Star Ledger--$15M in extra cash is going to these N.J. districts amid school funding fight
New Jersey will give a combined $15 million in emergency aid to 13 school districts, but the fight over the state’s reallocation of school funding is far from over.
The awards announced Friday were far less than most districts requested, and another 20 districts that sought aid came away with nothing. One application, from Camden School District, is still under review.
Adam Clark | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com| Updated Dec 09, 2019;Posted Dec 09, 2019
NY Times--After 10 Years of Hopes and Setbacks, What Happened to the Common Core?
It was one of the most ambitious education efforts in United States history. Did it fail? Or does it just need more time to succeed?
The plan was hatched with high hopes and missionary zeal: For the first time in its history, the United States would come together to create consistent, rigorous education standards and stop letting so many school children fall behind academically.
More than 40 states signed on to the plan, known as the Common Core State Standards Initiative, after it was rolled out in 2010 by a bipartisan group of governors, education experts and philanthropists. The education secretary at the time, Arne Duncan, declared himself “ecstatic.”
American children would read more nonfiction, write better essays and understand key mathematical concepts, instead of just mechanically solving equations.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/06/us/common-core.html
Dana Goldstein| Dec. 6, 2019
Education Week--ESSA Voices: The Every Student Succeeds Act, Four Years Later
When President Barack Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act on Dec. 10, 2015, he called it a “Christmas miracle.” The law, which replaced the much-criticized No Child Left Behind Act, represented years of negotiations, promising signs that fizzled, and eventual bipartisan agreement. Since then, the story about the law has become a lot more complicated.
https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2019/12/10/essa-voices-the-every-student-succeeds-act.html
Andrew Ujifusa, Evie Blad and Daarel Burnette II| December 9, 2019
Chalkbeat--Newark asked for $37M in ’emergency aid’ for schools. The state gave it $4 million.
The state has agreed to give Newark an extra $4 million for its schools this year — a tiny fraction of the nearly $37 million the district sought.
Newark requested the “emergency aid” in August, saying it needed extra dollars to pay for teacher salaries, textbooks, and school repairs such as asbestos removal and new fire alarms.
But in a letter to the district on Friday, the state insisted that Newark could cover most of those costs itself by tapping unused funds from last school year and further raising local taxes. The only expense the state agreed to cover was $3.9 million to remove asbestos from school buildings.
Patrick Wall| December 9, 2019
Education Dive--Report: U.S. school food waste nears 530K tons annually
A new World Wildlife Fund report estimates U.S. school food waste totals 530,000 tons per year and costs as much as $9.7 million a day to manage, which breaks down to about 39.2 pounds of food waste and 19.4 gallons of milk thrown out per school per year, based on the results from the 46-school sample across nine cities.
Shawna De La Rosa| Dec. 6, 2019