SHAME OF THE WORLD
First Lady Michelle Obama said Friday that we need to accelerate efforts to extend education to girls in all communities. Worldwide, 62 million girls do not attend school, and in some countries, less than 10 percent move on to secondary school for reasons such as high tuition or material costs, early and forced marriage, and lack of safety measures while commuting to and from school.
LOOK AWAY
The Hechinger Report sat down with Mississippi principal Shannon Eubanks to discuss state leaders’ recent rebuke of the Common Core State Standards. Eubanks, along with teachers and district leaders, worry that repealing Common Core midway through the school year will cause chaos for teachers, who have spent two years implementing the new standards. Common Core is designed to close the gaps between high- and low-achieving students, but abandoning the standards this late in the game would leave many kids behind.
TUESDAYS ARE NOW DUCK L'ORANGE DAYS
The push to increase the nutritional value of cafeteria fare has had a major negative side effect: Students aren’t eating the healthier food. In an attempt to make healthier food more palatable, some districts are hiring professional chefs out of prestigious culinary institutes. Santa Clarita Valley schools recently hired a chef out of Le Cordon Bleu, the chain of world renowned culinary institutes that has produced famous chefs like Julia Child and Mario Batali.
CHART(S) OF THE WEEK
Vox has a quick, revelatory set of charts comparing American students’ homework hours and performance on international standardized tests with those of other OECD countries. Though they rank among the leaders worldwide in time spent on take-home assignments, their scores don’t seem to keep up with the competition abroad.
