NJ Spotlight--Paterson’s School Funding Woes Dominate Public Budget Hearing
Assembly committee is told Paterson school district is facing severe deficit, would have to make ‘massive’ staffing cuts if nothing changes
People came seeking more state funding, but only got three minutes to make their case before the Assembly Budget Committee. Wednesday morning’s session was dominated by the Paterson school district which is facing a severe budget deficit.
Michael Aron | NJTV News | March 28, 2019
The Record--How Investors and Developers Cash In on Charter School Growth
Companies and investors, concerned with profits, see New Jersey charter schools and their taxpayer support as an opportunity
The Record|March 28, 2019
Star Ledger--Judges criticize argument that public dollars should fund teachers’ union work
"When you’re hired as a teacher, you should be teaching,” Judge Jose Fuentes said to an attorney for the Jersey City teachers union at a March 27 hearing.
NEWARK — A three-judge appellate panel seemed hostile on Wednesday to arguments that state statute permits Jersey City teacher union officials to be paid by taxpayers for their full-time union jobs.
The judges were hearing an appeal in a lawsuit that seeks to have “release time” — an agreement that permits union officials to stay on the public payroll while working for their union — declared unconstitutional.
Terrence T. McDonald | The Jersey Journal| Updated 11:18 PM; Posted Mar 27, 4:30 PM
Star Ledger--District maxed out on snow days, so kids are going to ‘cyber’ school to save spring break
The joy of a day off from school because of snow last month won’t turn into a shortened break following Easter next month in the Kingsway Regional School District.
That’s because administrators are trying out a “cyber day” of instruction with students and teachers working on technology-based assignment outside of school to make up the snow day.
Bill Duhart | For NJ.com| Updated Mar 27, 4:05 PM; Posted Mar 27, 12:01 PM
Politics K12 (Education Week)--'Freedom' in Education; Democrats Call It 'Cruel'
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and Democrats, who now control the House, spent much of a Tuesday appropriations hearing talking over and past each other as they sparred over charter school spending, students' civil rights, and the $7.1 billion in cuts President Donald Trump wants in federal education funding.
During an education subcommittee debate on Trump's fiscal 2020 budget plan for the U.S. Department of Education, DeVos once again pitched Capitol Hill lawmakers on a proposed tax-credit scholarship system to fund greater educational choice.
Andrew Ujifusa on March 26, 2019 3:50 PM
The Atlantic--The Cult of Homework
“When our students can’t make the connection between the work they’re doing at 11 o’clock at night on a Tuesday to the way they want their lives to be, I think we begin to lose the plot.”
America has long had a fickle relationship with homework. A century or so ago, progressive reformers argued that it made kids unduly stressed, which later led in some cases to district-level bans on it for all grades under seventh. This anti-homework sentiment faded, though, amid mid-century fears that the U.S. was falling behind the Soviet Union (which led to more homework), only to resurface in the 1960s and ’70s, when a more open culture came to see homework as stifling play and creativity (which led to less).
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/03/homework-research-how-much/585889/
Joe Pinsker| March 28, 2019, 7:00 AM ET
The Hechinger Report--How to unlock students’ internal drive for learning
Intrinsic motivators can be key to student achievement – but extrinsic motivation dominates classrooms
https://hechingerreport.org/intrinsic-motivation-is-key-to-student-achievement-but-schools-kill-it/
Tara García Mathewson| March 27, 2019