Publishers have agreed to correct or remove inaccurate passages about climate change in new social studies textbooks proposed for Texas public schools, a coalition of science and education groups announced this afternoon.  The revisions will reflect the overwhelming consensus among climate scientists that climate change is a real and growing threat and that human activity is the primary driver of the problem.

Looking Back to Move Forward: A History of Federal Student Aid

How Did We Get Here: Growth of Federal Student Loans

This documentary series provides insight into the programs' origins, milestones, and current issues as we ponder future direction and navigate foreseeable roadblocks to new policy innovation. Learn from a few experts about the history of financial aid in American higher education. Let's look back to move forward.  Click on the video link below.

There was once an ideal in American education, which held that the community public school would be a place where children of every background would meet, learn together, and learn to live amicably. This ideal was supposed to promote a sense of American citizenship, a realization that regardless of our origins, we are all Americans.
 

 Ninth Circuit Grants Freidrichs' Motion: Next Stop - Supreme Court on the CIR (Center for Civil Rights) website

 A three judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued an order granting the plaintiffs' Motion for Summary Affirmance on the Pleadings. That means Rebecca Friedrichs and her co-plaintiffs are now free to petition the Supreme Court for review of their challenge to compulsory union dues. From the beginning, Friedrichs and her co-plaintiffs have argued that the only court that has the authority to grant them the relief they request is the Supreme Court. 

Calling for a "reboot" of public education in Minnesota, hundreds of thousands of dollars flowed into the Minneapolis school board elections this November to try ousting an incumbent and to usher in an education agenda that resembles that of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).  

There is growing interest among psychologists and economists in the importance of 'non-cognitive' skills for doing well in life. In this paper we assess the quality of measures available in U.S. survey data for two specific non-cognitive skills, drive and prudence, which we term "performance character strengths" - non-cognitive skills that relate to outcomes important for economic mobility, such as educational attainment.

Common "rigorous" standards for student learning, consequential testing, test-driven teacher evaluation, firing "bad" teachers, closing public schools, opening charter schools have dominated debate and education policy for the last several decades, diverting attention from more powerful levers for improvement. Instead of spurring improvement, the dominance of these measures has embroiled the United States in seemingly endless unproductive conflict with little to show for it.

 by Laurie Levy on the AlterNet Blog

It was an innocent question: "How's your school year going?" She's an experienced educator, teaching third grade this year in a highly regarded suburban district. So why did her eyes well up with tears during a casual conversation at a party? Did she have a tough class? Was she upset about a challenging child?

This woman used to love being a teacher, but the joy she felt in finding creative ways to reach her students has given way to sadness and stress. She is so upset about the direction her profession has taken that she is advising her teenage daughter not to go into education. She is so disillusioned she may quit after this school year.

 

More research and timely editorials are on the HML Flipboard 

 An online magazine hosted by the Horace Mann League and specifically designed for leaders in public education.