Education

Some Hispanic leaders in Prince Georgeas County are criticizing County Executive Rushern L. Baker III (D) for not naming a Hispanic to the countyas reconfigured Board of Education.

Under a state law that changed the governance structure of the county school system, Baker was given the power to select three new members to the board, name the board chairman and vice chairman and select the new schools chief. The County Council was allowed to name one new school board member.Read full article >>

The founder and leader of one of the Districtas top-performing charter schools was surprised Tuesday with a $25,000 award for her efforts to close the achievement gap.

Shantelle Wright leads Achievement Prep Public Charter School, whose students a mostly from low-income Ward 8 families a score far above the citywide average on math and reading tests.Read full article >>

Community colleges have greatly evolved in the past two decades, adopting many hallmarks of traditional colleges but, often, at a much lower price. Many schools now offer a wide variety of clubs, sports and study abroad programs. Their campuses feature coffee shops, recreation complexes and posh lounges, spaces that encourage students to hang out instead of hopping back in their cars or catching the bus after class.Read full article >>

The District has made great strides in pushing public and charter school students to apply to college and then enroll, but still, too few eventually earn a degree.

Even some of the cityas valedictorians and highest performing students struggle in college, my colleague Emma Brown reported in an eye-opening article last weekend. Many of the students she interviewed said they felt inadequately prepared, especially compared to classmates who attended private prep schools or top public schools in the suburbs.Read full article >>

A workforce lacking robust a humanities and social science education could be just as detrimental to the countryas future economic competitiveness as one deficient in science and technological expertise, according to an American Academy of Arts and Sciences report released Wednesday.Read full article >>

States that are implementing the Common Core academic standards and new standardized tests in public schools can have an additional year before they have to use those student test scores to decide pay and job security for teachers, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Tuesday.Read full article >>

Education Secretary Arne Duncan bowed to (some) reason Tuesday and announced that he was giving states some flexibility in regard to when they had to use student scores from new Common Core-aligned standardized tests to evaluate teachers.Read full article >>

To help schools meet the new requirement to evaluate teachers based on student achievement, Virginia officials created a method for calculating how much students learned in a year. By extension, they believe that the same method can show how well teachers are doing their jobs. Read full article >>

D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson hosted dozens of the cityas top graduating seniors at a luncheon Tuesday, inaugurating what she hopes will become an annual tradition of honoring outstanding students as they head off to college.Read full article >>

In their blue caps and gowns, Sia Kanu and Zac Winland blended in with the rows of graduating Lee High School students Monday. But unlike the hundreds of other seniors in their Fairfax County class, the two 19-year-olds represented a tiny sliver of the countyas student population: Both are homeless and living apart from their families, fending for themselves while trying to overcome harrowing pasts.Read full article >>

The National Council on Teacher Quality, an organization that is funded by organizations that promote a corporate-influenced school reform agenda, just issued ratings of teacher preparation programs that is getting a lot of attention in the ed world. The ratings are seriously flawed. Explaining how in this post is teacher education expert Linda Darling-Hammond, chair of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing and the Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University.Read full article >>

Five Fairfax County schools have qualified for three-year accreditation waivers from the Virginia Department of Education for high-performance on state mandated exams.

Virginia Superintendent for Public Instruction Patricia I. Wright announced in a statement Tuesday that Haycock, Westbriar and Wolftrap elementary schools; Rachel Carson Middle School and the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology qualified for the waivers. All five schools earned pass rates of 95 percent or above on the four Standards of Learning tests for the past two school years. Read full article >>

Most D.C. schools will let out for summer break at the end of this week, but debate over the cityas education policies is just beginning.

D.C. Council Member David Catania, who has proposed wide-ranging legislation to overhaul city schools, has scheduled five hearings during the first two weeks of July.Read full article >>

The National Council On Teacher Quality released a first-of-its-kind national review of teacher preparation programs Tuesday. The report includes an evaluation of all or part of the teacher preparation programs at 29 Virginia universities.Read full article >>

David Catania, the chairman of the D.C. Council’s Education Committee, has introduced seven school reform bills that, according to this Post story, could reshape the city’s public education system. Among other things, it calls for increasing funding for poor students, giving principals more power, altering the school lottery system, and ending social promotion.Read full article >>

The vast majority of the 1,430 education programs that prepare the nationas K-12 teachers are mediocre, according to a first-ever ranking that immediately touched off a firestorm.

Released Tuesday by the National Council on Teacher Quality, a Washington-based advocacy group, the rankings are part of a $5 million project funded by major U.S. foundations. Education secretaries in 21 states have endorsed the report, but some universities and education experts quickly assailed the review as incomplete and inaccurate.Read full article >>

Three new members were appointed to the Prince Georgeas County Board of Education on Monday, completing the expansion of the board that County Executive Rushern L. Baker III pushed through this year.

Under the new structure, the formerly all-elected school board now holds three spots a including the chairmanship a for the county executiveas handpicked members and another spot for a county council appointee.Read full article >>

St. Maryas College of Maryland, a public liberal arts school facing an abrupt leadership transition after a sharp enrollment decline, named a veteran higher education administrator from Canada as its interim president Monday.Read full article >>

The Virginia Department of Education named Fairfax Countyas Katie Blomquist as the stateas history teacher of the year.

A Sunrise Valley elementary fourth-grade teacher who specializes in Virginia history, Blomquistas award includes $1,000 and new social studies materials for her classroom. Sheas been at Sunrise Valley since 2006, and last year earned social studies teacher of the year award from the Virginia Council.Read full article >>

City of Manassas school officials have selected Falls Church educator Cathy F. Benner to lead the cityas sole high school, officials announced last week.

Benner has been principal at Falls Church High School since 2008. She began her career teaching social studies in Hopewell, Va., and then moved to Fauquier County schools from 1984 to 1999, according to a news release. Prior to Falls Church, Benner served in an administrative position at Centreville High School. Read full article >>

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