- Hate overspending? Love the environment? So does the Mount Sinai School District on Long Island. Last year it saved $350,000 on utility bills by shutting off lights when not in use, unplugging unused refrigerators during the summer, etc.
- Good news for Hoosier students: Indiana’s new voucher program (which has enrolled 2,800 in the forty days that applications have been open) has been given the green light, as a county judge declined to block implementation of this law. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for Douglas County, Colorado’s program.
- Drawing from his recent book, Class Warfare, Steve Brill makes the case that we need more than superstar teachers to improve our schools. There just aren’t enough to go around.
- So much for collaboration in Illinois. Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis recently described the likelihood of a strike as “very high,” as her membership is feeling “disrespected.”
- And over in the Badger state, the Wisconsin Education Association Council laid off forty-two (40 percent) of its own central-office employees this week. According to WEAC Executive Director Dan Burkhalter, Governor Walker’s “union-busting” bill is to blame.
- Holy interactive graph, Batman! This one is from the New York City Charter Schools Center and shows test-score data for Gotham’s charter schools (grades 3-8).
- Flash forward a few years, as digital learning takes root, and imagine this scene: “One or several cities emerge as hubs of teaching talent, with large numbers of small firms of specialist teachers contracting with blended schools around the country and around the world.” An interesting notion from Reihan Salam, indeed.
