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Right for America or Wrong for Illegals? DREAM Act Takes Center Stage
By Jill Lawrence - Politics DailyThe most ardent proponents of the DREAM Act know their chances of victory in the next few weeks are slim, but they also know that failure is pretty much inevitable if they wait until next year. Thus we are in the midst of a full-court press on yet another cause that once had substantial bipartisan support, but may not any longer. DREAM, expected to come up for a vote in the year-end lame-duck session of Congress, is catchy shorthand for Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors. Translation: The act would offer a path to citizenship – and economic prosperity -- for undocumented ...
Arne Duncan Helps Students Put Best Foot Forward in School Walk
By Emmarie Huetteman - Politics DailyEducation Secretary Arne Duncan, Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty, Washington Chancellor of Schools Michelle Rhee and Federal Highway Administrator Victor Mendez helped more than 100 students start the second day of school Tuesday -- with a walk. The two-block walk to Maury Elementary School in Washington promoted the Transportation Department's Safe Routes to School program, in which more than 6,000 schools participate nationwide. Officials encouraged walking and riding bikes to school with family and friends as a healthy, safe habit for kids. Click the video below to learn more. ...
Opinion: Don't Close Schools, Fix Them
By not in system - AOL News(June 29) -- In a four-part series on AOL News last week, Dana Chivvis told the story of a small high school in Brooklyn that is slated to be closed for poor performance. Its graduation rates and test scores are low, yet district officials never gave the school the facilities or resources to improve. Today, federal policy requires districts to take harsh action against "failing" schools. The No Child Left Behind law, adopted in 2002, says that officials must close them; fire all or half their staff; or hand control over to the state, to private charters or to private management. Secretary of ...
Summer School Canceled in Many Cash-Strapped States
By Christopher Weber - Politics DailyThe Obama administration is urging districts not to cancel summer school, but many local education officials say the programs are simply too costly to maintain during the economic downturn. Districts started eliminating summer school when the recession began, and a growing number of programs have been axed or scaled back as state funding has become increasingly uncertain, The Associated Press reported. The cuts come even as the White House is calling for longer school days and shorter summer breaks. "At a time when we need to work harder to close achievement gaps and prepare every child for ...
Arne Duncan's Reforms: Rep. Judy Chu Wants Them Left Behind
By Danny Yadron - Politics DailyTeachers unions have long had a friend in Democrats, and they've got a new one in Rep. Judy Chu of California. Chu called Thursday for lawmakers to ditch a model -- championed by another Democrat, Education Secretary Arne Duncan -- for fixing the country's worst performing schools, a combination of multimillion-dollar grants and federally prescribed reform models that call for school closures and staff firings. Flanked by leaders from the two national teachers unions, Chu said individual districts should decide for themselves how to fix failing schools. That's been a demand of teachers for ...
Preschool Progress Hurt by Recession, Rutgers Study Shows
By Danny Yadron - Politics DailyThe recession has slowed years of progress in America's preschools, and advancements are likely to stall entirely or decline as states come to terms with gutted tax rolls, according to a study released this week. Although most states still boosted public pre-K enrollment during the 2008-09 school year, the period of the survey, growth slowed in quality, access and public funding, according to The State of Preschool 2009, an annual report by the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University. On their face, the statistics don't look that bad. Of the 38 states offering ...
'Race to the Top' School Funding Has States Rethinking Education Reform
By Danny Yadron - Politics DailyWASHINGTON -- When Secretary of Education Arne Duncan picked only two states as winners in the first round of a national competition for education money, he meant to spur unsuccessful states into action. Demonstrate the bar is high, he said, and people will try to reach it. Two weeks later, as some of the finalists prepare their second attempts for Race to the Top money, it's unclear if that's the case. Several of the finalists publicly declared that they might not reapply, and others plan to resubmit slightly tweaked or even pared down versions of their original applications. "I have not ...
Arne Duncan Pushes to Cut Out the Middleman in Student Loans
By David Sessions - Politics DailyEducation Secretary Arne Duncan on Tuesday urged the Senate to overhaul student loan policies, arguing that executives at lending companies like Sallie Mae have enriched themselves while American college students shoulder loads of debt, the Washington Post reports. "Working Americans pay while bankers get rich," Duncan said. "Sallie Mae executives have paid themselves hundreds of millions of dollars in the last decade while teachers, nurses and scientists -- the backbone of the new economy -- face crushing debt because of runaway college tuition." Duncan's strong words were part of the Obama ...
The Promise and Pitfalls of Public Education: What We All Need to Know
By Linda Kulman - Politics DailyTwenty-seven years since the publication of "A Nation at Risk," the alarming report that warned of "a rising tide of mediocrity" in U.S. schooling that threatened the country's "preeminence in commerce, industry, science, and technological innovation," the needle has not moved much for public education. I was reminded of this when I read Carlo Rotella's profile of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in this week's New Yorker (the magazine's subscribers can read the full digital version; others can purchase access). ...
Obama's Risky Plan: Government Takeover of the Student Loan Business
By Andrew Clark - Politics DailyAll of the noise-making caused by the health-care-reform effort and the political uncertainty now surrounding Obama's liberal agenda has allowed one item on that agenda to pass swiftly and smoothly under the radar -- his plan to nationalize the entire student loan process. Unfortunately, the plan is too risky for the economy. The White House initially thought the plan would face stiff resistance and launch a contentious and hard-fought ideological battle in Congress. "After all," wrote Time Magazine in September, "the Administration's proposal to restructure the student-loan industry is, in ...
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