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    Joy Resmovits

    Joy Resmovits

    Senior Education Reporter, The Huffington Post

  • Congress Takes Major Step In Finally Overhauling No Child Left Behind Act

    The Senate voted 81-17 to overhaul the Bush-era No Child Left Behind Act Thursday afternoon, passing a bipartisan bill that gives states more flexibility to hold schools accountable for students' test scores. “Everyone wants to fix No Child Left Behind,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn) after the vote was counted. The overwhelming vote passed the Every Child Achieves Act, a bipartisan proposal sponsored by Alexander and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash).

  • These Are The States That Demand The Least Of Their Students

    The answer to this question varies from state to state, according to a new report released by the research arm of the Education Department, the National Center for Education Statistics. As some parents, teachers and politicians fight the Common Core State Standards, an effort to make sure the bar for learning in math and reading is consistent nationally, the new report shows that as recently as 2013, this metric varied widely. “Policymakers ... want to be able to compare state progress and state performance standards, but because they are all different, a common yardstick is necessary to make comparisons,” said Peggy Carr, NCES’s acting commissioner.

  • More Minority Students Should Be In Special Ed, Study Says

    For decades, some education leaders and researchers have asserted that school districts often use special education placement as a way to segregate black students, throwing them off the traditional academic track. This idea has fueled policies aimed at keeping minority kids out of special education settings, and boosting their chances in school. A study released Wednesday, led by Penn State education professor Paul Morgan, suggests that's the case.

  • Shockingly Few Students Are Proficient In U.S. History

    If you chose b, you're smarter than more than 40 percent of America’s eighth graders. The tests are the subject exams of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a low-stakes test administered by the federal government to a nationally representative sample of public and private school students. Mary Crovo, deputy executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board, which administers the test, argued that the results are particularly important as students seek to make sense of a world buzzing with news about the earthquake in Nepal and riots in Baltimore.

  • This School District Is Hiring By The Thousands

    Technology specialist Sara Boucher teaches about 1,000 students in classes as large as 45 at Steven G. Schorr Elementary School in Clark County, Nevada, making it hard to tailor instruction and impossible to learn everyone's name. Next school year, Clark County expects to have 2,600 teachers fewer than it needs. "We're at capacity," said Erick Capetillo, a teacher and coach at Las Vegas High School.

  • Liberal Advocates Are Aligning With Congressional Republicans On This Education Issue

    At the end of every school year, Stephen Lazar, a New York City social studies teacher, would stand in front of his students and apologize to them for turning into a "bad teacher" to prepare them for the Regents exams. On Wednesday morning, he spoke of this experience to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which was addressing a major question in American education: Are annual standardized tests necessary? Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Patty Murray (Wash.) argued they are still needed, noting that tests can hold states accountable when it comes to teaching the most disadvantaged kids.

  • State Of The Union Doesn't Mention No Child Left Behind Rewrite Efforts

    Parents, teachers and policymakers who listened to Tuesday night's State of the Union address heard an earful from President Barack Obama about his intentions to retool education's bookends by making community college free, expanding child care and increasing cybersecurity for students. Obama mentioned few specifics about K-12 education, one of his administration's top priorities during his first term. Notably, the president mentioned not one word directly about one of his education secretary's priorities for 2015: rewriting the much-maligned No Child Left Behind Act, the Bush-era school accountability law.

  • Democrats and Republicans Agree: It's Time To Rewrite No Child Left Behind

    When Sen. Patty Murray's (D-Wash.) children were young and their preschool stood on the brink of closure, she snapped into action. "He said something that I’ll never forget," Murray, a former preschool teacher herself, said during a speech on the Senate floor Tuesday. Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

  • The Obama Administration Officially Wants This Major Education Law Rewritten

    After years of dancing around Congress to help states evade the No Child Left Behind Act, the Obama administration thinks it's time to go back to the legislative drawing board. No Child Left Behind, the Bush-era school accountability law, must be rewritten, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in a speech Monday. The speech comes as Congress renews its bid to rewrite the sweeping federal education law.

  • Obama Just Ensured That His Education Legacy Will Last After He Leaves Office

    The Obama administration is inviting states to apply to renew their waivers from the No Child Left Behind Act. According to an Education Department document, states will have to ensure that schools cannot receive top ratings for accountability if they are not closing "significant achievement or graduation rate gaps" between different groups of students. Some states have struggled to keep promises they made under the 2011 waiver guidelines to improve low-performing schools.

