Education News from Washington Post

Many people paying attention to corporate-based school reform in recent years will not be surprised by this, but a new study on the effects of this movement in Washington, D.C., New York City and Chicago concludes that little has been accomplished and some harm has been done to students, especially the underprivileged.

(Update: Teacher put on leave)

For the really bad school assignment file: A high school English teacher in Albany actually gave this persuasive writing assignment to students: "Argue that Jews are evil, and use solid rationale from government propaganda to convince me of your loyalty to the Third Reich!"

Teachers in 18 District classrooms cheated on high-stakes standardized tests last year, according to a report released Friday by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education.

The findings come one day after journalist John Merrow published a 2009 document that raised questions about whether the District adequately investigated past cheating allegations.

St. Mary’s College of Maryland plans to freeze in-state tuition for the next two years, thanks to a burst of new state funding that lawmakers backed unanimously. The “public honors college” was left out of previous statewide tuition freezes, and it has quickly become one of the nation’s most expensive public colleges.

Starting in January, high school drop-outs in Virginia and much of the country will have to log on to a computer if they want to take the GED: The paper-and-pencil test will be history.

As the high school equivalency test is updated to reflect current demands of college and the workplace, test administrators say computer literacy is a key skill that credential-seekers need to demonstrate.

Teachers in 18 D.C. classrooms cheated last year on high-stakes standardized tests, according to the results of an investigation released Friday by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education.

(Update: New cheating confirmed in D.C.; AFT President Weingarten calls for new probe and D.C. Council hearings)

Several investigations into suspicions of widespread cheating by educators in D.C. schools on student standardized tests during Michelle Rhee's tenure as chancellor turned up precious little, but two new developments warrant a new probe -- this time by investigators with subpoena powers.

New York State's new High School Principal of the Year is Carol Burris, a school leader in Long Island who has been a leader in a fight with state officials over reforms, including standardized test-based educator evaluations.

It was 50 years ago this month that the movement to help students with learning disabilities began. Here's what happened. This post was written by Jim Baucom, professor of education, has been teaching for more than a quarter of a century at Landmark College in Putney, Vermont.

Karen Garza, chief of the Lubbock Independent School District since 2009, was just tapped as the next superintendent of Fairfax County Public Schools. Garza, the first woman to be selected for the job, will succeed Jack Dale this summer. Here are 10 things to know about her:

As superintendent in Lubbock, Tex., Karen Garza joined hundreds of volunteers in a door-to-door campaign to persuade students who had dropped out of school to come back to the classroom.

“It really humanizes the dropout issue,” said Garza, for whom the annual event is a cherished memory. “It’s an inspirational experience to meet these young people and talk about their challenges. There’s usually lots of tears shed on that day.”

Pity the 18-year-olds and their parents who are trying to make sense of the student loan market as the May 1 deadline nears for choosing a college.

There are federal Stafford loans, subsidized and unsubsidized. There are federal PLUS loans for parents and graduate students. There are federal Perkins loans. There are private loans.

A tough piece I posted by Bill Ayers about the Atlanta test cheating indictments said the road to the scandal "runs right through the White House." Ayers, a retired professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago who may be better known for his radical activism during the 1960s and '70s. (During the 2008 presidential campaign right-wing commentators incorrectly said he had a close relationship with then candidate Barack Obama, whom Ayers supported.)

Higher education leaders are pushing to expand the online market by simplifying the rules colleges must follow to enroll students from around the country.

Under a system based on oversight of brick-and-mortar campuses, colleges generally must obtain authorization from every state where they want to offer online programs. Requirements and fees vary from state to state.

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) signed a bill this week that gives County Executive Rushern L. Baker III more authority to govern the struggling Prince George’s County school system.

Baker (D) had sought a complete overhaul of the state’s second-largest school system, one that would have put him in charge of the new superintendent and the system’s $1.7 billion budget.

I am sure that you noticed that Campus Overload became rather quiet in the last few months. I have been shifting to a new page, which I finally get to show you today: Jenna Johnson, Higher Education Reporter.

A recent post of a teacher's resignation letter struck a chord with many readers, who wrote more than 1,300 comments, tweeted it some 2,000 times, and "liked" it more than 91,000 times. That teacher, Gerald J. Conti, a social studies teacher at Westhill High School in Syracuse, N.Y., wrote that he felt that school reformers have decimated the teaching profession.

One of the primary things that teachers value but that school reformers have given short shrift is time to collaborate. Here, Stanford University Professor Linda Darling-Hammond, an expert on teaching and teacher education, writes about why this is so important to the profession. Darling-Hammond directs the Stanford University Center for Opportunity Policy in Education and was founding director of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future. A former president of the American Educational Research Association, Darling-Hammond focuses her research, teaching, and policy work on issues of school restructuring, teacher quality and educational equity.

President Obama’s plan to pay for universal preschool for 4-year-olds by doubling the federal tax on cigarettes was quickly attacked by tobacco companies, which argued Wednesday that it is unfair to saddle smokers with the costs.

(Adding reaction from career tech education leaders)

The early reaction to President Obama's newly released 2014 budget proposal has garnered mixed reviews from the education world. Here's some of the reaction: