Kentucky teachers’ strike closes schools across the state

BY JOHN BOWDEN – 03/30/18 09:48 AM EDT Schools in eight Kentucky school districts were closed Friday as teachers across the state protested Republican changes to their pension system, CBS News reports. In Lexington and Louisville — the state’s two largest school districts — hundreds of teachers took sick days or refused to show up for work after state lawmakers…

N.H. Public School Officials Decry ‘Education Savings Accounts’ Bill

  By JASON MOON • 6 HOURS AGO Superintendents, school board members, teachers, and parents held a press conference Thursday morning to voice their concerns about a bill that would create “education freedom savings accounts.” The bill, known as Senate Bill 193, would allow parents to use public money to educate their kids outside of public schools, including…

Oklahoma teachers dismiss proposed pay raise, plan to hold walkout {#iBelieve}

BY JACQUELINE THOMSEN – 03/29/18 07:04 PM EDT Teachers in Oklahoma are planning to hold a state-wide walkout on Monday, saying a pay raise passed by the state isn’t enough. The Oklahoma Education Association (OEA), the states’ largest teachers union, said that the wage hike is “a truly historic moment” but that it is “incomplete,” CNN reported. OEA President Alicia Priest said…

A QUICK LOOK AT STANDARDIZED TESTING AND STEREOTYPE THREAT {#iBelieve}

A QUICK LOOK AT STANDARDIZED TESTING AND STEREOTYPE THREAT Tom Rudd March 2011 “Stereotype threat” is a very complex and nuanced concept. In simple terms, it is an unconscious response to a prevailing negative stereotype about an identifiable group by a member of that group. For example: the statistical fact that Afri can American students…

Trump and DeVos Continue to Undermine Public Education with Their Proposed Fiscal Year 2019 Budget

  By Stephenie Johnson, Neil Campbell, and Scott Sargrad  Posted on February 12, 2018, 2:50 pm Today, President Donald Trump and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos released their proposed budget for the 2019 fiscal year. The Trump administration’s budget proposal for this year makes strikingly similar drastic cuts to the administration’s fiscal year 2018 proposal, which represented the most devastating funding cuts to…

What Would it Cost to Get All Students to Average? {#iBelieve}

By The Hechinger Report, Contributor March 26, 2018, at 11:30 a.m. Most low-income schools don’t receive enough money to help kids hit average math and reading scores, a new study shows. HOW MUCH DOES IT COST to educate a child? It often feels like policymakers pick numbers out of a hat. Utah spends less than $7,000 a year on…

Commentary: The Failed Promise of Local Control {#iBelieve}

Locally run schools offer a legacy of racial segregation, funding inequity and academic mediocrity. By Peter Cunningham ContributorMarch 23, 2018, at 10:00 a.m. As federal data shows, low income kids of color and students with special needs are far more likely to be suspended or expelled than middle-class white kids. THE NEW FEDERAL education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act,…

10 Reasons the U.S. Education System Is Failing {#iBelieve}

By Matthew Lynch on August 27, 2015 9:43 AM  Once upon a time, enthusiasts designed a formal education system to meet the economic demands of the industrial revolution. Fast forward to today and, with the current global economic climate, it seems apparent that the now established education system is unable to meet the needs of our hyper-connected society…