- The Every Student Succeeds Act, the NCLB replacement that became law this week, keeps testing but loses accountability, basically. (Politics K-12)
- The new law represents a repudiation of outgoing U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s approach. (FiveThirtyEight)
- But it’s not at all clear how much it will actually change life for individual students and teachers. (The Atlantic)
- Andy Rotherham: How ESSA is like a “Game of Thrones” plot point about the randomness of destiny. (U.S News & World Report)
- The Common Core took another blow this week when New York’s governor recommended revising the standards there. (Chalkbeat)
- New York City’s teachers union president lists three “school ‘reform’ myths,” starting with the idea that merit pay works. (Education Week)
- American students aren’t tested a lot, at least compared to their counterparts in lots of other countries. (Hechinger Report)
- A national teachers union takes over its Detroit affiliate. (Detroit News)
- Get to know a Colorado school that has no graduation gap among students of different ethnicities. (Chalkbeat)
- A science teacher shares her journey from teaching about rocks to getting her middle schoolers to code. (Chalkbeat)
- Detroit teachers stage a sick out to protest governor’s reform plan. (Detroit News)
- 5 ways to be the best urbanist gift giver. (#4: Give to local nonprofit media, like Chalkbeat!) (NextCity)
- Black students are increasingly concentrated in some Louisville schools. (WDRB)
- Most states have cut funding to schools since the start of the Great Recession. (Center On Budget and Policy Priorities)
- Syracuse’s slums are a lesson in how to decimate a city. (The Atlantic)
- Students at a Chicago high schools launch a website to protest unappetizing school food. (WBEZ)
- An Oklahoma teacher calculates his actual hourly wage for legislators to consider. (Oklahoma Gazette)
- Nevada is shelling out $5 million to try to get more teachers. (Las Vegas Sun)
- Would appointing a state superintendent lead to better qualified candidates? (Tampa Bay Times)
- New PARCC scores suggest only 1 in 5 Chicago students can do enough math to handle college. (Chicago Sun-Times)
- A famous Los Angeles teacher was fired after a troubling investigation into his conduct with students. (LA Times)
- But his defenders, including Washington Post education columnist Jay Mathews, calls it a ‘witch hunt.’ (Washington Post)
- This is what it’s like to be a Muslim school kid in America these days. (Mother Jones)
- Pearson, the company that makes many state tests, is learning how tough the education sector really is. (The Telegraph)
- The Thomas B. Fordham Institute ranks the best and worst cities for school choice. (EdExellence.net)
- Twins whose teachers have very different philosophies show their mother the value and danger of homework. (Motherlode)
- Schools with many poor students don’t just have inexperienced teachers — many have temporary teachers. (Washington Post)
- An English teacher is polling her colleagues about how they include fiction in the age of Common Core. (On the Shoulders of Giants)
- The success of coding curriculums depends on their implementation, as two Arizona districts illustrate. (Education Week)
- A Chicago school founded with a gaming focus is changing approaches to avoid closure. (Catalyst)
- Can people without kids have “skin in the game” of education policy? Here’s an argument for yes. (Grand Rounds)