Star Ledger--With toothless, unenforceable rule, N.J.’s HS sports transfers remain rampant
Hackettstown athletic director Bobby Grauso thought something was fishy when junior All-State football star and solid basketball player Christian Maciak transferred to Pope John in the middle of the 2017-18 basketball season.
Suspecting foul play, Grauso decided to challenge the transfer. He "checked the box" on the state athletic association's transfer form - shorthand for officially challenging the transfer - alleging that it was for athletic advantage and without a bona fide change of address - both of which would violate the NJSIAA's transfer rule.
That was the easy part.
Richard Greco | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com| February 22, 2019 6:45 AM, updated February 22, 2019 12:00 PM
Star Ledger--How to get your kid a seat in one of N.J.'s hardest-to-get-into high schools
Long before they start dreaming about applying to college, many New Jersey middle school students are striving to get into some of the state's best high schools.
Over the last few decades, the number of county-run specialized high schools for high-achieving students has spiked in New Jersey. Nearly every county in the state now offers specialized programs and schools run by the country vocational-technical school districts.
Some of the New Jersey schools are ranked among the best public high schools in the country because of their rigorous academics and high-scoring students. Admission is free for students.
How do you get in? In many cases, it's not easy.
Kelly Heyboer | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com | Posted February 23, 2019 at 11:30 AM | Updated February 23, 2019 at 12:52 PM
Chalkbeat--This personalized learning program was supposed to boost math scores. It didn’t, new study finds
A program that Bill Gates once called “the future of math” didn’t improve state test scores at schools that adopted it, according to a new study.
The research examines Teach to One, a “personalized learning” program used in schools across 11 states and which has drawn support from a number of major funders, including the Gates Foundation, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings.
https://chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2019/02/21/teach-to-one-study-math-scores/
Matt Barnum - February 21, 2019
Education Week--Landmark Case on Student Free Speech Still Resonates 50 Years Later
Fifty years ago this month, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision on student speech that was emblematic of its era, but has also reverberated and remained relevant for generations of public school students—and administrators—that followed.
In Tinker v. Des Moines Community Independent School District, the court ruled 7-2 to uphold the right of several students in Des Moines, Iowa, to wear black armbands in school to protest and draw attention to the Vietnam War. The court said the armbands were symbolic speech protected by the First Amendment as long as school was not substantially disrupted.
“It’s hard...
https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2019/02/21/landmark-case-on-student-free-speech-still.html
Mark Walsh| February 21, 2019