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Star Ledger--Students keep being left behind on school buses. Is technology the solution?
It happens about once every two weeks during the school year.
A student, drowsy from getting up in the early morning hours and standing on the bus stop in the cold, falls asleep on the way to school and wakes up hours later in an unfamiliar parking lot, surrounded by yellow buses.
A mother, already at work for the day, gets a message from the district asking why her child — the one she watched get on the bus — isn’t in elementary school.
A driver, preparing to start an afternoon route on a hot day, finds a child on the bus parked in front of his home since the morning.
Though school bus drivers in New Jersey are required by law to check the bus for students before exiting, it keeps happening.
Joe Brandt | For NJ.com| Posted February 12, 2018 at 07:07 AM | Updated February 12, 2018 at 07:10 AM
Star Ledger—Op-Ed--In Newark, Chris Cerf's diplomacy protects solid classroom gains | Moran
Imagine that it's 1995, you live in Newark, and you can't afford to send your kids to private school.
In more than half of the public elementary schools, not a single 8th grader passed the state test on academic competence. Putrid bathrooms lacked even toilet paper. The superintendent had 10 relatives on the payroll. Board members flew to Hawaii for conferences, and bought lavish meals at home, with house accounts at 32 area restaurants.
http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2018/02/for_newark_students.html#incart_river_index
Tom Moran| Updated Feb 11, 7:04 AM; Posted Feb 11, 7:00 AM
Press of Atlantic City—Op-Ed--County career-tech programs more cost-effective than local ones (0)
As the national celebration of Career and Technical Education Month begins, the time is right for a new dialogue about education that values career readiness equally with college acceptance.
The economic future of South Jersey depends on a well-educated and technically trained workforce to support growth in key industry sectors like health care, aviation, manufacturing and hospitality.
To meet these needs, educators, employers, parents, students and policy leaders must abandon outdated images of vocational education and embrace 21st century career and technical education (CTE) as a vital strategy to prepare all types of students for success.
It is also time to change the conversation about CTE from a focus on cost and conflict between school districts to an emphasis on expanding opportunities for students.
Michael C. Dicken For The Press| Feb 9, 2018
The Atlantic--A Math Class That Makes Tax Season Easier
As soon as Caitlin Scull started her stopwatch, her classmate began texting.
“You want it to be real,” their teacher, Eric Gurule, told Scull and her partner. The student was texting with two hands—which few people do while driving.
The girl switched to just her right hand, holding her phone low near her waist as she pantomimed driving a car. “I’ll see you soon,” she texted her friend.
The watch stopped. 6.82 seconds.
Turns out, a short text sent at 55 mph gets you 393 feet down the road—a little longer than the length of a football field.
The calculations, based on numbers like braking and stopping time, were preceded by a talk in the Noblesville High School classroom from a local 24-year veteran police officer.
It didn’t look like an Algebra 2 class. But that’s kind of the point.
Shaina Cavazos| Feb 9, 2018
New York Times--In Her Words: Education Secretary Betsy DeVos Assesses a Year on the Job
For a year now, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has been trying to give away her $199,700 salary.
With every government-issued paycheck, which she pledged she would not take, the billionaire cabinet secretary grew more frustrated by ethics rules that restricted her ability to donate to charities in her official capacity.
ERICA L. GREEN FEB. 9, 2018
Education Week--Parties Gird for Supreme Court Showdown Over Union Fees
Is there any reasonable chance that the teachers’ unions and other public-employee labor groups can pull off an unexpected victory in the latest U.S. Supreme Court battle over a 40-year-old precedent that has been a bedrock of their financial and bargaining strength?
Judging by the tone of a joint press conference the four largest public-employee unions held last week about Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31 (Case No. 16-1466), the labor movement is girding for an era in which they will no longer be able to charge “agency fees” to employees in a bargaining unit who refuse to join the union to cover those workers’ share of collective bargaining costs.
https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/02/08/parties-gird-for-high-court-showdown-over-union.html
Mark Walsh| February 8, 2018
