EduClips: Chicago’s High Schools, New York’s Radical Experiment — and More Must-Reads From America’s 10 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 — and get the day’s top school and policy news delivered straight to your inbox by signing up for the TopSheet Education Newsletter.

Top Story

TAX BILL —A high-drama vote on the tax bill in the early hours Saturday morning has huge implications for education. The 51-to-49 Senate vote still needs to be reconciled with the House version before being sent to President Trump, but analysts believe the education provisions are likely to stay. Some education advocates criticized the bill for offering incentives to private school parents through tax-free school savings accounts while eliminating a deduction for state and local taxes that helps fund public schools. (Read at The Washington Post)

National News

DEVOS – Betsy DeVos Allies See New Obstacle to School Choice Efforts: Trump (Read at New York Times)

SPENDING – In more than half of states, education spending dropped from 2008 to 2015 (Read at Washington Post)

VOUCHERS- School Voucher Programs Should Be Clear About Disability Rights, Report Says (Read at NPR)

District and State News

ILLINOIS – Can these Chicago high schools survive? Students offered fewer choices, resources, in more than a dozen near-empty schools. (Read at Chicago Tribune)

NEW YORK – Success Academy’s Radical Educational Experiment (Read at The New Yorker)

PENNSYLVANIA –  Opinion: 6 things the new Philly school board should absolutely not do (Read at Philadelphia Inquirer)

NEW YORK –  State frees 24 New York City schools from strict oversight (Read at Chalkbeat)

NEVADA – State superintendent outlines 2018 policy priorities (Read at News and Tribune)

CALIFORNIA – Opinion: Jerry Brown’s dilemma: fix school funding formula now or watch others do it later (Read at EdSource)

TEXAS – A recent study is revealing new perspectives on Texas’s education priorities (Read at Rare)

Think Pieces

INNOVATION – Opinion: Lost Einsteins: The Innovations We’re Missing (Read at New York Times)

COLLABORATION – How to improve schools with more democracy (Read at Washington Post)

HISTORY – Opinion: Our schools ignore history at our own peril (Read at CommonWealth)

Quote of the Day

“There’s nothing wrong with focusing on girls and STEM; those campaigns worked. But why can’t K-12 schools simultaneously focus on what’s holding back boys, their lagging literacy skills in the early grades?—Richard Whitmire, author of “Why Boys Fail.” (Read at The74Million.org)

 

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