Weekend Reads: Why higher pay might not translate to more teachers

  • One likely beneficiary of Supreme Court Antonin Scalia’s death: teachers unions, whose mandatory dues Scalia had signaled he would rule against. (TIME
  • John King is the first former principal to serve as U.S. Secretary of Education. Few of his predecessors even taught. (Politics K-12)
  • Three students tasked with improving their low-performing school say academic tracking is one impediment. (Chalkbeat)
  • Virtual teacher coaching could be a lower-cost, higher-impact way to improve instruction. (Hechinger Report)
  • D.C.’s teacher of the year says he never had a great teacher of his own. (Washington Post)
  • Testing flexibility in the new federal education law doesn’t reduce the pressure that teachers face, according to someone who works with many of them. (Chalkbeat)
  • How schools get segregated and why it matters, by the founder of a racially isolated New York City school. (Vox)
  • The politics around Baltimore’s unique charter sector could put mayoral candidate Deray Mckesson in a bind. (Slate)
  • Get to know the Noble charter school network, Chicago’s largest — and most controversial. (Catalyst)
  • An uncoordinated background check system means that teachers disciplined in one state can get jobs in others. (USA Today)
  • Raising salaries is a common suggestion for solving teacher shortages. But it probably won’t work. (The Atlantic)
  • What fourth graders did after they learned about the water crisis in Flint, Mich. (Pedagogy of the Reformed)
  • To end Tennessee’s testing crisis, an informed father writes, the state needs to strip the stakes from the scores. (Dad Gone Wild)