Education: DC Area Education News, Education Policy, School Information - The Washington Post

Fairfax school board approves budget

T. Rees Shapiro — Fri, 24 May 2013 23:41:32 GMT

The Fairfax County School Board on Thursday approved next year’s $2.5 billion budget, which includes money to increase teacher salaries, expand foreign language instruction for elementary students and hire more mental health professionals.

Read full article >>

Paul Tudor Jones: Remarks on female traders ‘offended, and I am sorry’

Jenna Johnson — Fri, 24 May 2013 21:44:00 GMT

Paul Tudor Jones, a hedge fund billionaire and philanthropist, apologized Friday for comments he made at the University of Virginia last month about the lack of female traders. He had attributed the problem to women becoming mothers and no longer having the intense focus required for successful trading.

Read full article >>

Text: Obama's speech at U.S. Naval Academy graduation

Valerie Strauss — Fri, 24 May 2013 17:08:14 GMT

Here, from the White House, is the text of President Obama's speech on Friday to the graduation class at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. Obama is the 16th U.S. president to speak at the Annapolis graduation since its founding in 1845.

Read full article >>

Citing military sexual assaults, Obama urges Naval Academy graduates to uphold public trust

Nick Anderson — Fri, 24 May 2013 15:47:00 GMT

President Obama on Friday used the issue of sexual assault in the military to illustrate to Naval Academy graduates the importance of trust and honor at a time when the public has grown weary of missteps by public servants.

Read full article >>

A college graduation with 60 speakers

Valerie Strauss — Fri, 24 May 2013 13:27:10 GMT

At just about every high school, college and university, audiences who gather to watch their loved ones graduate listen to one main key speaker (plus a few other speeches from school leaders). But what about 60 speakers?

Read full article >>

Fairfax County online standards tests hampered by Internet problems

T. Rees Shapiro — Fri, 24 May 2013 02:44:04 GMT

Widespread technical glitches interrupted thousands of Fairfax County schools students taking Virginia’s standards of learning tests online Thursday.

In a letter to parents, the district acknowledged “significant problems” while administering the online tests due to an outage with the school system’s Internet service provider.

Read full article >>

Teacher's resignation video: 'Everything I loved about teaching is extinct'

Valerie Strauss — Fri, 24 May 2013 01:37:10 GMT

In the video below, veteran teacher Ellie Rubenstein of Highland Park, Ill., resigns after eloquently explaining how teaching has changed over the past 15 years of school reform and why she believes public education is being misdirected.

Read full article >>

Fairfax County online state SOL tests disrupted by technical glitches

T. Rees Shapiro — Thu, 23 May 2013 21:55:00 GMT

Widespread technical glitches interrupted thousands of Fairfax County schools students taking Virginia’s standards of learning tests online Thursday.

In a letter to parents, the district acknowledged “significant problems” while administering the online tests due to an outage with the school system’s Internet service provider.

Read full article >>

House approves Republican student loan bill

Nick Anderson — Thu, 23 May 2013 21:02:00 GMT

The House approved a Republican proposal Thursday to allow interest rates on federal student loans to rise or fall from year to year with the government’s cost of borrowing, ending a system in which rates are fixed by law.

Read full article >>

Crawley plans to stay in Prince George’s

Ovetta Wiggins — Thu, 23 May 2013 20:26:03 GMT

Prince George’s County School Board Chairman Verjeana Jacobs (District 5) said Friday that Alvin Crawley, the county’s interim school superintendent, has agreed to stay in his position until school reopens in August.

Read full article >>

The Rev. John Thomas: No act of God caused Chicago schools closings

Valerie Strauss — Thu, 23 May 2013 18:54:25 GMT

Chicago officials are going ahead with the largest mass closing of public schools in the country's history despite polls showing that a majority of city residents oppose it and looming questions about the rationale offered for the action.

Read full article >>

Paul Tudor Jones’s statement on controversial comments at U.-Va.

Jenna Johnson — Thu, 23 May 2013 17:37:00 GMT

Paul Tudor Jones sent a statement to The Washington Post in reference to comments that he made at a U-Va. McIntire School of Commerce investment symposium April 26. When asked at the event why there are not more women high up in the trading world, Jones said that most women lose focus when they have children. This is the full statement he released to The Post on Thursday:

Read full article >>

Paul Tudor Jones: In macro trading, babies are a ‘killer’ to a woman’s focus

Jenna Johnson — Thu, 23 May 2013 17:35:00 GMT

Paul Tudor Jones, the hedge fund billionaire, told an audience of University of Virginia students, alumni and others that it is difficult for mothers to be successful traders because connecting with a child is a focus “killer.” As long as women continue having children, he said, the industry is likely to be dominated by men.

Read full article >>

Montgomery schools 2015 budget process underway

Lynh Bui — Thu, 23 May 2013 17:23:56 GMT

As the fiscal 2014 budget season closes with the Montgomery County Council’s final approval of a $4.8 billion spending plan Thursday, the school system is already gearing up for 2015 with a new budget process that will tap focus groups for input.

