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NJ Spotlight--Opinion: The Coming Federalization of NJ Pension and Benefits Crisis
Notwithstanding the 10th Amendment, the federal government has repeatedly stepped in when the states’ political systems failed to bring about necessary action
Prediction: Sometime in the foreseeable future, the federal government will step in to address the self-inflicted crisis in state and local government pension and health-benefits funding. The only real question for us in New Jersey is whether it will happen soon enough to save us from ourselves.
How and why? Let’s review where we are:
First, state and local governments in the U.S. face a multi-trillion-dollar shortfall in public sector pension and health benefits funding. This is a genuine and growing financial crisis that clearly threatens our nation’s long-term economic prosperity.
Second, although some Democratic states with powerful public-sector unions like New Jersey and Illinois are comparatively worse off, few if any states can afford to relax and ignore the problem, especially if the analysis considers local government liabilities, rising healthcare costs, and unfunded post-retirement health benefits alongside pension liabilities.
Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff | February 23, 2017
Star Ledger--School districts clamor for more aid, others warn against cuts in funding debate
NEWARK -- The ongoing debate over how to fairly -- and equitably -- fund public schools prompted disagreements Wednesday between two Democrats who once were considered contenders for the gubernatorial race.
Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop urged a bipartisan Senate committee to more thoughtfully forge ahead with changing how public schools are funded, arguing current proposals are vague and threaten to help affluent areas "at the expense of the most needy children."
Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester), who co-chaired the committee, said Fulop's remarks were "1000 percent wrong."
"It's actually insulting in some ways for him to say that we're trying to divert money from urban districts," he told reporters. "The Governor's plan does that, it creates an 'us versus them.'"
Karen Yi | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com| February 22, 2017 at 7:20 PM, updated February 23, 2017 at 1:13 AM
The Record--Transgender advocates call for state guidelines after Trump removes federal protections
With the Trump administration rolling back federal protections for transgender students, some advocates in New Jersey are calling on state education officials to follow the lead of other states and establish rules that would offer similar protections.
Others said the state’s law against discrimination already provided adequate protections – and noted that many school districts have adopted policies allowing transgender students to use bathrooms based on their gender identity. But in the absence of state guidelines, the rules differ from one district to another, and some schools do not have a written policy.
Abbott Koloff and Andrew Wyrich , NorthJersey Published 7:25 p.m. ET Feb. 22, 2017 | Updated 9 hours ago
Associated Press (viaPhiladelphia Inquirer)--College Board to boost SAT security to combat cheating
PITTSBURGH (AP) - The firm that owns the SAT college entrance exam is boosting security worldwide following test-stealing and other cheating in recent years.
The College Board said it's reducing the number of international testing dates from six per year to four for the 2017-18 and 2018-19 school years. It says the move will reduce opportunities for test content to be stolen.
The New York-based college entrance exam provider announced Wednesday that it is taking steps to prevent past cheaters from retaking tests. In addition, it says it will alert law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad of companies and people it suspects of illegally obtaining test content.
Other planned reforms include an increase in audits of test centers worldwide and steps to make it easier for students and educators to anonymously report suspected cheating.
http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20170222_ap_20bfbff9b5c44522a38356cd7a862ac4.html
JOE MANDAK, The Associated Press| Updated: February 22, 2017 — 2:44 PM EST
The Atlantic--When Does the Racial Achievement Gap First Appear?
Latino students in kindergarten trail their white peers in math by approximately three months’ worth of learning, a new study by Child Trends Hispanic Institute has found.
Researchers drew a nationally representative sample of students from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-2011 who were followed through the end of their fifth-grade year. Sixty-two percent of the 2,199 Latino students studied had at least one foreign-born parent, and 45 percent spoke only Spanish or predominantly Spanish at home. Nearly half lived in poverty.
The study, titled “Making Math Count More for Young Latino Children,” found that while Latino and white kindergartners showed similar gains throughout the year, Latino students remain behind in the spring because of where they started upon entering school in the fall. What that three-month gap looks like in actuality is difficult to measure, David Murphey, a co-author of the report, said in an email; what children learn in math in preschool or kindergarten varies widely across the country.
Natalie Gross|Feb 22, 2017
Education Week--Rhode Island Announces Statewide K-12 Personalized Learning Push
Rhode Island is moving forward with a statewide personalized learning initiative that aims to support a variety of efforts to tailor education to the unique needs of each student.
The $2 million public-private effort is being headed by Richard Culatta, the state's chief innovation officer and the former director of the office of educational technology at the federal education department.
In an interview, Culatta said the early focus is on developing a common statewide vision for what personalized learning entails, supporting and expanding related models in Rhode Island schools, and establishing a research network that can help guide implementation.
The initiative could also signal broader shifts. With strong proponents of a smaller federal government now in the White House and U.S. Department of Education, the push for educational innovation will likely come from states, rather than Washington. And in Rhode Island, at least, the next stage of the personalized-learing movement appears focused on helping traditional schools to evolve, rather than attempting to create entirely new school models from scratch.
Benjamin Herold on February 22, 2017 3:12 PM
