Weekend Reads: A controversial campaign to teach students only the math they need

  • Andrew Hacker: The math we ask students to learn in school isn’t the math they need to be taught. (NYT)
  • Hacker’s campaign to overhaul math instruction stems from his experience working with ill-prepared college students. (Slate)
  • What happened to San Diego’s plan to close the racial achievement gap? It’s being implemented, to little effect. (Voice of S.D.)
  • The Democracy Prep charter school network rethought its parental leave policy to improve things for dads. (Fast Company)
  • How “sensory cells” and train maps help a New York City educator teach students with severe disabilities. (Gothamist)
  • Get the fascinating backstory to the 1963 school segregation protests where Bernie Sanders was arrested. (Chicago Reader)
  • Republicans tackled schools for the first time in their debate this week and got a lot wrong. (Politics K-12)
  • One big miss: Ohio Gov. John Kasich said Detroit’s mayor controls its schools. He doesn’t. (MLive)
  • The National PTA parent group comes out against the opt-out movement, saying it won’t fix testing. (Learning First Alliance)
  • Baltimore’s schools police chief was placed on leave after a video showed an officer hitting a student. (Baltimore Sun)
  • A Silicon Valley charter school network gives students their own computers — and mentors. (Hechinger Report)