In any democratic society, education should be viewed as a right, not an entitlement.  Across the globe, a new historical conjuncture is emerging in which the attacks on higher education as a democratic institution and on dissident public voices in general - whether journalists, whistleblowers or academics - are intensifying with sobering consequences.  Under the aegis of the national surveillance-security-secrecy state, it becomes difficult to separate the war on whistleblowers and journalists from the war on higher education - the institutions responsible for safeguarding and sustaining critical theory and engaged citizenship.
 

ACLU Calls Schools' Policy to Search Devices and Approve Kids Web Posts Unconstitutional  by Kim Zetter in the Wired blog

A school board in Tennessee is being accused of violating the constitutional rights of students over a policy that allows school officials to search any electronic devices students bring to campus and to monitor and control what students post on social media sites.

The broadly written policy also allows schools to monitor any communications sent through or stored on school networks, which would essentially allow the school to read the content of stored and transmitted email.

   in the Teachers College Record The controversy over the Common Core is the most recent diversion from addressing the basic problems that contribute to the achievement gap between low- and high-income students. In the past decade, the focus has been on charter schools and testing. An enormous amount of time has been spent on promoting, implementing, and debating these initiatives in the hope that they would somehow narrow the achievement gap, even while poverty persisted and income and wealth gaps increased. These policies, which began with high-perhaps, more accurately, unrealistic-expectations, turned out to be irrelevant to narrowing the gap and, in some cases, reduced rather than expanded opportunities for low-income students. 

The turnover rate for principals is higher than nearly any other white-collar profession, with half leaving after three years and fewer than 30 percent remaining on the job for more than five years. That's according to a report out today from the School Leaders Network, which finds that many principals feel isolated, overwhelmed and unsupported in the job. The report estimates that reducing principal turnover by 25 percent could save the public school system $163 million a year - and might even boost student achievement. Math and reading test scores tend to drop the year after a principal departs, the study finds. States with the highest turnover and the most rookie principals include North Carolina, Rhode Island, California, Nevada and New Mexico.

A recent FBI report examines 160 "active shooter" incidents in the U.S. from 2000 to 2013. The report, "A Study of Active Shooter Incidents in the United States Between 2000 and 2013," shows an escalating trend line. There were 6.4 incidents on average in the first seven years covered by the report and 16.4 incidents on average in the last seven. Nearly five hundred people (486) were killed and 557 people injured in the incidents.  The report found that 45.6% of incidents occurred in areas of commerce; 24.4% in educational environments (16.9% in preK-12 schools or district/board offices and 7.4% in post-secondary institutions).

These Are The States Where Kids Have The Best Opportunities In Education    by Rebecca Klein in the Huffington Post