Students and families can now compare colleges’ tuitions, the pace at which they are rising and the net cost of attending each college on a new website the U.S. Department of Education made public, fulfilling a legislative mandate, reports the New York Times.

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“Trying to plan for the future without a sense of the past is like trying to plant cut flowers.”

Those were the words of former Librarian of Congress Daniel Boorstin, as relayed by historian and author David McCullough in June 2005 testimony before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Subcommittee on Education and Early Childhood Development.

McCullough’s testimony was part of a hearing entitled “U.S. History: Our Worst Subject.” Judging by the various results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as the Nation’s Report Card, U.S. history continues to be American students’ worst subject.

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Sixteen of the 20 occupations with the largest projected growth in the next decade require STEM-related (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) skills. (National Research Council of the National Academies)

There were about 4,700 fewer teachers and 600 fewer administrators in New Jersey’s public schools this year compared to the year before. (Associated Press/Star Ledger (Newark))

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As reported on National Public Radio, states threaten to defy No Child Left Behind, saying that they need emergency relief from the controversial education law’s requirements—otherwise, they say, a huge number of decent schools will face sanctions.

According to the Boston Globe, students’ MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System) scores and other achievement data will become key barometers in evaluating the performance of their teachers and administrators, under new criteria the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education recently approved.

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The newest issue of Straight A’s, the Alliance’s biweekly newsletter is now available.

Individual articles from this week’s issue are listed below or you can download a .pdf of the entire newsletter at here.

WAVE GOODBYE TO WAIVERS?: Key House Republicans Challenge Duncan’s Plan to Grant Waivers to NCLB Requirements: Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan outlined his options for waiving certain requirements in the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) should Congress be unable to finish a reauthorization of the law by this fall. Last week, House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN) and House Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education Subcommittee Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-CA) responded in a letter to Duncan asking him to explain the U.S. Department of Education’s “legal authority” for requiring states and schools to abide by certain changes in exchange for regulatory relief.

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The New York Times reports 165 Washington teachers were fired last year based on a pioneering evaluation system that places significant emphasis on classroom observations; next month, 200 to 600 of the city’s 4,200 educators are expected to get similar bad news, in the nation’s highest rate of dismissal for poor performance.

In a letter to state superintendents, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan stresses testing integrity, according to the Baltimore Sun.

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On Saturday morning, Alliance President Bob Wise appeared on CNN’s “Your Bottom Line” with State Farm CEO Ed Rust and Dominique Demetice Ferrar, a high school student from St. Paul, Minnesota who twice considered dropping out of high school before reconsidering. Ferrar is one of the spokespeople for State Farm’s 26 Seconds Campaign, which highlights the fact that a student drops out of high school every 26 seconds.

During the program, Rust discussed why improved educational outcomes are so important to the future of American business, as well as the nation as a whole. Ferrar, who is already a father at age 19, talked about how he wants to stay in school to be a role model for his daughter. Wise discussed the economic impact that dropouts have on the nation’s economy and outlined several necessary steps to help curb the dropout crisis, including focusing on students most at risk and schools that are producing the most dropouts. Wise pointed out that only about 10 percent of the nation’s high schools account for half of the nation’s dropouts.

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San Diego schools fear that larger classes will hinder learning, according to the New York Times.

According to Broadcasting Cable, PBS has teamed with producing stations WGBH Boston, WNET New York, and KET (Kentucky Educational TV) and 31 other noncommercial stations on a new digital media educational service that will be free to teachers, their students, and families.

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Happy Friday!

Here are today’s morning announcements.

First, House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline challenged U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s plans to override provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act and said he would “use a House rewrite of it this year to rein in the secretary’s influence on America’s schools,” the New York Times reports. The article adds that Kline sent Duncan a letter on Thursday demanding that he explain by July 1 the legal authority that he believed he had to issue the waivers.

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Here’s a sampling of some education-related reports that were released this week. Did your organization release a report this week that we missed? Or do you know of another report that came out this week? Feel free to post information on it with a link to the .pdf in the comments.

The College Board, The Educational Experience of Young Men of Color Capturing the Student Voice: The report finds that nearly half of young men of color age 15-24 who earn their high school diploma will end up unemployed, incarcerated or dead. The study also finds that minority men fall behind their peers in educational attainment and many fail to attend college or earn a degree.

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