SEVENTH TIME'S THE CHARM?
The New York Post has absolutely maddening coverage of an apparently bulletproof first-grade instructor. At a recent termination hearing, the New York Department of Education declined to fire the Teflon teacher in spite of her six consecutive unsatisfactory ratings. She was reassigned to a pool of substitutes and allowed to keep her generous salary even though she was absent or late sixty-four times in the last school year.
THAT'S A REALLY BIG BUCKET
Much of the recent debate surrounding testing and reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act stems from the belief that states spend too much money issuing standard assessments. However, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Brown Center on Education Policy, Matthew Chingos, clarifies that the $1.7 billion price tag on the assessments is a “drop in the bucket” amidst a $600 billion annual education allotment.
WHILE YOU WERE OUT
You may have missed the news dump out of Louisiana if you left early for Super Bowl weekend: On Friday afternoon, Governor Bobby Jindal issued an executive order authorizing parents to opt their children out of Common Core-aligned PARCC assessments. The move is yet another manifestation of Jindal’s noisy and petulant campaign against the standards, now more than a year in the making. Chas Roemer, chairman of the state’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE), claimed that "the executive order has no constitutional binding for BESE. While he can issue it, it doesn't require BESE to do anything."
CRUNCHING THE NUMBERS
Over at Education Week, Alyson Klein and Lauren Camera have a must-read synopsis of the education agenda in President Obama’s FY 2016 budget proposal. Among the initiatives are a new $100 million competitive grant program, a $50 million bump for School Improvement Grants (widely unpopular with Hill Republicans), and a 34 percent budget increase for the controversial Office of Civil Rights. Fordham’s own Chester E. Finn, Jr. has laid out conservative objections to OCR, and his take is well worth reviewing. No matter, this budget is dead on arrival.
