As many as 7.5 million students miss nearly a month of school each year, according to the Ad Council, which noted that chronic absenteeism — defined as missing 10 percent, or 18 days, or more of school for any reason — is a critical warning sign that a student will fall behind and risk not graduating from high school. A new campaign from the Advertising Council and the United States Army aims to lower absenteesism in school across the country. The New York Times

On the eve of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan called on educators and students to advance a civil rights agenda that presses for equal opportunities—and not just equal rights. “Integration alone doesn’t guarantee a world-class education,” he told the crowd in the auditorium at the School Without Walls, a magnet high school in the District of Columbia. “Civil rights means having the same opportunities as other people do. Too many left on the sidelines are black or brown or poor.” Politics K-12 

The recently released 2012 National Assessment of Educational Progress long-term trend assessments in reading show that in four decades there has been no progress overall for seventeen-year olds. But that may soon change as the federal government and states pursue a comprehensive approach to improving literacy outcomes for all children. In 2011, the US Department of Education awarded a total of $183 million in Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy (SRCL) grants to Georgia, Louisiana, Montana, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Texas to implement birth-through-grade-twelve literacy development and education programs.

Now that the U.S. House of Representatives has approved a totally partisan bill to renew the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the next education item on the panel’s to-do list could well be the renewal of a much lower-profile and less-controversial piece of legislation: the Education Sciences Reform Act, or ESRA for short. Politics K-12

More than 150,000 Montgomery County students were greeted with new technology on their return to classrooms this morning. The school district replaced more than 9,000 computers and installed wireless networks in more than 100 schools. The change comes with an increased emphasis on digital learning.The Washington Post

The big news today is President Barack Obama’s push to create a new rating system for colleges. The proposed system would take into account affordability, outcomes such as graduation rates, and how well schools provide access to populations such as Pell Grant recipients. The rating system could be tied to the $150 billion in student financial aid the federal government gives out each year. Politics K-12

While forty-six states and the District of Columbia have adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), approximately two-thirds of Americans say they have never heard of them, according to results released this week from the PDK/Gallup Poll. To better inform the public about the standards while also addressing the many misimpressions surrounding them, the Alliance for Excellent Education released a new report, Common Core State Standards 101. The report examines how the CCSS initiative came about, what role the federal government did—and did not—play in their adoption, and how to ensure that the standards deliver on their promise to fundamentally improve the quality of teaching and learning in the United States.

The Common Core State Standards have been adopted by forty-six states and the District of Columbia. But two-thirds of the public is unaware of this initiative, according to a PDK/Gallup surveyreleased this week. And critics of the standards have disseminated some misimpressions about them.

It’s Thursday, and that means it’s time to talk digital learning! Today’s post comes from Robyn Young, the school librarian at Avon High School and the Avon Advanced Learning Center in Avon, Indiana. She is a former Media Specialist of the Year in the State of Indiana.

The second op-ed on the Common Core State Standards to grace the pages of The New York Times in a week, Charles Blow writes that, “One strategy of changing our direction as a nation is the adoption of the Common Core State Standards, meant to teach children the skills they need to be successful in college and careers – skills like critical thinking and deep analysis.” The New York Times