what is and is not ethical is unclear, Vivacqua said. For example, teachers shouldn’t tell their low-performing students not to take the tests because it would impact their evaluations. If, however, a teacher speaks out against education policy Education commissioner begins plan to combat opt outs | POLITICO:

Hurricane Katrina Truths | Crazy Crawfish's Blog

Hurricane Katrina Truths | Crazy Crawfish's Blog:

Hurricane Katrina Truths

The success of schools in New Orleans is more fiction than fact.  People in the United States prefer stories with a positive ending, where the good guys win, challenges are face head-on and overcome, and everyone lives happily ever after.  For too many kids in New Orleans, this is not the truth.

The improved matriculation rate is almost entirely due to using a new matching file.  You will see that over time this rate will no longer increase  The old rate did not include all Louisiana colleges or any out of state colleges.  You will see the largest increases in the better schools – because their best students were going out of state to flee the disaster that Bobby Jindal has made our Higher Education System into.  For now, this number has served its purpose by making many of you think New Orleans (and Louisiana for that matter) has achieved a miracle under John White.

The Recovery School District has been exiting as many as 18% of their 9th grade cohorts out of state or country.  This removes them from being calculated in School Performance scores, removes the impact of them actually dropping out, and raises graduation rates.  This rate has been steadily increasing for years to show increased performance to impress folks out of state looking to implement an RSD type solution.

The New Orleans system is divided between haves and have-nots.  The selective admission system has grown and done well.  The RSD competes not on quality but fancy advertising to draw new students – according to a survey of their own principals.

The population of New Orleans has changed.  It is less poor than prior to the storm as many of the poorest families were unable to return because they lacked the resources or any suitable housing.  There are no more housing projects in New Orleans and a lot less low income housing.  Comparing the two populations is not appropriate if you recognize poverty as a factor impacting performance.  By bringing up the poverty level of New Orleans in a recent op-ed, John White clearly does.

State Standardized Test Scores have been lowered by as much as 15% to improve the performance of RSD.  In other words, a student performing at Basic required 15% fewer correct answers than prior to John White’s arrival to achieve a “Basic” score, or about 40% of the material on our LEAP and iLEAP tests.

T (turnaround) schools occur every year and these schools do not appear in the “official statistics.  There is a perpetual population of students getting shuffled around and not being counted or considered in the success or failure of New Orleans schools.

Families often do not get their “choice”.  The choice selection is made by a computer program, not families.  Often the children are placed at schools very far away and require hours of busing to and from school.  Families with multiple children often find their children assigned to schools on opposite sides of the city making parental participation a nightmare or all but impossible.  Some parents report waking their kids up at 4am to get them ready for a bus that won’t bring them home until 7 at night – when there is only time for homework, a bite to eat, maybe a bath, and bed.  This forced separation destroys families.  Families that don’t like the choices assigned to them have the option of standing out unsheltered in the 100+ degree heat to try and make changes.  Thousands of families are forced to do this every year while Recovery School District Staff lounge in their luxury, climate controlled, downtown offices across from the Superdome.

Can you handle the truth?Hurricane Katrina Truths | Crazy Crawfish's Blog:

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8 Frightening Characteristics Of Propaganda | PopularResistance.Org

8 Frightening Characteristics Of Propaganda | PopularResistance.Org:

8 Frightening Characteristics Of Propaganda

Jacques Ellul’s Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes (1965) has been called “a far more frightening work than any of the nightmare novels of George Orwell.” In it, the French philosopher and sociologist dispels some of the popular notions about propaganda and exposes how it really operates in the modern world.

In the first chapter of the book, Ellul describes some of the characteristics of modern propaganda. Eight of them appear below:

1) It Prevents Dialogue.

“To be effective, propaganda cannot be concerned with detail… Propaganda ceases where simple dialogue begins… it does not tolerate discussion; by its very nature, it excludes contradiction and discussion.”

