CHEERS:
“Philadelphia students’ average scores on state math tests have reached their highest rate in nine years, marking a significant recovery from pandemic-era learning loss.” —Rebecca Redelmeier, Chalkbeat Philadelphia
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“Charter school students in Washington, D.C.’s high-poverty Ward 8 far outshined their peers citywide in mathematics last year—besting children in even the wealthiest communities—a triumph staff attributed to co-teaching and data collection, among other factors.” —Jo Napolitano, The 74
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“Within the same family, some children may attend a Catholic school, while a sibling is educated elsewhere, typically homeschooled or a local public school, because often the Catholic school isn’t able to provide the level of support required for a student with a disability, despite families’ hopes for shared formation. In the Diocese of Lake Charles, Louisiana, a new Catholic school is being developed to broaden that access, and the leaders of St. Nicholas Catholic Academy hope their approach can inform similar efforts in other dioceses.” —Mary Rose, Catholic Vote
JEERS:
“Newly filed internal documents show how Google viewed its work with schools as a way of turning children into lifelong customers—while the company simultaneously acknowledged research suggesting that YouTube, one of Google’s main platforms, can be unsafe and distracting.” —Tyler Kingkade, NBC News
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A Texas Tribune headline points out that state takeovers disproportionately affect districts serving many Black, Hispanic, and low-income students. But all a school has to do to avoid this fate is show a miniscule amount of growth. As one official notes, “For a campus to have gotten an F five years in a row, it is a disaster—it is truly an emergency.” Furthermore, the most important question is whether state takeovers help kids, especially those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. And the story out of Houston looks very promising so far. —The Texas Tribune
Editor's note: This was first published on Mike Petrilli's Substack, SCHOOLED, a twice-weekly free Substack and email newsletter restarting the education-reform conversation.
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