Education News

Congress now has an array of legislative options to prevent the interest rate from doubling to 6.8 percent on July 1, as scheduled.    

The Bloomberg administration had previously said that it needed 10 years to complete the job.    

After Christine Rubino, a fifth-grade teacher in Brooklyn, posted some rather impolitic comments about her students on Facebook in 2010, the Department of Education fired her.    

Providence Hogan pleaded guilty to embezzling $82,000 while treasurer of the Public School 29 Parent-Teacher Association in Brooklyn and has fallen behind on scheduled repayments.    

Last year, new Hispanic high school graduates became more likely than their white counterparts to go directly to college, according to a study.    

How many times will you check Facebook, Twitter, your e-mail, or another tab on your Internet browser as you read this post? Invite your students to join our virtual discussion about digital distraction by May 28. We’ll choose favorite comments to feature in a separate post in June.    

With one decision about one elementary school, D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson is filling in the picture of the future of the District's long-troubled public school system.

It's been clear for some time that the public school system in the nation's capital has been moving toward charter dominance. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out: There are now about 45,000 students in 117 traditional public school buildings under Henderson's control, and there are about 35,000 students in 57 public charter schools beyond her control, run by the D.C. Public Charter School Board. Henderson is planning to close 15 schools this year, and more charter schools are being approved every year.

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Stephen Hawking, the famous physicist, just backed out of a major international conference scheduled in Israel this June on the advice of Palestinian academics who have been pushing an academic boycott against Israel for years.

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To honor Mother’s Day, celebrated in the United States this Sunday, this week’s Poetry Pairing matches “To Any Reader” by Robert Louis Stevenson with the article “On the Road, With Mothers” by Joyce Wadler.    

This is Teacher Appreciation Week (so declared by the National Education Association), a fine moment to say something nice to or about teachers, who have been put through the ringer in recent years.

Why has teacher morale been plummeting, as evidenced in poll after poll? You can, in large part, thank reformers who have moved to end or reduce teacher tenure, make teacher evaluation partly dependent on student standardized test scores, tell teachers what and how to teach, etc., etc.

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