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Education Roundup: Teachers Unions, States Clash Over Evaluation Systems
Tweet Share on Facebook January 6, 2012 Comment (1)Welcome to the High School Notes weekly roundup of education news. Every Friday, you'll find out what's making headlines around the Web.
Teacher evaluations and tenure
The new year has started off much the same way 2011 ended—with some vicious battles between teachers' unions and state governments. New York's government suspended funding for 10 school districts—including New York City, which stands to lose up to $60 million—because those districts and local teachers unions couldn't agree on an evaluation system for educators. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been a proponent of creating teacher evaluation systems statewide.
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On 10th Anniversary, a Look Back at 'No Child' Legacy
Tweet Share on Facebook January 4, 2012 Comment (5)George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation, which requires students at all U.S. public schools to meet certain math and reading benchmarks, went into effect nearly 10 years ago, on Jan. 8, 2002. Since then, NCLB has been a popular target for politicians, educators, and policy experts as it has become outdated. The legislation was supposed to be rewritten in 2007, but has merely been renewed by Congress for the past several years.
President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have repeatedly attacked the law, going so far as to grant waivers from the law to states who submit alternative accountability plans. Congress took its first real stab at reforming the law in October 2011 as Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin, of Iowa, and Republican Sen. Mike Enzi, of Wyoming, presented a comprehensive revision to No Child Behind. The Harkin-Enzi legislation looks to be one of Congress's main focuses when it goes back into session later this month.