2) It Focuses on the Mass

“For propaganda to address itself to the individual, in his isolation, apart from the crowd, is impossible. The individual is of no interest to the propagandist; as an isolated unit he presents too much resistance to external action… The most favorable moment to seize a man and influence him is when he is alone in the mass: it is at this point that propaganda can be most effective.”

3) It is “Total”

“Propaganda must be total. The propagandist must utilize all of the technical means at his disposal – the press, radio, TV, movies, posters, meetings, door-to-door canvassing. Modern propaganda must utilize allof these media. There is no propaganda as long as one makes use, in sporadic fashion and at random, of a newspaper article here, a poster or a radio program there, organizes a few meetings and lectures, writes a few slogans on walls; that is not propaganda.”

4) It Takes Over Education

“Education and training are inevitably taken over, as the Napoleonic Empire demonstrated for the first time. No contrast can be tolerated between teaching and propaganda, between the critical spirit formed by higher education and the exclusion of independent thought. One must utilize the education of the young to condition them to what comes later.

5) It Takes Over Literature and History

“Propaganda will take over literature (present and past) and history, which must be rewritten according to propaganda’s needs.”

6) It Must be Subtle at First

“Direct propaganda, aimed at modifying opinions and attitudes, must be preceded by propaganda that is sociological in character, slow, general, seeking to create a climate, an atmosphere of favorable preliminary attitudes… The ground must be sociologically prepared before one can proceed to direct prompting.”

7) It Must be Nonstop

“[Propaganda] must fill the citizen’s whole day and all his days… Propaganda tends to make the individual live in a separate world; he must not have outside points of reference… successful propaganda will occupy every moment of the individual’s life: through posters and loudspeakers when he is out walking, through radio and newspapers at home, through meetings and movies in the evening. The individual must not be allowed to recover, to collect himself, to remain untouched by propaganda during any relatively long period… It is based on slow, constant impregnation.

8) It Aims at Irrational Action

“The aim of modern propaganda is no longer to modify ideas, but to provoke action. It is no longer to change adherence to a doctrine, but to make the individual cling irrationally to a process of action. It is no longer to lead to a choice, but to loosen the reflexes. It is no longer to transform an opinion, but to arouse an active and mythical belief.”

Does this sound like anyone’s playbook today?8 Frightening Characteristics Of Propaganda | PopularResistance.Org:

New Report, "Out of Control," Shows How School Takeovers Disenfranchise Communities of Color | Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools

New Report, "Out of Control," Shows How School Takeovers Disenfranchise Communities of Color | Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools:

New Report, "Out of Control," Shows How School Takeovers Disenfranchise Communities of Color

NEW REPORT 
  Out of Control: The Systemic Disenfranchisement of African American and Latino Communities Through School Takeovers

Click here to download a
PDF of the report.

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. As advocates fight to preserve and strengthen the Act itself, The Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools today released a new report detailing how communities of color across the country are facing a different attack on enfranchisement: instead of barriers to the ballot box, local elected governance is being dissolved altogether.

This fall, tens of thousands of students are returning to schools that have been placed under state authority. The new report, "Out of Control: The Systemic Disenfranchisement of African American and Latino Communities Through School Takeovers," shows how elected school boards have been dissolved or stripped of their power and voters have been denied the right to local governance of their public schools.

These state takeovers are happening almost exclusively in African American and Latino schools and districts – in many of the same communities that have experienced decades of underinvestment in their public schools.

In the past decade, these takeovers have not only removed schools from local authorities, they are increasingly being used to facilitate the permanent transfer of the schools from public to private management, all while increasing segregation and financial instability.

This report profiles some of the most prominent state takeovers in cities like New Orleans, Newark, Philadelphia and Little Rock, and it details how these takeovers are stripping political power and control from Black and Brown communities and opening the door for private interests to usurp community property and assets.

