SIMMONS: On School Choice, Ryan Earns An A+
Washington Times, DC, August 12, 2012
Now that Republican Mitt Romney has hit the reset button in his run for the White House by selecting Rep. Paul Ryan as his vice presidential running mate, let’s start our discussion with a key domestic issue: education.

Back To School: How To Measure A Good Teacher
Christian Science Monitor, MA, August 12, 2012
Perhaps the most controversial education reform is how to measure a good teacher. As the trend to overhaul teacher evaluations catches fire, some teachers find that new feedback and mentoring programs can lead to ‘incredible’ results with their students.

FROM THE STATES

CALIFORNIA

L.A. Unified Settlement Bypassing Seniority-Based Layoffs Nullified
Los Angeles Times, CA, August 11, 2012
Setting the stage for future legal battles, a state appeals court Friday nullified a settlement that allowed the Los Angeles Unified School District to shield certain schools from teacher layoffs during budget crises.

In Sacramento, Bogus Education ‘Reform’
San Diego Union-Tribune , CA, August 12, 2012
The case for making teacher quality the top priority in public schools has never been stronger. President Barack Obama, like his Republican predecessor, is on board. And no wonder: Research keeps underlining that just as exceptional teachers help students thrive, mediocre and bad teachers slow student progress.

COLORADO

More Than 300 Teachers Leave Douglas County Schools
Denver Post, CO, August 13, 2012
Brian Hire and his wife, Jill, said they have left the Douglas County School District to teach English in Jordan because they felt they were working in a climate where teachers were not valued and their careers were uncertain.

DELAWARE

Newark Charter Builds A Culture of Trust
The News Journal, DE, August 12, 2012
Cultivate a culture of inclusion. Build it on a foundation of trust.
Then watch it develop into a workplace where people are actually motivated to get up in the morning and do it again.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

School Boards Should Not Have Veto Power Over Charters
Washington Examiner, DC , August 13, 2012
There are no publicly funded charter schools in Northern Virginia . The simple reason is that state law allows local boards of education to have the final say in the matter.

D.C. Adding Classrooms For Special Needs Students
Washington Examiner, DC, August 13, 2012
The District is opening extra public school classrooms for special education students with emotional disturbances, as part of an effort to reduce the large number of students who are sent to costly private facilities when public schools can’t serve their needs.

FLORIDA

660 Students Expected For New Bradenton Charter School
Bay News 9, FL, August 12, 2012
Many parents choose the charter school route for their child’s education, and for those wanting to do so in Manatee County, there is a new option.

Is A Charter School The Answer For Polk Poinciana?
News Chief, FL, August 12, 2012
A charter school has expressed interest in possibly building in Poinciana Polk.
Is a charter school the answer, or just a quick fix with long-lasting consequences?

Manatee Charter School Enrollment Increases
Bradenton Herald, FL, August 12, 2012
District officials estimate that nearly 4,300 students in Manatee County will attend a charter school in the coming school year. That’s a jump from last year’s 3,600 students.

Education Choices: Some Parents Seek Alternatives To Public Schools
Panama City News Herald, FL, August 11, 2012
Bay County has more than 25,000 students, but only about 85 percent are in the district’s 29 traditional public schools.

GEORGIA

Special Charter Schools Get More State Money In New Formula
Athens Banner-Herald, GA, August 12, 2012
State government will provide more than twice as much money per student in special state charter schools than for ordinary public school students under a new spending formula approved this year by the state legislature and Gov. Nathan Deal.

INDIANA

Charter, Private Schools Show Increased Enrollment
Muncie Northwest Times, IN, August 12, 2012
Thousands of students across the state are enrolled in 72 charter schools, including a dozen in Northwest Indiana. In addition, nearly 7,500 students have enrolled in Indiana ‘s voucher program, allowing families to use tax dollars to send children to private schools.

LOUISIANA

Voucher Schools Exempt From State’s New Curriculum
Alexandria Town Talk, LA, August 13, 2012
Students enrolled in Louisiana public schools this year will have a tougher curriculum and have to meet higher standards to make the grades they need to advance to the next level.

Louisiana’s Loch Ness Mythology
The Advocate, LA, August 12, 2012
But some of the schools that want to cash in on the state’s new tuition vouchers — really cash in, by expanding their tuition base considerably — not only teach creationist nonsense, but are proud of it.

