| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NJ Spotlight--Agenda: Should PARCC Exam Be Required for High-School Graduation? Protests planned before board meeting; replacement of Common Core also slated for first vote Date: Wednesday, April 6, 2016 Time: 10 a.m. Where: New Jersey Department of Education, 1st-floor conference room, 100 River View Plaza, Trenton Related Links April 6 Agenda High School Graduation Requirement Proposal Proposed Anti-Bullying Regulations NJ Student Learning Standards Resolution...'
NJ Spotlight--State's Efforts to Curb Lead in School Drinking Water Get Off to Slow Start No one disagrees that lead abatement is a necessary response, but there’s little agreement on how to pay for it A trio of bills to set aside funds to help schools remove lead from drinking water cleared a legislative committee yesterday, but they appear to face uncertain prospects for winning final approval...'
NJ Spotlight--NJ Takes Atlantic City to Court Over Delay in Tax Payments to Schools City contends arrangement is crucial to avoiding shutdown of municipal government due to lack of cash Gov. Chris Christie has made it clear he believes it will take nothing short of a full state takeover of cash-strapped Atlantic City to sort out the resort’s finances. But now he’s taking the city’s government to court to resolve a dispute involving funding for the local school district, a move that could send the resort into deeper fiscal distress...'
The Record--Pascack Valley Regional High School District to reintroduce transgender policy The Pascack Valley Regional High School District Board of Education voted Monday afternoon to reintroduce a policy that school officials say will protect the rights of transgender students, a proposal that had stoked strong emotions from people on both sides of the issue in recent weeks. The policy would allow students to use restrooms and locker rooms based on their gender identity or to have increased privacy in some cases, among other provisions. While at least a dozen North Jersey districts have adopted similar policies over the past year with little public attention, the Pascack Valley proposal has come under scrutiny in recent weeks amid a larger national debate over accommodations for transgender people...'
NY Times--ACT and SAT Find a Profitable Market as Common Core Tests
The SAT and the ACT, bugaboos of generations of college applicants, were supposed to shrink in significance as more colleges and universities have moved away from requiring standardized test scores for admission.
Instead, the companies behind them have pushed into the nearly $700-million-a-year market for federally required tests in public schools, offering the SAT and the ACT even to students who do not plan to go to college. Prompted by a recent change in federal education law, they are competing — and increasingly winning — against exams funded by the Obama administration to become mandatory high school tests, used for ranking school performance...'
