- Many, including some of us at Fordham, have argued that under President Obama and Secretary Duncan, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights is running amok on issues like school discipline and access to AP courses. Now it has released guidance that, according to the New York Times, will walk back the Bush-era policy allowing single-sex schools and classrooms. (a policy that was also encouraged by Hillary Clinton). According to the Department of Education’s guidance, schools may still offer these classes, but only if they jump through nine hoops. They must, for example, provide evidence that these classrooms benefit children in a way that mixed-gender ones cannot, offer students both alternatives, and ensure that all parents volunteered their kids for enrollment. Why not just allow it if parents want it?
- In Pittsburgh, a state statute and local bargaining agreement dictate that teacher layoffs must be based exclusively on seniority. Yet the school district—cognizant of the policy’s many shortcomings—ignored the law and the CBA in favor of keeping a number of highly qualified special-education teachers. The union grieved, an arbiter ruled in its favor, and the district appealed to a higher court. The case isn’t getting Vergara-like attention, but a ruling is expected in the coming week. The district has argued, among other things, that this foolish seniority-based system violates NCLB and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act because it removes effective teachers from students with special needs—arguably the youngsters that need them most. Indeed.
- The International Baccalaureate recently launched a stand-alone program designed to combine its rigorous academic curriculum with specific career-ready training for students in their last two years of secondary schools. Participants prepare for careers as chefs, auto mechanics, and suchlike while benefitting from IB’s respected academic courses. It’s a smart initiative that meets the needs of today’s changing world—one in which career preparation is the best path for a number of students.
- Senator Lamar Alexander, the incoming chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, intends finally to have ESEA reauthorized, telling the Associated Press that the law’s current iteration, No Child Left Behind, overregulates local schools and is detrimental to quality education. Among the likely reforms will be an easing of the law’s annual testing requirement, which is intimately tied to NCLB’s controversial waivers. He hopes to get a bill signed by President Obama in 2015, an accomplishment that would require something exceeding rare in today’s Washington—bipartisanship.