Quest For A Spot In A New Orleans School Is Streamlined But Still Rocky
Times Picayune, LA, August 12, 2012
Frustration, because enrolling in a public school in New Orleans is still a uniquely confusing process, complicated by the presence of two competing school districts, dozens of independent charter schools and an open enrollment policy that allows students to apply for a spot at any school in the city. Hope, because parents can at least now turn to one central database to get a sense of where a seat might be open for them — if they’re aware it exists in the first place.

The Beginning of Change In Jefferson Parish Schools
Times Picayune, LA, August 11, 2012
Earlier this year the School Board voted to close seven campuses, which resulted in about 2,500 students shifting to new schools for this school year. Twenty-one schools — one-fourth of campuses — have new principals. That is in part due to changes at schools that had underperformed academically for several years.

MAINE

Standards ‘High But Reasonable’
Kennebec Journal, ME, August 12, 2012
The newly released contract for the first charter school in Maine has some unusual standards for the students, many of whom are already considered to be at a high risk of dropping out from a mainstream high school.

MASSACHUSETTS

Eight New Area Charter Schools Are Proposed
Boston Globe, MA, August 12, 2012
Of the 22 groups that recently submitted preliminary applications to the state to open charter schools, eight are in the region covered by Globe North, an area that is already home to 20 of the state’s 77 charter schools.

New KIPP Building To Welcome Students Next Week
The Daily Item, MA, August 13, 2012
The new KIPP Academy atop the Highlands has Smart Technologies-equipped classrooms and a panoramic view of Lynn , but it is the fully outfitted gymnasium that excites charter school student Kylle Bonilla.

MICHIGAN

Parents: Speak Out Against School Boards
Detroit News, MI, August 12, 2012
To regain power, two school boards’ actions this week prove they’re on a mission to unravel reforms that benefit kids

Detroit School Reform Head To Push Forward
Lansing State Journal, MI, August 11, 2012
The leader of the reform district operating 15 Detroit schools said he intends to move forward as planned, despite the Detroit school board’s attempts to disband the new system.

Poverty Matters In School Rankings
Battle Creek Enquirer, MI, August 12, 2012
But for the 2011-12 school year, the first time schools were held accountable to a new system allowed by a federal waiver to the federal No Child Left Behind Act, Quincy Middle School was among 12 local buildings on the state’s list of “focus schools.”

MISSOURI

How Will Districts Grade Teachers?
St. Louis Post Dispatch, MO, August 12, 2012
Hundreds of thousands of the nation’s teachers will return to class in coming weeks to find their profession moving toward new forms of scrutiny.

NEVADA

Setting Standards
Las Vegas Review-Journal , NV, August 12, 2012
Nevada is, for now, immune from the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act. The decade-old federal law aimed to increase achievement and accountability in the nation’s schools, but like many federal interventions – no matter how well-intentioned – it became a costly boondoggle.

NEW JERSEY

Tenure Reform Law: The Debates Ahead
New Jersey Spotlight, NJ, August 13, 2012
Much of the attention on New Jersey’s new teacher tenure law signed by Gov. Chris Christie last week has been on its new rules regarding teacher tenure, its focus on student achievement and evaluations for judging teachers, and its streamlined legal proceedings for removing the weakest.

NEW MEXICO

Group Investigates ‘Achievement Gap’
Albuquerque Journal, NM, August 13, 2012
A national Latino civil rights group announced Sunday it is launching an investigation into New Mexico’s “achievement gap,” or the persistence of lower test scores and graduation rates among Hispanic students compared with non-Hispanic peers.

NEW YORK

Tutoring Not Required Under NCLB Waiver
New York Times Schoolbook, August 12, 2012
New York City schools that fail to meet performance targets will not have to offer students federally funded tutoring services, now that New York State has won a waiver from the No Child Left Behind law. But the city says if principals want to keep paying for tutoring with federal dollars they may, at least for this coming school year.

Area Schools Push To Finish Teacher Evaluation Plans
Watertown Daily Times, NY, August 12, 2012
Although many area school districts are on track to turn in plans for teacher evaluations soon, some have struggled to negotiate with teachers unions this summer. School districts are recommended to turn in the evaluation plans — which will be used to determine whether the educators are competent at their jobs — by November at the latest.

OHIO

Merit Pay For Teachers Getting Step Closer
Columbus Dispatch, OH, August 13, 2012
Trend in school districts is to tie pay raises to performance, not a schedule, but how?

Freeport Gets 30 Students So Far At Start-Up Charter School
New Philadelphia Times-Reporter, OH, August 12, 2012
Thirty students have enrolled to start classes this fall in Lakeland Academy Community School , a new charter school that will be housed in a former grocery store at 101 Main St . That exceeds the goal of 25 to begin operations.

