Mac NN: Jobs to get "Rotten Apple’ award without apology

The California Federation of Teachers has invited Apple CEO Steve Jobs to either attend an annual CFT convention next month or offer a public apology for his "insulting comments" to California’s teachers. Should Jobs fail to apologize or neglect to attend the conference, where he is encouraged to speak with the people who educate California’s children and hear from them what the situation is like, the CFT will create a new award specifically for Apple’s chief. "We’ll call it the Rotten Apple, for the individual who best personifies the need to think differently about public education and teacher unions," California Federation of Teachers president Mary Bergan wrote in a letter to the executive. Bergan aggressively rebuted Jobs’ statement to an educational reform conference last week, where he expressed belief that the schools have become unionized "in the worst possible way" and that the unionization with lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is "off-the-charts crazy."

School Reform News: School Choice Alliance Appoints New Leader

The Alliance for School Choice and Advocates for School Choice will experience their first leadership transition in April, when President and General Counsel Clint Bolick will be replaced by Charles Hokanson, Jr.

At that time, the organization will move its headquarters from Phoenix to Washington, DC.

The Alliance and Advocates were launched three years ago to help coordinate national efforts to promote private school choice options for disadvantaged children. In their first two years, the groups and their allies helped create or expand 19 school choice programs nationwide.

NYT: Federal Supervision of Race in Little Rock Schools Ends

The Little Rock School District was released on Friday from federal court supervision of its desegregation efforts, almost 50 years after President Dwight D. Eisenhower dispatched federal troops to enforce an integration order that the Arkansas governor defied.

In a written order, Judge William R. Wilson Jr. of Federal District Court declared the district “unitary.” That meant it had met its obligations under court-ordered remedies to address lingering questions about its commitment to equal opportunity in education.

Judge Wilson said the school board could “now operate the district as it sees fit, answerable to no one” save its students, patrons and voters.

AP: Judge tosses suit by parents who objected to talk of gay marriage in classroom

A federal judge on Friday threw out a lawsuit filed by parents who wanted to keep their young children from learning about gay marriage in school.

U.S. District Judge Mark Wolf said federal courts have decided in other cases that parents’ rights to exercise their religious beliefs are not violated when their children are exposed to contrary ideas in school.

Schools are “entitled to teach anything that is reasonably related to the goals of preparing students to become engaged and productive citizens,” Wolf said in his ruling.