Read full article >>

Superstar astrophysicist: Why 'Star Trek' beats 'Star Wars'

Valerie Strauss — Thu, 23 May 2013 15:01:23 GMT

You may view "Star Trek" as just another science fiction movie, but world renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson doesn't.

Tyson, in the video below, explains that he is a big fan of Star Trek -- all of the various television series -- because the franchise makes some attempt to use physics to tell its stories. Star Wars never did, and that's one of the reasons he prefers Star Trek.

Read full article >>

Baker plans to ask Crawley to stay on as interim Pr. George’s superintendent

Ovetta Wiggins — Thu, 23 May 2013 12:43:15 GMT

Prince George’s County Executive Rushern L. Baker III (D) said he plans to ask interim school superintendent Alvin Crawley to rescind his resignation and stay on at least through the end of his contract, which ends June 30.

Read full article >>

The billionaires lose one

Valerie Strauss — Thu, 23 May 2013 09:02:57 GMT

Big money doesn't always win the day. At least it didn't in a school board race in Los Angeles in which a few million dollars showered on a favored candidate failed to overcome the poorly funded campaign of a fifth-grade teacher.

Read full article >>

The serious risks of rushing new teacher evaluation systems

Valerie Strauss — Thu, 23 May 2013 09:02:48 GMT

Increasingly we are hearing concerns from educators that new education reforms are being rushed, including the Common Core State Standards. At the same time, new teacher evaluation systems are being put into place as well. Here to evaluate the risks to rushing these systems are Morgan S. Polikoff and Matthew Di Carlo. Morgan is assistant professor in the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California. Di Carlo is a senior fellow at the non-profit Albert Shanker Institute, located in Washington, D.C. This post appeared on the Shanker blog.

Read full article >>

NY principals: Why new Common Core tests failed

Valerie Strauss — Thu, 23 May 2013 08:01:22 GMT

Teachers and principals in New York have expressed strong concerns about the new high-stakes standardized tests supposedly aligned with the Common Core State Standards that were recently given to students across the state. The following letter to New York Education Commissioner John King from a number of New York principals explains the depth of the problems educators found with the tests.

Read full article >>

Montgomery middle school students see their films on the big screen

Lynh Bui — Thu, 23 May 2013 02:47:00 GMT

Downtown Silver Spring isn’t exactly Hollywood, but for Montgomery County middle school students, it was transformed into a scene as thrilling as any L.A. movie premiere Wednesday.

Silver Spring International Middle School students filled the seats of the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center to see their documentaries and films roll on the big screen, part of a two-day film festival that continues Thursday morning. The event is the culmination of the school’s “Lights, Camera, Literacy!” classes, designed to teach middle school students about storytelling and the elements of literature through movies and other visual media.

Read full article >>

Fairfax County School Board to consider discipline changes

T. Rees Shapiro — Wed, 22 May 2013 22:32:02 GMT

As a year-long study of Fairfax County school discipline policies nears its end, some School Board members and parents are questioning whether any substantial changes will come out of it.

The board plans to consider revised regulations relating to student rights and responsibilities at a meeting Thursday, with a final vote scheduled to come in two weeks. Notable proposed changes focus on how parents are notified when their child is under investigation for possible discipline, and they would soften punishments for first-time marijuana possession.

Read full article >>

Chicago to shutter 50 schools, largest mass closing in major U.S. city

Lyndsey Layton — Wed, 22 May 2013 21:27:28 GMT

Chicago’s board of education voted Wednesday to shutter 50 schools, the largest number of schools closed at one time by any major U.S. city.

The board, appointed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D), opted to close 49 elementary schools and one high school after the current school year ends. It decided to keep open four additional schools that had been recommended for closure by Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett.

Read full article >>

National Geographic Bee puts Mass. student on the map

T. Rees Shapiro — Wed, 22 May 2013 21:22:00 GMT

Quick question: Name the peak in Ecuador with a summit that marks the point farthest from Earth’s center due to our planet’s bulge at the equator.

If you were Sathwik Karnik, a 12-year-old from Massachusetts, you’d know the answer is Chimborazo, and you’d have won the National Geographic Bee along with a $25,000 college scholarship.

Read full article >>

Henderson shakes up two D.C. schools

Emma Brown — Wed, 22 May 2013 20:57:00 GMT

More than 100 teachers and other staff members at two D.C. schools learned this week that they must reapply for their jobs after Chancellor Kaya Henderson decided to “reconstitute” the schools in an effort to spur improvement.

Read full article >>

Md. to spend $2 million to expose high school students to college-level courses

Ovetta Wiggins — Wed, 22 May 2013 19:58:00 GMT

Maryland has allocated $2 million to help fund programs throughout the state that will allow students to take high school and college courses at the same time, Gov. Martin O’Malley said while taking a tour at the Academy of Health Science at Prince George’s Community College on Wednesday.

Read full article >>