#gse-reform

#gse-reform

The last three months have been tumultuous in the district. The community was divided by a surprise move in January to add ethnic studies to the high school curriculum, a class that Chinese and Jewish families felt was discriminatory. When new board member Rowena Chiu said publicly she felt bullied by other "woke" school board members for questioning the class, all hell broke loose.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has urged the government to clarify, as a matter of urgency, how it plans to support councils facing ongoing SEND deficits and the high costs of transporting children to school in taxis, coaches, and buses. This intervention follows ministers' unveiling of sweeping reforms to the SEND system, intended to make it more inclusive for children with additional needs and, in the long term, reduce costs for local authorities.

Ontario's education minister placed a seventh school board under supervision Wednesday in order to prevent dozens of teachers from being laid off, he says, and he is planning to soon take control of another board over financial concerns. Paul Calandra announced that he has put Peel District School Board under supervision and is giving the York Catholic District School Board two weeks to make a case for avoiding the same fate.

Ministers have asked the exams watchdog, Ofqual, to extend current arrangements, providing GCSE maths, physics, and combined science students with formula sheets. Ofqual is consulting on extending this until current GCSEs are reformed following a curriculum review. The government will then consider if memorisation is required for new qualifications.

The central aspect of the PACE plan calls for removing the state superintendent as the head of the California Department of Education. Instead, that department would be run by an appointee of the state Board of Education. Members of the state board are appointed by the governor to fixed four-year terms. The PACE report envisions the "governor as the chief architect and steward responsible for aligning and advancing California's education system."

This idea was based on the parallel between the pluck and elan that are characteristic of both the early-college students I worked with and that of America's hardest-working founding father. Five years after I wrote the book, I had the opportunity to revisit the field for a revised edition, making it appropriate to ask, after Thomas Jefferson's song in the second act of Hamilton, "What'd I Miss": How has early college/dual enrollment changed over the past half decade?

"The Biden Administration's regulation was over broad as it required all private institutional owners, including at faith-based colleges, to sign program participation agreements,"

"Here's the reality: When you come to the table prepared with smart and dedicated people that are focused on a clear goal, you can move quickly and intentionally without sacrificing the thoroughness and the careful deliberation that this process deserves,"

"We are not taking this step lightly. Remote testing with real-time proctoring was a vital service for both test takers and schools during the pandemic, and we understand that some test takers may prefer remote testing for convenience, comfort, or other reasons," Krinsky wrote.

These numbers look stark, but in context they reveal far more about the conditions California children are growing up in than the quality of classroom instruction. California educates a disproportionate share of children experiencing housing insecurity. A 2024 analysis found that 4% of California students were homeless, with some counties reaching 16%. The California Department of Education reports 230,443 homeless students statewide, a 26% increase over five years that mirrors broader trends in affordability, overcrowding and displacement.

What many reception teachers say they did not sign up for was spending large chunks of the school day managing toileting, feeding and basic self-care because growing numbers of children are arriving without those skills in place. New data points to a widening gap in England and Wales between what parents believe school ready means and what classrooms are actually experiencing

On a chilly day before Christmas, Teresa Rivas helped a tween boy pick out a new winter coat. "Get the bigger one, the one with the waterproof layer, mijo," she said, before helping him pull it onto his string-bean frame. Rivas provides guidance counseling at Owen Goodnight Middle School in San Marcos, Texas. She talks with students about their goals and helps if they're struggling in class. She's also a trained navigator placed there by a nonprofit called Communities in Schools.

The 13-member panel, comprised largely of state officials, think tank researchers and higher ed lawyers, spent the last four days negotiating the rules of a new college earnings test called Do No Harm-which applies to all degree programs-as well as changes to the existing gainful-employment rule, an accountability metric that only applies to certificate programs and for-profits. The department's proposal, which aligns the two accountability

But as schools seek to navigate into the age of generative AI, there's a challenge: Schools are operating in a policy vacuum. While a number of states offer guidance on AI, only a couple of states require local schools to form specific policies, even as teachers, students, and school leaders continue to use generative AI in countless new ways. As a policymaker noted in a survey, "You have policy and what's actually happening in the classrooms-those are two very different things."

Teachers have almost no authority over student behaviors or academic grading, and are given little, if any, respect from administrators, parents or even students. Instead, students have all the authority but no responsibility for their success. Students do (or don't do) whatever they wish, while empty-handed teachers are left to take the blame. Teachers no longer have the ultimate tool of flunking students.