Parents, students, teachers and communities must unite to stop these takeovers and fight for the resources to build the schools all our children deserve.

Click here to download a PDF of the report.

New Report, "Out of Control," Shows How School Takeovers Disenfranchise Communities of Color | Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools:

NYT: Harper report reveals racial disparity in school discipline across the South | Penn GSE

NYT: Harper report reveals racial disparity in school discipline across the South | Penn GSE:

NYT: Harper report reveals racial disparity in school discipline across the South

August 25, 2015 — In schools across the United States, Black students are punished more severely than their peers. But nowhere are Black students suspended or expelled more than in the South.

A study released today by the Center for Race and Equity in Education — as reported in the New York Times — reveals that 55 percent of the 1.2 million Black students suspended in the U.S. live in just 13 Southern states.

Researchers Edward Smith and Shaun Harper offer a state-by-state, school district-by-district examination of school discipline for Black students in the South.

• Read the report: http://www.gse.upenn.edu/equity/SouthernStates

Smith and Harper found Black students were consistently suspended and expelled at higher rates than their peers across the region. This held true in urban, suburban, and rural districts, for both Black boys and Black girls.

View Video of Harper & Smith: 

“We want policy makers, parents and everybody to understand that any degree of disproportionality is in need of redress and response,” Harper told the Times.

As the Times notes:

• “In some districts, the gaps were even more striking: in 132 Southern school districts, for example, Black students were suspended at rates five times their representation in the student population, or higher.
• “In 181 school districts where Blacks represented just under 60 percent of enrollment on average, all of the students expelled during 2011-12 were Black. 
• “Blacks were suspended or expelled at rates higher than their representation in the student body in every one of the 13 states analyzed.”

The report includes recommendations for how educators and communities can work to improve school discipline, including recommendations for more in-depth discussions about race in teacher education programs.

 “This is at least partly attributed to people having these racist assumptions about Black kids,” Harper told the Times. “We argue that too little happens in schools of education to raise consciousness about that.”NYT: Harper report reveals racial disparity in school discipline across the South | Penn GSE:

Youngstown school district sues to block new CEO and state's surprise takeover plan | cleveland.com

Youngstown school district sues to block new CEO and state's surprise takeover plan | cleveland.com:

Youngstown school district sues to block new CEO and state's surprise takeover plan

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- The Youngstown school district has filed suit to block the new state takeover plan that Gov. John Kasich and the state legislature sprung on the city this June.

The district and several backers want the new plan that the legislature passed in House Bill 70 declared unconstitutional.

The bill drastically changes how the state can step in to run "failing" school districts by creating a CEO position, allowing mayors to appoint school board members and giving the CEO power to override parts of union contracts.

The Youngstown district and supporters also ask Franklin County Common Pleas Court for a preliminary injunction to block creation of a new "academic distress commission" to oversee the schools, as well as to prevent hiring of a chief executive officer to run the district.

The Ohio Education Association, the Youngstown Education Association, and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees joined the district in the suit.

The court action takes issue with how quickly the legislature passed the bill --  introducing major changes and passing them in the Ohio Senate and House, all on June 24.

Kasich and state Superintendent Richard Ross helped prepare the bill and work with the legislature, in secret, ahead of the introduction of the changes. Ross even kept his work on the plan secret from the state school board that hires him.

The Youngstown mayor, school board, teachers and parents had no opportunity to testify about the changes in the bill before it was passed.

"Reasonable minds may disagree on the steps necessary to improve education in Youngstown City Schools and in every district across the state," the district's press release states. "However, when vitally altered bills are secretly drafted and made law over the course of a single day, the students, parents, employees and taxpayers of Ohio are not well-served."

Quick passage and the broad powers that will be given to the new CEO prompted the Ohio Education Association, one of the state's two largest teachers unions, to join the suit, said OEA President Becky Higgins.

Should this bill be overturned in court? Tell us below.

