EduClips: Beutner Closes In on LAUSD Chief Job; AZ Teacher Strike to Continue Monday — and More Must-Reads From America’s 15 Biggest School Districts

EduClips is a roundup of the day’s top education headlines from America’s largest school districts, where more than 4 million students across eight states attend class every day. Read previous EduClips installments here. Get the day’s top school and policy news delivered straight to your inbox by signing up for the TopSheet Education Newsletter.

Top Story

PRE-K — Should preschool teachers be required to have a bachelor’s degree? A national collaborative of early childhood educators says no, and it is issuing recommendations in an effort to reach consensus in a decades-old debate on qualifications for teachers of America’s youngest students.

The current draft of the recommendations, written as part of a two-year initiative called Power to the Profession, supports multiple education levels for preschool teachers, including associate’s and bachelor’s degrees — flexibility that opponents say could hurt a profession fighting to gain recognition and better pay. Fifteen education organizations, among them the National Education Association, the National Head Start Association, and the National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators, created the document with input from dozens of stakeholders.

It’s a critical moment for preschool teachers, who are poorly paid despite research that underlines the importance of early education for student success — especially for children in poverty. Leaders in the Power to the Profession effort say the profession is fragmented, fragile, and misunderstood by the public. (Read at The74Million.org)

National News

TEACHERS’ STRIKE — Arizona teachers’ strike to continue Monday; Colorado ralliers pin hopes on ballot initiative (Read at USA Today)

DEVOS — Betsy DeVos was asked, again, about visiting struggling schools. A staffer interjected. (Read at The Washington Post)

TEACHERS’ STRIKE — When Teachers Strike, Parents Face Dilemma: Loyalties are divided as families scramble for child care (Read at The Wall Street Journal)

ESSA — How Can Districts and States Use ESSA to Bolster STEM and Computer Science? (Read at Politics K-12)

District and State News

CALIFORNIA — Beutner closes in on L.A.’s top schools job as another candidate drops off (Read at the Los Angeles Times)

NEW YORK — City sex harassment stats spark cover-up questions after over 100 school complaints disappear (Read at the New York Daily News)

FLORIDA — School transfer law: Parents can seek new campuses, but not many have room (Read at the Orlando Sentinel)

ILLINOIS — Illinois Pilot Program Connects Students With Therapists (Read at U.S. News and World Report)

TEXAS — How are Texas school reforms crucial to everyone? A look at the numbers (Read at Dallas News)

FLORIDA — The Legislature raised funding by 47 cents per student. Here’s how Florida schools are coping. (Read at the Tampa Bay Times)

ILLINOIS — Illinois House approves required $40,000 salary for teachers (Read at Illinois News Network)

NEW YORK — Chancellor Richard Carranza stands by his tweet of viral video in Upper West Side integration fight (Read at Chalkbeat)

CALIFORNIA — Race for California state schools chief begins to attract major contributions (Read at EdSource)

NEVADA — CCSD trustees question candidates for superintendent job (Read at the Las Vegas Review-Journal)

TEXAS — Texas schools hit by Hurricane Harvey eligible for $89M in federal aid (Read at Chron)

Think Pieces

TEACHER PAY — We can expect more from teachers when we pay them like pros: Bloomberg and Weingarten (Read at USA Today)

TEENAGERS — Worried About Risky Teenage Behavior? Make School Tougher (Read at The New York Times)

“A NATION AT RISK” — What ‘A Nation At Risk’ Got Wrong, And Right, About U.S. Schools (Read at NPR)

COLLEGE READINESS — Are High Schools Adequately Preparing Teens for College? No One Really Knows. That’s Why Today’s GreatSchools Analysis Is One of the Most Important Education Reports in Years (Read at The74Million.org)

TUTORS — Cheaper human tutors can be highly effective, studies show (Read at The Hechinger Report)

LEARNING — Mythbusters: Misconceptions About How Students Learn (Read at New Classrooms)

BUSINESS PARTNERSHIPS — Opinion: Why won’t schools partner with businesses? (Read at The Hechinger Report)

Quote of the Day

“It’s holding the parents hostage because they are having to scramble to find people to watch their kids. It’s placing an undue hardship on families just trying to stay afloat. I don’t like the kids being used as pawns.” —Arizona parent Jennifer Goehring, on the hardship the teachers’ strike in the state is placing on parents. (Read at The Wall Street Journal)

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