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NJ Spotlight--The Long Goodbye: State Board Plans Newark Exit Strategy
With demonstrable progress made — and most of the rancor laid to rest — Newark prepares to resume local control
Six years ago this month, a fierce battle over control of Newark public schools centered on a state monitoring system that many thought unfair.
The system — the Quality Single Accountability Continuum (QSAC) — required the state-run district to meet standards in student achievement and other benchmarks that dozens of other districts in the state could not meet.
The local advisory board protested, going so far as to defy the Christie administration and approve a formal resolution in August 2011 to appeal the state’s QSAC findings.
Now, as Newark schools are on the verge of ending their 23 years of state operation, the QSAC review is again at the center of the process, but this time as a far more forgiving measure.
http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/17/08/17/the-long-goodbye-state-board-plans-newark-exit-strategy/
John Mooney | August 18, 2017
The Record--Anti-bullying compliance in schools to be examined
A state-wide investigation into school officials' compliance with New Jersey's Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act has been launched by a non-profit advocate for children's educational rights, the organization announced Thursday.
The Montclair-based Innisfree Foundation's investigation specifically focuses on allegations of harassment, intimidation and bullying, commonly known as HIB. The Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act, or ABR, passed in 2011, requires school districts to implement policies concerning HIB and to investigate allegations of that conduct.
“We have become aware of instances where school officials either declined to initiate an HIB investigation into conduct that appeared likely on its face to be the type prohibited by the HIB law, or where school officials instituted HIB proceedings against students whose conduct we believe surely was not the type that the New Jersey Legislature sought to prohibit by enacting the law,” said John Rue, of the Bloomfield law firm John Rue & Associates, Innisfree’s general counsel and also its attorney in litigation matters against public schools across the state.
Mollie Shauger, Staff Writer, @MollieShauger Published 5:42 p.m. ET Aug. 17, 2017
Associated Press (via Philadelphia Inquirer)--In letter to staff, DeVos condemns Charlottesville violence
WASHINGTON (AP) - Facing criticism over her muted response to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Thursday condemned those "tragic and unthinkable" events and blasted "neo-Nazis and other racist bigots" in a letter to staff.
DeVos' email to Education Department employees came after she was criticized for insufficiently condemning the violence, in which a young woman was killed when a driver plowed into a group of counter-protesters at the rally by white nationalists and neo-Nazis. Nineteen other people were injured.
MARIA DANLOVA, The Associated Press|Updated: August 17, 2017 — 3:46 PM EDT
