- To avoid a court injunction, Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel has pulled back the reins in his plan to lengthen the school day in the Windy City. The thirteen schools that have already agreed (thanks to a monetary incentive) to up their school day by ninety minutes will keep their current bargain. But no other schools will be able to join that group. Just one more example of politics taking precedence over children.
- Courtesy of the Center on Education Reform’s new district survey, we learn that half of districts eligible for school-improvement grants find it “inappropriate” to ask a district to turn around a failing school in three years. Of course this begs the question: What is an appropriate amount of time? Five years? Ten? Closing these schools may yet be the better option.
- As the Common Core train races toward full implementation there are two potentials that might derail it: political backlash and cost. Kudos to California for thinking through the latter. According to a new analysis, CCSS implementation could run the Golden State $800 million. A hefty price tag, but remember: Divided among the 6 million-plus students in CA, and that figure represents around 1 percent of CA’s education spending.
- Charter-school enrollment in D.C. leaped 9 percentage points over the past year—nudging District charters up to 41 percent market share. If current trends continue, D.C. will be a majority-charter city within two to three years.
- Other cities might be wise to emulate this charter trend in D.C.: NAEP results show that students in charter schools made greater gains from 2009-2011 than their district-school peers in fourth- and eighth-grade reading and math. What’s more, poor and minority students saw the most dramatic score hikes.
- Overheard on Capitol Hill: “Why did the U.S. Department of Education propose the creation of an Office of Early Learning?” “To administer the early-education Race to the Top grants.” “But, why did the USDOE create this third round of RTTT in the first place?” “To give the proposed Office of Early Learning something to administer, of course.”
- Everyone’s favorite drama-filled school district is back in the headlines this week. After a run-off election on Tuesday, Democrats retrieved control of the Wake County School Board, 5-4. What this means for the district’s new school-placement plan is anyone’s guess.
- Fairfax County, VA saw voter turnout tick up over 30 percent for this off-cycle election, higher than other counties in The Old Dominion. What’s promising is the why: According to exit polls, the school-board race (typically a snoozer) drove people to vote. With six new Democratically leaning board members (and a supe exiting in July 2013), keep an eye on Fairfax’s doings.
- And then there were forty-seven: Montana joined the ranks of Common Core adopters this week.
