Is Donald Trump The Charter School Industry’s Worst Nightmare?
September 15, 2016, 2016 Subscribe
THIS WEEK: Teacher Shortage Crisis … Wealth Gap In Schools … Limits On School Cops … Is Literacy A Right? … School Choice Guidance Needed
TOP STORY
Is Donald Trump The Charter School Industry’s Worst Nightmare?
By Jeff Bryant
“In unveiling his education plan, the Republican candidate proposed a $20 billion federal block grant to allow states to give vouchers to low-income students to attend whatever school they want. The proposal is the most full-throated support for school choice ever issued by a presidential candidate in a general election campaign. It’s also an ill conceived, grandiose, and politically polarizing gesture that many charter school proponents feared most.”
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NEWS AND VIEWS
America Has A Teacher Shortage, And A New Study Says It’s Getting Worse
The Washington Post
“The U.S. is facing its first major teacher shortage since the 1990s … According to a new study … the shortfall is a result of increased demand for teachers as schools reinstate classes and programs axed during the Great Recession. It has been compounded by a dramatic decrease in the supply of new teachers entering the profession. Enrollment in teacher-preparation programs dropped … 35% … ‘U.S. classrooms were short approximately 60,000 teachers last year … Annual teacher shortages could increase to over 100,000 teachers by 2018 … Teacher attrition … remains high and is the single-biggest contributor to the shortage.”
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In Connecticut, A Wealth Gap Divides Neighboring Schools
The New York Times
“In Fairfield, a mostly white suburb where the median income is $120,000, 94% of students graduate from high school on time. In Bridgeport, the state’s most populous and one of its poorest cities, the graduation rate is 63% … Seemingly intractable contrasts like those last week led Judge Thomas G. Moukawsher to tell the state that it had 180 days in which to rethink almost its entire system of education … Across the country, school funding cases have often resulted in more money being funneled into poorer districts to help offset the effects of poverty on their students. That may well be the end result in Connecticut.”
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Obama Administration Pushes To Limit Police in Schools
U.S. News & World Report
“The Obama administration is pushing school districts to ensure that school discipline is being handled by trained educators, not by law enforcement officers … At any one time there are about 400 to 500 federally funded school resource officers nationwide. That’s out of the approximately 17,000 in place in schools around the country, or between 2 and 3% … The goal is to ensure that anyone who is in charge of discipline has the proper training, limits suspensions and expulsions and creates a more trusting environment between students and administrators.”
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Lawsuit Accuses Michigan Of Violating Detroit Students’ Rights
Reuters
“A lawsuit filed on behalf of seven Detroit students on Tuesday accuses state officials of allowing high rates of illiteracy at several poorly functioning schools in the city, arguing it is a violation of the children’s constitutional rights … [It’s] the first federal case to argue that American children have a right to literacy under the U.S. Constitution. If the case is successful, it could result in court-mandated changes at some Detroit schools and encourage similar lawsuits in other parts of the country … The lawsuit, which seeks court approval to represent all students at the five schools in question, argued students had been denied their right to equal protection under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
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Federal Report: Schools Need Clarity On Choice And Funding Issues
Education Week
“Officials often struggle to determine if students participating in school choice programs like vouchers and education savings accounts [ESAs] are receiving the ‘equitable services’ they are entitled to under federal law … The U.S. Department of Education has not provided guidance to states and districts on this issue … A majority of the vouchers and ESA programs have placed new requirements on participating private schools, such as entry-level requirements for teachers … Officials … in 4 states with such choice programs (Arizona, Indiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin) said those programs complicate their ability to provide required educational services to private school students.”
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