What We're Reading: The rise and fall of "reform" in Newark

  • Newark got $200 million to overhaul its schools. Four years later, what was bought is unclear. (New Yorker)
  • Principals in Chicago say they’ve faced a “gag rule” against speaking out about city policies. (WBEZ)
  • A top State Education Department official, Ken Slentz, is leaving to head an upstate district. (Capital Confidential)
  • A Boston teacher describes the value of “old-fashioned nonfiction text packets”: newspapers. (Core Transition)
  • A New Orleans high school senior explains why she wishes her school talked less about college. (Hechinger)
  • A statistical look at New York City’s teaching corps finds more female and fewer white teachers. (IBO)
  • Nationally, online “credit recovery” courses are surging in enrollment, yet they face little scrutiny. (Education Next)
  • City teachers in the ATR pool want a meeting about the UFT contract’s implications on them. (Ed Notes)
  • A mom says she wishes students and parents faced the same pressure as teachers not to talk about testing. (Insideschools)
  • Andy Rotherham lists four things to consider about teacher pensions, starting with the fact that they vary. (Eduwonk)
  • Google executive Eric Schmidt’s seat on New York’s three-person school tech commission has raised eyebrows. (Bits)
  • Camden, N.J., will lay off more than 300 educators at the end of this year, and people aren’t happy. (NJ Spotlight)
  • Texas faces familiar disputes as it joins other states in tying teacher ratings to student performance. (Texas Tribune)