- Because she couldn’t bear to keep Martin O’Malley in suspense any longer, Hillary Clinton revealed this weekend that she would be running for president in 2016. Her well-executed video ginned up an endless amount of free press, but few commentators picked up on a strangely off-key segment: Early on, one participant expresses excitement at the prospect of moving to a new neighborhood so that their child will have access to a decent school. Situated discordantly between announcements of weddings and new business ventures, the line perfectly illustrates the lack of choice most parents face when trying to educate their kids. Several prominent liberal writers have already voiced their frustration with the message. “Having to move in order to enroll in a ‘better" school,’ wrote Jonathan Chait in New York, is “a very strange value system for the left to embrace.”
- If you haven’t spent the last few months in a cave, you’re probably aware that this spring marks the debut of Common Core-aligned tests in dozens of states across the country. Those tests, expected to be far tougher than those that preceded them, have stirred up enough national controversy to keep education writers busy until the next ESEA reauthorization (should be any year now). The response at the state level is no less intense: In Ohio, an online poll commissioned by prominent State Senator Peggy Lehner revealed widespread dissatisfaction among educators with the implementation of the new PARCC tests; many are frustrated with the disruption the online tests caused to students’ schedules for much of the month of March. The years to come will bring opportunities to improve the delivery of the assessments, but this kind of public response demonstrates clearly that changes would best be enacted sooner than later. The resistance to testing isn’t just ideological; nuts-and-bolts issues matter too.
- Of course, some parents aren’t waiting around to find out whether or not they favor the new testing regime. They’re commonly known as opt-outers, and even though their numbers have likely been inflated by a sensationalistic national press, they are causing untold harm by preventing their kids from participating in more rigorous assessments. Moreover, according to the New York Post, the heart of the Empire State opt-out movement is found in extremely privileged communities outside New York City. Of the top ten districts where students in grades 3–8 were pulled out of math and ELA tests, nine were located in chic Long Island enclaves with a median annual income nearly twice the state average. As Fordham’s own Robert Pondiscio memorably noted, the students most penalized by opt-outers hail from the other end of the wealth spectrum—low-income kids around the state who would greatly benefit from a full, data-driven picture of New York schools.
- A thoughtful piece in the New York Times raises a question that’s been batted around a lot lately: Where are the teachers of color? As more diverse students fill the nation’s schools, the proportion of minority teachers is not keeping up. It’s disturbing enough to witness the kind of vast racial chasms that have emerged between educators and their charges (in Boston, just one Hispanic teacher is employed for every fifty-two Hispanic students); compounding that unpleasant reality is the evidence showing that students of color actually learn better when instructed by teachers who share their ethnic background. It’s clear that districts should make more of an effort to entice people of color into the classroom.
