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NJ Spotlight--Legislative Hold on PARCC Replacement Leaves No Clear Path to HS Diploma
NJ lawmakers delay vote on measure after appellate court issues stay on ruling that would kill PARCC, students left out in the cold — for now
Thousands of New Jersey students and education officials are still awaiting final guidance to determine what is needed in order to graduate high school this year. The holdup: The Legislature held a bill that would codify requirements after the Murphy administration asked it to wait pending a lawsuit on the matter.
Carly Sitrin | January 29, 2019
NJ Spotlight--Fine Print: Auditor Questions Oversight of Camden’s Renaissance Schools
Second audit finds gaps in enrollment and hiring at fast-growing hybrid charter schools
Summary: The state auditor last week released the second of two reviews of the renaissance schools program in Camden’s state-operated schools, detailing how the state had failed between 2016 and 2018 to ensure proper enrollment and hiring processes had been followed.
John Mooney | January 29, 2019
Asbury Park Press—Why Must Kids Make Up Missed Snow Days?
New Jersey schools must make up missed snow days if they cut into state-required 180 instructional days. But is there an alternative?
Amanda Oglesby| January 29, 2019
Chalkbeat--Across U.S., graduation rates are rising, with little connection to test scores
Alabama’s high school graduation rate was one of the lowest in the country in 2011. Today, it’s one of the highest.
Over that same period, though, Alabama students have continued to perform among the worst in the nation on federal math and reading tests.
That leaves the state with a jarring disconnect between its students’ academic skills and the share of diplomas it hands out. And while Alabama’s numbers are outliers, that disconnect exists in many other states.
States with low test scores don’t necessarily have low graduation rates, and vice versa, data released last week for the class of 2017 shows. And state test scores are less pegged to graduation rates than they were several years ago, according to a Chalkbeat analysis.
https://chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2019/01/28/graduation-rates-test-score-disconnect/
Matt Barnum - 13 hours ago
The Hechinger Report--Another tool to improve student mental health? Kids talking to kids
A New Mexico school addresses sexual assault, suicide and other hard topics with help from the people students are most likely to listen to: each other
TAOS, N.M. — Standing in front of 240 freshmen and 80 fellow seniors in her school’s gymnasium, a slight 17-year-old with her hair in pigtail braids took a long shuddering breath.
Her audience was still. The girl had just revealed that she’d spent most of her middle-school years feeling suicidal, had been hospitalized for her own protection and spent two years in therapy before finally telling her mother the cause of her deep depression and thoughts of self harm: She’d been raped by a man she knew.
After two beats that felt like an eternity, the room exploded into supportive applause.
https://hechingerreport.org/another-tool-to-improve-student-mental-health-kids-talking-to-kids/
Lillian Mongeau| January 27, 2019
