EduClips: Commission Begins Examination of TX School Finance; Is Carranza Ready to Be Next NYC Schools Chief? — 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
DEVOS — Education Secretary Betsy DeVos will go before a House panel on Tuesday to defend her agency’s budget, including a sweeping overhaul of the Education Department that has strained relations within her agency and with Congress — and defies the White House’s budget office. In recent weeks, DeVos has clashed fiercely with department staff members over the plan, which they say she tried to withhold from Congress as she imposed on the department what they call an illegal collective bargaining agreement.
DeVos will testify before the House Appropriations Committee, whose staff was told a week ago that her office had withheld vital information from it regarding the department’s budget for the fiscal year that begins in October. A career department official unveiled details of DeVos’s “Education Reform Plan” in an email to staff members on the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. The email, obtained by the Times, said information driving budget decisions was omitted from budget justifications submitted to Congress. (Read at The New York Times)
National News
TEACHERS’ STRIKE — Their Pay Has Stood Still. Now Oklahoma Teachers Could Be the Next to Walk. (Read at The New York Times)
SCHOOL CHOICE — School Choice: Classes or Commutes (Read at U.S. News and World Report)
D.C. SCHOOLS — Facing a ‘Significant Lack of Trust,’ D.C. Council Seeks to Rehabilitate Scandal-Plagued School System (Read at the 74Million.org)
District and State News
TEXAS — Educators, Experts Call on Commission to Calculate True Cost of Educating Students (Read at Houston Public Media)
NEW YORK — Is Richard Carranza Ready to Run America’s Biggest School System? (Read at The New York Times)
CALIFORNIA — Lots of talk but little action to help lowest-performing schools in Los Angeles and California (Read at LA School Report)
NEVADA — Disruption in the Desert: The Founding of The Public Education Foundation (Read at Education Week)
TEXAS — In new plan, Texas Education Agency vows special education overhaul with limited dollars (Read at The Texas Tribune)
NEW YORK — More students applied to Renewal high schools this year, but that won’t necessarily jolt sagging enrollment (Read at Chalkbeat)
CALIFORNIA — As a mega-landowner, L.A. Unified has lots to figure out, a new report says (Read at the Los Angeles Times)
ILLINOIS — Middle school students in Deerfield District 109 organize town hall on gun violence (Read at the Chicago Tribune)
Think Pieces
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING — Collective Bargaining Does Not Improve Teacher Pay, Study Finds (Read at Education Week)
BLACK TEACHERS — ‘Disciplinarians first and teachers second’: black male teachers say they face an extra burden (Read at Chalkbeat)
JANUS — Analysis: How Will a Janus Ruling Impact Teachers and Unions in Each State? Data & Interactive Maps Tell the Story (Read at The74Million.org)
EDUCATION POLITICS — A Winning Political Issue Hiding in Plain Sight (Read at The New York Times)
WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH — Meet Lucy Wheelock: How an Early-20th-Century Educator Saved Kindergarten for Generations of U.S. Kids — and Founded Her Own College (Read at The74Million.org)
Quote of the Day
“Just as New York City is on steroids in regards to the number of students, it’s probably on steroids with regards to the politics, as well.” —Aaron Pallas, chairman of the Department of Education Policy at Columbia University’s Teachers College, on the atmosphere as Richard Carranza prepares to become chancellor of New York City Schools. (Read at The New York Times)
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