Arne Duncan’s quest to push for educational equity through high standards and accountability from the highest branch of government inspires a lot of passion, both in favor of his vision and in opposition to it. (Politico)
The “opportunity gap” doesn’t end at high school. Students from affluent families are more likely to land elite jobs after college than students from working-class homes because of social skills they learned from their parents. (Washington Post)
What the sound of slamming lockers, or lack thereof, tells us about the other ways a Denver school is trying to improve, including its use of a New York-developed Common Core-aligned curriculum. (Chalkbeat)
Do high schools that train students for technical vocations, not college, represent an abandonment of those students or an investment in their future? One Philadelphia school offers clues. (The Atlantic)
As a charter school chain designed to upend traditional school bureaucracies grows larger and its systems grow more complex, the ways its executive handles logistical snafus reveal a lot about the challenges of running large school systems and what changing those systems could actually take. (Chalkbeat)
An Ohio dad got Internet famous for posting on Facebook the donation check he wrote to a school making fun of Common Core… (Buzzfeed) …And then an Ohio math teacher took him down for mocking what he didn’t understand. (Patheos)
Here’s a moving essay about the emotional toll it takes on immigrant students when teachers and peers refuse to learn how to properly pronounce their names. (The Toast)
The experience of having one’s name butchered is very common for English language learners especially, and can have subtle but lasting consequences on children’s educations. (Chalkbeat)
