NATIONAL

The New Haven Model
New York Times, NY, October 29, 2009
Education Secretary Arne Duncan is right to push the nation’s schools to develop teacher evaluation systems that take student achievement into account. The teachers’ unions, which have long opposed the idea, are beginning to realize that they can either stand on the sidelines or help develop these systems.

Education Officials Talk At Colorado Hearing About Improving No Child Left Behind
Denver Post, CO, October 29, 2009
A commission looking at how to improve the federal No Child Left Behind legislation picked Colorado for one of its national hearings on teacher effectiveness and leadership development.

10.5 Million PreK-12 Students Will Attend Classes Online by 2014
T.H.E. Journal, October 28, 2009
More than 2 million preK-12 students take some form of schooling online right now–whether attending a virtual school for all their classes or just taking one or more courses via the Internet.

FOM THE STATES

California

Sequoia District Gives Everest Charter School A Raw Deal
San Jose Mercury News, CA, October 28, 2009
Back in 2002, when I began with The Daily News as a freelance reporter, one of my first assignments was covering a fledgling charter school in Redwood City. It was Aurora High School, and I wrote that parents who were attracted to it were most interested in academic excellence and student safety.

New Legislation For Charter Schools Could Help Local Group’s Quest For Nonprofit Middle School
Marina del Rey Argonaut, CA, October 29, 2009
Charter school advocates say they are heartened by two bills recently signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that could give them the opportunity to expand their current crop of schools into areas where they have long sought to plant an educational stake.

Colorado

Denver Catholic Schools Gain National Accreditation
Denver Post, CO, October 29, 2009
The Archdiocese of Denver Catholic Schools on Wednesday said that its school system has been accredited by a nationally recognized service.

New Dem faces for Senate Education Committee
Denver Times, CO, October 29, 2009
Brand-new Democratic senators Michael Johnston and Pat Steadman will join the Senate Education Committee for the 2010 session, and Vice Chair Chris Romer is leaving the panel to be vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

District of Columbia

D.C. Voucher Program Fights to Survive
Washington Times, DC, October 29, 2009
When you are America’s first mixed-race president, it has to be especially galling to flip on the news in America’s majority-minority capital city and find commercials accusing you of failing to help the city’s black children escape from substandard schools. 

Georgia

Floyd BOE Votes To Seek Charter Status For School System
Rome News Tribune, GA, October 28, 2009
The Floyd County school board gave its stamp of approval Wednesday evening to the system’s state application to become a charter school system.

Louisiana

Local Schools Urged to Earn a Share of $4.3 Billion from Feds
The Times-Picayune, LA, October 28, 2009
In an application for a share of more than $4.3 billion in federal stimulus money, Louisiana education officials called on districts throughout the state to voluntarily overhaul some of their lowest-performing schools by bringing in new leaders and staff or converting to charter school operations.

Massachusetts

Charter Group Claims Charter Schools Rank Highly Under New Measurements
Cape Ann Beacon, MA, October 28, 2009
Charter school proponents quickly seized on the state’s new method of measuring student achievement, asserting on Wednesday that charter schools consistently placed well among the top “growth schools” in Massachusetts.

Legislature Should Move On School Reform by Thanksgiving
Boston Globe, MA, October 29, 2009
A FAILURE by the Legislature to pass key education bills would keep students trapped in dead-end classrooms and risk more than $200 million in federal stimulus funding for Massachusetts.

Missouri

Missouri Not Skipping $4 billion Race to Top Comp
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, MO, October 28, 2009
Contrary to (early) popular belief, Missouri is aiming to participate in the first round of the federal $4.3 billion Race to the Top competition.

North Carolina

Council Eyes Charter Schools’ Performance
Durham Herald Sun, NC, October 29, 2009
As charter-school enrollment in Durham continues to rise, County Commissioners and other local officials are beginning to wonder how well the privately run but publicly funded institutions are actually performing.

New York

State Charting New Course For Old HS’s
New York Post, NY, October 29, 2009
State officials are seeking to dismantle as many as a dozen large city high schools and turn many of the newly created smaller schools that will occupy their buildings into charters, The Post has learned.

South Carolina

School Choice Offers Chance, Not Distraction
Hilton Head Island Packet, SC, October 29, 2009
The editorial Monday by The (Columbia) State provides classic leadership toward 50 more years of misery for South Carolina schools. Education bureaucrats, union officials and some ideologues would like you to continue to imagine that the problem is money and the “distracting” notion of freedom of choice.

West Virginia

Charter School Debate Heats Up
Charleston Daily Mail, WV, October 29, 2009
Education reformers are intensifying their push to bring charter schools to West Virginia as parents, teachers and lawmakers ready themselves for another round of legislative battles aimed at improving the state’s school system.