Busing Dispute Approaches Settlement
Youngstown Vindicator, OH, August 13, 2012
Austintown Local Schools officials are expected to forgo a controversial plan to offer public-transit vouchers to Catholic school students in lieu of district busing this school year.

OREGON

Charter Contract Up For A Hearing
Register-Guard, OR, August 13, 2012
HomeSource Family Charter School will appeal the Bethel School Board’s decision to terminate its contract at a public meeting today, and the district — anticipating a crowd — will hold the meeting at Prairie Mountain School rather than in the much smaller board meeting room.

PENNSYLVANIA

Businesses Urged To Fund Scholarship Program
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, PA, August 13, 2012
The expansion of the Educational Improvement Tax Credit program approved this summer may not be fully ready for this school year as advertised, with several scholarship organizations saying it could take weeks, perhaps months, to raise funds.

Parents Want A Say In Their Charter
Philadelphia Inquirer, PA, August 12, 2012
A little more than two weeks after a federal grand jury indicted the founder and the chief executive of the Planet Abacus Charter School in Tacony, parents are working to ensure the school survives.

Pennsylvania Charter, Public Schools Not Always Bound To Same Rules
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, PA, August 12, 2012
Charter schools are public schools, funded with taxpayer dollars, but charter and regular public schools don’t have to follow all of the same rules.

Charter Schools Bring Hope in Chester
Delaware County Times, PA, August 12, 2012
If the Chester Upland School District had its way earlier this year, Jalah wouldn’t have to go to CCCS because the school wouldn’t exist. The school board voted last January not to grant John Alston, the Swarthmore College music professor and school founder, a charter for his school.

Corbett’s School Voucher Plan Misfires
Pottstown Mercury, PA, August 12, 2012
Gov. Tom Corbett started 2012 with a pledge to enact a school voucher program that would give Pennsylvania low-income families attending poor-performing schools grants to attend schools of their choice.

SOUTH DAKOTA

After NCLB, How Many Are Too Many To Still Be Behind?
Daily Republic, SD, August 12, 2012
Is 77 percent good enough? That’s the question we face this summer regarding our school children throughout South Dakota .

TENNESSEE

National Funding New Norm For Local School Board Races
Commercial Appeal, TN, August 13, 2012
School board races in Memphis have never attracted the kind of money that they got this year. Tens of thousands of dollars poured in from political action committees, essentially allowing anonymous outsiders to shape education policy, long the domain of locals.

Ruling Doesn’t Solve School Disparities
The Tennessean, TN, August 12, 2012
Metro Nashville Public Schools turned a corner on July 27, when U.S. District Judge Kevin Sharp ruled in favor of the district’s 2008 rezoning plan, which plaintiffs, in their lawsuit, say has resegregated Nashville schools.

TEXAS

State Impasse Over No Child Left Behind Likely To Persist
Austin American-Statesman, TX, August 12, 2012
Texas was stuck in a lonely and uncomfortable spot last week when federal education data showed that more than half of its public schools failed to meet the standards required under the No Child Left Behind Act.

WASHINGTON

Washington State PTA Will Oppose I-1240
Bonney Lake and Sumner Courier-Herald, WA, August 11, 2012
Washington State PTA will oppose I-1240, the initiative that would authorize charter public schools in Washington. Nationally, PTA has conditional support for these independent schools, and the state association has twice backed the concept in the past year. But ultimately the board decided this initiative didn’t meet its criteria for local oversight.

WISCONSIN

New Test Results Illustrate Madison Schools’ Achievement Gap
Wisconsin State Journal, WI, August 12, 2012
A new student test in Madison schools that could help gauge the effectiveness of the school district’s achievement gap plan suggests an average student’s knowledge grew at or slightly below the rate of their national peers in math and reading and ended the year about a half-grade level behind.

ONLINE SCHOOLS

PA Cyber Connections Prompt Inquiry
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, PA, August 12, 2012
When the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School needed more office space, then-superintendent Nick Trombetta didn’t hesitate to seek help from his friends.

Virtual High School Allows Small Schools To Offer Vast Variety Of Courses
Lehigh Valley Express Times, PA, August 13, 2012
Staff shortages and small facilities limit the amount of courses a student can take, but some high schools in the Lehigh Valley have found a way to expand course offerings without expanding their schools.

Parents, Be Cautious In Moving Your Children’s Education Online
Kansas City Star, MO, August 12, 2012
Parents likely have noticed ads for an online school aiming to replace the neighborhood elementary, middle or high school.