"Educators want to be able to advocate for their students," Higgins said in a news  release. "The plan to turn over decision-making authority in the Youngstown schools to single person -- a CEO -- would effectively silence the voices of educators. That's unacceptable. Educators are committed to improving the Youngstown schools, and they need to be heard."

Asked for a response to the suit, Kasich and his staff did not directly address the issues in the case, just the goals of the changes.

"The governor was proud to sign legislation that helps students who are trapped in struggling schools," said Joe Andrews, spokesman for the governor. "Kids in failing schools like Youngstown can't lose another generation waiting for progress. By energizing the support systems around them we can give them the opportunity they deserve to reach their potential."

The lawsuit argues that the legislature skipped required steps as it passed changes to HB 70 affecting Youngstown.

"In its haste to approve this bill, this case asserts that, the Ohio House and Senate violated the three-reading rule, Art. II, §15(C) of the Ohio Constitution, which requires that "every bill shall be considered by each house on three different days...." the district's news release states.

It then cites a 1985 court ruling that noted the rule:

"..provides time for more publicity and greater discussion and affords each legislator an opportunity to study the proposed legislation, communicate with his or her constituents, note the comments of the press and become sensitive to public opinion. Adherence to this rule helps to ensure well-reasoned legislation."

The lawsuit also says that by imposing a CEO on the district and altering the powers of Youngstown school district sues to block new CEO and state's surprise takeover plan | cleveland.com:

Explaining a Hunger Strike to My 3 Year Old: Dyett High School- Hunger Strikes #FightForDyett

Explaining a Hunger Strike to My 3 Year Old: Dyett High School- Hunger Strikes | Dave Stieber:

Explaining a Hunger Strike to My 3 Year Old: Dyett High School- Hunger Strikes

Yesterday my son and I took juice to the 12 parents and community members who are performing a hunger strike. They are protesting Chicago Public Schools' decision to close one of the last public schools in their neighborhood. Frustrations are intense towards CPS who has not been listening to their proposal to open a new public school, one created with real community input.

Now for those of you with children, especially 3 year olds, anytime you do something that is out of their "normal" realm of being, you know you're about to get the 3rd degree. After explaining what they are going to do one must be prepared to answer a bevy of questions from them, most often the ever present, "Why?"

Let me demonstrate:

Me- Buddy (referring to my son), we are going to the store to buy juice to bring to Dyett High School for parents who are there protesting.

My son- Daddy, why do they need juice?

Me- Because they aren't eating and need juice to drink.

My Son- Why are they not eating?

Me- Because they are protesting the closure of Dyett High School.

My Son- Why someone close a school?

Me- The city wants to close it.

My son- Why?

At this point, what I want to tell my son is that the way that Chicago Public Schools are run is not a democracy. That CPS and the Mayor do not care what the people actually want. That the fact that people feel forced to go on a Hunger Strike is ridiculous for a developed country, in this day and age.

A Hunger Strike is a measure of last resort in terms of a protest, because if things do not work out it can ultimately lead to death.

When Gandhi was trying to help the people of India get rid of the British colonizers, who refused to leave India, he would use the Hunger Strike as a means of protest to force the British to negotiate with him, when they would refuse to meet.

In California, in the 1960's, Mexican Americans were being forced to work on grape farms for very little pay, were sprayed with dangerous chemicals, and were provided inhumane work conditions. They decided to organize and form a union. The grape farm owners did not want the workers to organize. The owners would harass and intimidate the organizers. The workers tried many different tactics, such as pickets, strikes, marches, and boycotts. Eventually Caesar Chavez, who was one of the leaders, decided insufficient progress was being made. He decided to go on a hunger strike.

In both of these historical examples of hunger strikes, making the public aware of the hunger strike was the most important goal.

