READY OR NOT
This is the year when nearly every state must begin using assessments aligned to the Common Core, or other “college-and career-ready” standards, Education Week notes. And unlike last year, “this year’s achievement results will be a cornerstone of states’ public accountability reporting.”
THIRD PLACE
The United States ranks third (trailing Switzerland and Singapore) in competitiveness, based on several factors, including “an excellent university system,” according to a new report from the World Economic Forum. In education, the U.S. is seventh (of 144 countries) in higher ed; in primary ed, the U.S. ranks thirty-sixth.
BRITISH CODING INVASION
All students in the United Kingdom will learn computer coding as young as age five starting this year due to curriculum changes. In the U.S., “very few elementary age students are learning to code in U.S. schools, though the nonprofit Code.org is trying to change that,” reports Education Week.
DIVERSITY? WHAT DIVERSITY?
Heard the one about how U.S. schools have never been more diverse? County-level maps produced by the Urban Institute show schools are actually less likely to be diverse than before. Blame housing patterns.
“THE BOOK THAT GOT TEACHING RIGHT”
The New Yorker rediscovers “Up the Down Staircase,” the 1965 best-seller and “the most enduring account we have of teachers’ lives,” and discovers it’s out of print.
“I WAS A BIT OF A UNICORN”
Noted Glenn Peters as one of very few male preschool teachers in New York. According to NPR, “barely 2 percent of early education teachers are men.” Will expanded preschool change that? We’ll see.