  • Teacher Training Is A Ridiculously Easy Way To Ace College, Report Says

    Majoring in education is an easy route to high college grades and graduation, says a new report that calls for higher standards in teacher preparation programs. The National Council on Teacher Quality, a Washington-based think tank and advocacy group, says in a report released Wednesday titled, "Training Our Future Teachers: Easy A’s and What’s Behind Them," that the incredible ease of performing well in teacher preparation programs goes far beyond the grade inflation it says pervades higher education. "Teaching is probably the hardest thing in the world to do, but we're making it so easy to get in and out of, in terms of prep," said Kate Walsh, NCTQ director.

  • These Students Were Falling Through The Cracks When It Came To Bullying

    Other students call him "gay" or a "weirdo." He becomes yet another student with disabilities who gets bullied at a higher rate than his peers -- a problem the federal government has been tracking for years. The Education Department's Office of Civil Rights is seeking to change that. This week, Assistant Secretary of Civil Rights Catherine Lhamon sent a letter with new legal guidance to the nation's public schools in an effort to clarify that federal anti-bullying protections extend to about 750,000 more students than schools think.

  • 'Flat And Stagnant' SAT Scores Ahead Of Major Test Redesign

    SAT scores for the class of 2014 averaged a 497 in reading, 513 in math and 487 in writing -- about the same as the last few years, according to a report released Tuesday by the College Board, the administrator of the notorious college entrance exam. "Flat and stagnant would be the words that we would use," said Cyndie Schmeiser, the College Board's chief of assessment. The College Board, which this year announced plans for a major SAT redesign, points to the test scores as a sign that American education needs renewed rigor and resources.

  • America's Schools Could Be More Efficient If Teachers Were Paid Less: Report

    The United States ranked 19th out of the 30 countries, receiving an efficiency score of 72.66 percent. Finland, a perennial educational chart topper, came out at No. with a score of 87.81 percent.

  • Is This The Secret To Improving America's Schools?

    While it may seem obvious that students who miss more school would not perform as well as other students, a new report released Tuesday shows just how much of a difference attendance can make. According to the report, written by nonprofit advocacy group Attendance Works, about 1 in 5 American students -- between 5 million and 7.5 million of them -- misses a month of school per year. The report suggests that missing three or more days of school per month can set a student back from one to two full years of learning behind his or her peers.

  • It's Getting Really Hard To Keep Track Of Who Supports And Who Opposes Bobby Jindal's Education Policies

    On Wednesday, less than a month after the Black Alliance for Educational Options supported a lawsuit against Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) over his attacks on the Common Core, the right-leaning organization came to the defense of the state's school voucher system -- which happens to be Jindal's signature education program. BAEO announced Wednesday that it would join Louisiana families in asking the US. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to dismiss an April ruling that required the voucher program to regularly disclose student data to the federal government.

  • Jindal Proves He's Serious About Dismantling His Former Cause

    Buffeted by a state judge who initially struck down his suspension of Common Core testing and said his actions hurt the state's parents, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) is now turning to the federal courts in the crusade against the Common Core, a cause he once backed wholeheartedly. “The federal government has hijacked and destroyed the Common Core initiative. Common Core is the latest effort by big government disciples to strip away state rights and put Washington, D.C. in control of everything," Jindal, widely considered a 2016 presidential contender, said in a statement.

  • Is The Obama Administration Backing Away From Standardized Testing?

    For years, the Obama administration has made tougher teacher evaluations a centerpiece of its education agenda, giving states incentives to grade educators partially in accordance with students' standardized test scores. Deborah Delisle, assistant secretary of elementary and secondary education, wrote in a Thursday letter to state school chiefs that states that have received waivers from the No Child Left Behind Act will be able to continue to evade the law even if they did not use test scores in this year's teacher evaluations.

  • Fewer Than Half Of American Students Are Ready For College

    As American students return to classes in a public education system projected to be majority minority for the first time this fall, new test scores provide alarming evidence that students of color remain far behind their white counterparts. Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

  • One Of The Most Polarizing Figures In Education Is Leaving Her Job

    UPDATE: Michelle Rhee confirmed The Huffington Post's Tuesday report about her departure from StudentsFirst in a blog post on the group's website, as well as in a statement to the Sacramento Bee, late Wednesday. "While I remain 100 percent committed to the success of StudentsFirst, it’s time for a shift in the day-to-day management of the team and our advocacy work," Rhee wrote in the blog post. PREVIOUSLY: Former Washington, D.C., schools chancellor Michelle Rhee has told people close to her that she is preparing to step down as CEO of StudentsFirst, the advocacy organization she created after leaving her chancellor post, according to three sources close to the organization.