In India, when Gandhi would go on a hunger strike the Indian workers would often refuse to work until negotiations began again. Gandhi had such a following and the entire basis for British control relied on the Indian workers. In the case of Chavez and the grape workers, he and his fellow organizers were able to gain powerful allies in Explaining a Hunger Strike to My 3 Year Old: Dyett High School- Hunger Strikes | Dave Stieber:

State of U.S. Education May Harm Economic Growth

State of U.S. Education May Harm Economic Growth:

State of U.S. Education May Harm Economic Growth

The statistics speak volumes: the United States is in dire need of education reform. On the 2013 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) reading test, 66 percent of all U.S. fourth graders scored as below proficient. For low-income students, the number testing below proficient jumps to 80 percent. According to the nonprofit organization StudentsFirst, more than 25 percent of U.S. students fail to graduate from high school in four years and internationally, the United States placed 27th in math and 20th in science out of 34 countries. These alarming numbers forecast future drops in domestic economic productivity and declines in American trade competitiveness on a global scale (read more in The Correlation Between Education And The Economy).

What's worse, these abysmal U.S. test scores that have remained relatively stagnant since the 1970s. A glance at the academic achievement map on the website Leaders and Laggards, a state-by-state assessment of K-12 education by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, further reveals the disappointing state of the American education system. The nationwide report card based around academic achievement, post-secondary and workforce readiness and international competitiveness awarded “A” grades to only six states. The solutions may not be as clear cut as the problems, but the United States can begin education reform by taking these four steps. (See more in What country spends the most on education?)

1. Reform Begins With the Teachers

The impact of teachers on the lives of their students cannot be overstated. Studies have shown that the highest-performing teachers imbue their students with an extra five-to-six months’ worth of education (K-12) and students with effective teachers are more likely to continue onto college and beyond. Highly effective teachers can increase the earnings potential of their students by $20,000 over the students’ lifetimes and foster success across all areas of youth development. So the question is, how to attract better teachers? One suggestion is to pay teachers more. Economists Raj Chetty, John Friedman and Jonah Rockoff determined that when replacing an underperforming teacher with a so-called high value-added teacher, discounted future earnings of the entire classroom are estimated to be $270,000 (based on three years of data), while non-discounted earnings work out to be $1.4 million per class. Furthermore, according to StudentsFirst, schools need to adopt stricter policies to replace underperforming educators. Suggestions include stricter performance reviews and firing policies, greater accountability and transparency with the students and their parents and reforming or abolishing the tenure program. (Read more in Best States For Teachers.)

2. Smaller is Better

Small-classroom advocates argue that smaller class sizes lead to higher student achievement because each student gets more teacher attention and interaction and fewer distractions from other students. A smaller class also teachers can focus more on teaching and less on disciplinary issues. The Students-Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) project is study conducted over a control group of 10,000 students. It featured a reduction in class sizes from 22 to 26 students in a class to just 13 to 17 students. STAR saw substantial increases in academic performance, especially for elementary-school students, minority students,and poor students.

On the other hand, the American Center for Progress argues that most class-size studies are inconclusive. Large-scale class size reductions in California and Florida have yielded less than optimal results, perhaps as a consequence of hiring many inexperienced and less effective teachers. Furthermore, opponents argue that large-scale class size reduction is extremely expensive, not only for additional staff salaries and benefits, but also because of increased capital expenditures—smaller class sizes will mean more classrooms need to be built.

