Happy Halloween!

Some schools are closed today for a teacher professional day (Montgomery County, MD for one) and others in the Northeast face disrupted plans for trick-or-treating because of snow and power outages. But education news stops for nothing!

Leaders of the Senate education committee still aim to push a bipartisan revision of the much-criticized No Child Left Behind Act through Congress by year’s end, in time to stave off the Obama administration’s move to offer states waivers of parts of the nearly decade-old law, writes Education Week.

Happy Friday, everyone. Here are today’s top education headlines.

Writing for the Rio Grande Guardian, U.S. Representative Rubén Hinojosa acknowledges that Congress and the president must work to reduce the nation’s deficit, but argues that the federal budget cannot be balanced “on the backs of our nation’s most vulnerable populations: the poor, the sick, the elderly, and our nation’s children and youth.” Hinojosa, who is the top Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training, discusses the Graduation Promise Act, which he cosponsored, and says it would “lay a solid foundation for the nation’s economic future” by reforming the nation’s low-performing high schools. He cites research from the Alliance for Excellent Education finding that the dropouts from the Class of 2010 alone will cost the economy $337 billion in lost wages over their lifetimes.

A National Council on Teacher Quality report released Wednesday identifies Maryland as a leader in teacher evaluations, writes the Baltimore Sun.

The common core state standards in English/language arts and mathematics are generally aligned to the leading state, international, and university standards at the high-school-exit level, but a new report says they are more rigorous in some content areas, writes Education Week.

Here are this week’s Stats That Stick courtesy of our policy intern, Bill DeBaun:

Percentage of children under 8 with access to a mobile device like a smartphone, a video iPod, or an iPad or other tablet: 50%
This according to a study by Common Sense Media reported on by the New York Times. The study examines “screen time” in children since birth. While this does show the increasing prevalence of technology in our lives, the American Academy of Pediatrics warns that “screen time offers no benefits for children under 2.”

In a special report to The Hill, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan writes, “Over the past two weeks, the Senate has held two votes on President Obama’s American Jobs Act. Both times, every Senate Republican voted to block a bill that would put more money in the pockets of middle-class families and keep hundreds of thousands of teachers in the classroom, instead of in unemployment lines. Our nation’s schools are facing the toughest fiscal pressures in our lifetime. … The path to prosperity, the way to win the future, is to invest wisely in schools, remembering that children get only one chance at an education.” Read the full special report.

I am pleased to share details about the first-ever Digital Learning Day, scheduled for February 1, 2012. Alliance President Bob Wise is leading this campaign to celebrate teachers and spotlight innovative strategies that effectively incorporate instructional technology to improve student learning.

Digital Learning Day is a flagship project of the Alliance’s newly created Center for Secondary School Digital Learning and Policy (the Center) where leaders within industry, education, and policy fields will focus on the effective uses of technology in the entire education system. The Center will address issues and cultivate models to highlight topics including online- and blended-learning opportunities, robust digital content and the common core state standards, models for funding and investment, innovative practice and pedagogy, teacher continuing education, STEM education, and much more.

The Huffington Post recaps last Monday night’s Republican primary debate: “There were 15 questions (and answers) on tax reform, 2 on energy and jobs, one heated back-and-forth on health care, 12 questions and responses on immigration, 5 on the home-mortgage crisis, 3 on the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, 4 on religion and values, 4 on the budget deficit, one on terrorism, 4 on foreign policy and a final question on who is the best candidate in general to win the race. How many questions and responses were there on the public education crisis and education reform? Zero.”

The New York Times reports on new A-through-F high school report card that finds only one in four students who enter high school in New York City are ready for college after four years, and less than half enroll.

Here are today’s top education headlines courtesy of our policy intern, Bill DeBaun:

I hope the good folks at Education Week are off today (though I know they’re not), because they rolled out a bevy of great content over the weekend. Let’s try to stave off any looming Cases of the Mondays out there with some education-related news!

Happy Friday! The big news today is the legislation passed last night by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee to overhaul the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), currently known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

Several media outlets have articles on the legislation:

Education Week writes that HELP Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) hopes to move the bill to the floor of the Senate before Thanksgiving, and believes it’s “possible” that Congress could approve a rewritten version of the nation’s main education law before Christmas–in time to negate the need for the Obama administration’s waiver plan. The article also has a list of amendments that were passed, rejected, and withdrawn.

On October 20, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee passed legislation to overhaul the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), currently known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

The bill passed on a bipartisan vote of 15-7. All twelve Democrats on the committee voted for the bill. They were joined by three Republicans: Mike Enzi (R-WY), the top Republican on the Committee, and Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Mark Kirk (R-IL).

Excerpts from statements in reaction to the legislation from members of the HELP Committee are pasted below. A link to the complete statement is also provided.