Today’s news includes more New Orleans coverage, plus some warnings about the ESEA conference, a disturbing report about a school handcuffing an 8 year old, and a fun piece about parents’ views of the long summer break:
Post-Katrina New Orleans schools revolution worked, Tulane study says NOLA.com: A typical elementary- or middle-school student’s scores rose by 8 to 15 percentage points. “Even the lower end of that range suggests large positive effects,” Harris wrote. “We are not aware of any other districts that have made such large improvements in such a short time.” Meanwhile, scores in other hurricane-affected parishes stagnated. See also Salon.
Red Flags on the Road to ESEA Rewrite EdWeek: To [merge the two bills], they’ll have to overcome some serious divergences in revising the law, whose current version is the No Child Left Behind Act. Chief among them: how to beef up accountability in a way that assures Democrats and civil rights groups that the result will include stronger federal guardrails for the most disadvantaged students, while at the same time ensuring the small federal footprint that Republicans are adamant about.
Why Unions Aren’t Uniting Behind Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders Bloomberg Politics: In the failed fight to stop fast track, organized labor spoke—largely—with one voice. The same can’t be said for labor’s presidential endorsement process.
Clinton Ad Touts K-12 Record PK12: Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton runs ads in Iowa and New Hampshire, while New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a GOP hopeful, slams the teachers’ unions.
Federal Government Shutdown on the Horizon? PK12: Members of Congress don’t return to Washington until Sept. 8 and will have just 10 legislative days to find a path forward on the fiscal 2016 federal budget.
Kentucky Sherriff Used Handcuffs on ‘Misbehaving’ 3rd-Grader AP: Video shows one incident where an 8-year-old student with ADHD was handcuffed by police; the sheriff and deputy involved now face a lawsuit. See also NYT, Washington Post.
Why are we sending children to pre-K programs in converted salons, bars and turkey coops? Hechinger Report: The reality is that pre-K facilities, particularly those in low-income neighborhoods, are too often housed in makeshift spaces, from the ubiquitous church basement to such anomalous settings as a converted hair salon and a repurposed bar.
Sick of your kids being home for summer? Survey says you’re not alone. Washington Post: The research, commissioned by Family and Friends Railcard, surveyed more than 1,500 parents with school-age children. Exactly how the survey was conducted is not mentioned, but the notion that parents who love their children deeply still get unsettled having them home expecting to be entertained all summer doesn’t seem off the mark.