3. Minority Students, Majority Issues

The Alliance for Excellent Education released a report to all congressional candidates, urging them to invest in the nation’s economic future. In “Dropouts, Diplomas, and Dollars: U.S. High Schools and the Nation’s Economy,” the Alliance concluded that the U.S. economy could add $310 billion by 2020 if minority students graduated at the same rate as their white peers. Moreover, the study, “Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap,” found that a racial gap between minority students and their white counterparts, with minority students scoring lower in test scores and graduation rates. Shockingly, the study also found that in math and the sciences, American black and Latino eight-graders performed only on par with students in developing countries. While critics may point to a whole slew of socioeconomic factors exacerbating this racial divide, education can play a major part in reducing wage and social inequalities (read more in Is There Still Social Mobility In America?). For example, according to the Wall Street Journal, Harvard economists Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz found that the growing difference in the earnings of college grads and high school grads explain 60-70% of the rise in wage inequality between 1980 and 2005. Some of the solutions to address the problem of minority education include placing underprivileged children in early education pre-kindergarten programs, pairing up quality teachers with needy children (through incentives such as paying for the teacher’s college), increasing teacher accountability, presenting educational materials in a relatable way to minority students and working together with community groups to incentivize education. (For more see Standard Of Living Vs. Quality Of Life.)

4. Cultivate the STEMs

Finally, in order to ensure its competitive edge in an increasingly technological world, the

Read more: State of U.S. Education May Harm Economic Growth http://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/082415/state-us-education-may-harm-economic-growth.asp#ixzz3jq5KX1Lx 
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Why Vouchers Won’t Fix Vegas Schools - The New York Times

Why Vouchers Won’t Fix Vegas Schools - The New York Times:

Why Vouchers Won’t Fix Vegas Schools

LAS VEGAS — FOR the past year, I’ve lived next door to a public elementary school. With my windows open in the morning, I can hear children’s laughter on the playground, and at 9 a.m., the Pledge of Allegiance over the intercom. My afternoon commute takes me past the entrance, where I see a diverse group of parents collecting their children, from white moms in yoga pants to Muslim women in hijab guiding their kids carefully through the crosswalk.

Only a quarter-mile away, on the other side of my apartment complex, is a private school. These students wear identical uniforms, but still manage to showcase the diversity of the city.

For now, it’s heartening to see at least some amount of ethnic and economic variety within our local schools. But now that the state has approved a radical new voucher system, that’s about to change.

In the clichéd, across-the-railroad-tracks scuffle between private and public schools that you find in many places, the teams are often clearly divided: poor urban kids versus wealthy suburban ones. But in Vegas, where poverty is high but not concentrated in a single area, it’s difficult to identify exactly where the tracks lie.

National trends show that wealthier families are moving back to the cities, bringing popular amenities and higher costs of living with them, while low-income families are pushed into the once shiny, now-aging suburbs. Because there is no clearly defined inner city in Vegas, just a suburban sprawl that makes up the nation’s fifth-largest school district, there is a surprising level of racial and economic diversity, at least in the elementary grades.

But the schools are far from great. In a 2015 report from the Anne E. Casey Foundation, Nevada ranked 50th in education. Underfunded, chronically overcrowded and, like many states, desperate for teachers, it has long been infamous for its problems. Despite 100-degree temperatures throughout August and September, many Vegas public schools do not have working air-conditioning.

To meet high demand for better quality education, Las Vegas has provided families with a variety of alternatives to the traditional public school — charter, magnet, technical — but privately funded institutions have proved to be the best-performing, receiving national attention for innovative programs in academics, technology and sports.

How to get the public system in Nevada properly functioning has produced a frenzied debate for years, but legislation passed this summer significantly, and finally, increased the education budget by some $400 million. There is a catch, though. Part of that budget will go toward one of the most expensive voucher systems ever attempted in the country. Parents who choose private, online or home education over the public system will soon be eligible for vouchers worth about $5,000.

Unlike similar programs that offered this type of funding only to low-income families, this money will be available to higher-income families as well (though low-income students and those with disabilities will receive a bit more). Supporters argue that the program will give all parents the opportunity to choose the schools they believe will best serve their children. Politically, it also appeases taxpayers who do not benefit from the reforms because their children do not use the public system.

Private school tuition in Nevada can be as high as $12,000, and the biggest problem with the vouchers is that the poorest families will be unable to make up the difference. So, in the coming year, as middle-class families Why Vouchers Won’t Fix Vegas Schools - The New York Times: