The newest issue of Straight A's, the Alliance's biweekly newsletter is now available.
Individual articles from this week's issue are listed below or you can download a .pdf of the entire newsletter at http://www.all4ed.org/files/Volume11No13.pdf.
WAVE GOODBYE TO WAIVERS?: Key House Republicans Challenge Duncan's Plan to Grant Waivers to NCLB Requirements: Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan outlined his options for waiving certain requirements in the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) should Congress be unable to finish a reauthorization of the law by this fall. Last week, House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN) and House Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education Subcommittee Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-CA) responded in a letter to Duncan asking him to explain the U.S. Department of Education's "legal authority" for requiring states and schools to abide by certain changes in exchange for regulatory relief.
House Education and the Workforce Committee Approves Charter Schools Bill: On June 22, the House Education and the Workforce Committee approved a bill to reform and strengthen the current charter school program by a bipartisan vote of 34 to 5. The bill, the Empowering Parents through Quality Charter Schools Act, is the second in a series of education reform bills designed to revamp the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), currently known as No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).
"OVERLOOKED AND UNDERPAID": New Alliance Report Examines How Title I Shortchanges High Schools: The largest federal initiative aimed at improving educational outcomes for low-income students does not effectively serve high school students, according to a new policy brief from the Alliance for Excellent Education. The brief, "Overlooked and Underpaid: How Title I Shortchanges High Schools and What ESEA Can Do About It," finds that only 10 percent of the approximately $14 billion Title I program supports high school students even though they account for nearly 25 percent of the nation's low-income students.
THE EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE OF YOUNG MEN OF COLOR: Minority Males Lag Behind in High School and Beyond, According to College Board Report: Nearly half of young men of color aged fifteen to twenty-four who earn their high school diploma will end up unemployed, incarcerated, or dead, according to a new report from the College Board Advocacy & Policy Center. The study also finds that minority men fall behind their peers in educational attainment and many fail to attend college or earn a postsecondary degree. The report, The Educational Experience of Young Men of Color: A Review of Research, Pathways and Progress, provides an in-depth analysis of educational attainment and achievement data for minority males including African Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, Hispanics/Latinos, and Native Americans and Alaska Natives.
IMPROVING TEACHER QUALITY AROUND THE WORLD: New Report Shares Lessons from Two-Day International Summit on Teaching Profession: As part of a two-day summit in New York City in March, education ministers, teachers, union leaders, and other education experts from sixteen high-performing and rapidly improving countries and regions gathered to discuss how education systems recruit, develop, and keep enough highly effective teachers necessary to prepare all students for the fast-changing, knowledge-based global economy. A new report released in early June by the U.S. Department of Education and Asia Society outlines discussions held at the summit and shares lessons from around the world on how to strengthen the teaching profession.