Weekend Reading: Why some efforts to fix low-performing schools fail

  • A tale of two schools — one in Miami and the other in Chicago — that received federal school improvement grants suggests that readiness mattered more than money. (Politico)
  • Conservative school board candidates in Colorado fared poorly on Election Day. Here’s why that matters across the country. (Chalkbeat)
  • And here’s how education policy initiatives fared in other places. (The Atlantic)
  • The scandal that brought down Chicago’s schools chief could be coming to a superintendent near you. (Catalyst)
  • Less than half of Illinois high school graduates test as ready for college. (St. Louis Dispatch)
  • Michigan test scores plummet on tougher new exam, but officials say they aren’t freaking out. (MLive)
  • Is the fight over education reform in Michigan dooming the state to a bottom 10 ranking among the states? (Detroit News)
  • Ohio’s state superintendent says he’s stepping down at the end of the year. (Cincinnati Enquirer)
  • Big charter school grant put on hold by the U.S. Department of Education after questions about the truthfulness of its application. (Washington Post)
  • Democrat who made early childhood a campaign centerpiece defeated in shocking upset in Kentucky’s governors race. (NY Times)
  • The controversy over a list of “Got to Go” students at a Success Academy school in New York reflects broader issues in charter schools. (Vox)
  • Ben Carson’s vision for school funding reform is “more progressive than anything even Bernie Sanders has proposed.” (Vox)
  • A Memphis charter school that attracted national attention because its teachers walk students home got a TV appearance and $50,000 this week. (EllenTube)
  • A new study found that living near affluent neighborhoods is especially damaging for poor boys. (The Marshall Project)
  • Two bills that are starting points for revisions to No Child Left Behind take different approaches to testing. (Politics K-12)
  • From least to most likely, an interactive primer on all of the people who might be Los Angeles’s next schools chief. (L.A. Times)
  • Opponents of a successful bond measure in a Dallas suburb warned that new schools would bring poor students. (Slate)
  • Hundreds of students walked out of Berkeley High School in California to protest a racist incident there. (Berkeleyside)
  • A father who has experienced the downside of competition in his appliance business weighs in on the growing school marketplace. (WBEZ)
  • After 20 years around New York City schools, Sol Stern says the big problem facing them is progressive education. (City Journal)
  • California’s new pre-kindergarten program is open only to children born in the last quarter of the year. (Hechinger Report)