Afternoon Anouncements: February 13, 2012

Good afternoon. Here are the latest top stories in education news.

The New York Times documents a North Carolina school district which has discretely emerged as a model digital school. Projects that make them so technologically advanced include thousands of laptops being issued to students. As a result, test scores are up across the board.

Effort to ensure reading comprehension of all elementary-age students is creating a buzz. A proposal by lawmakers in at least four states to consider legislation that would make students repeat the third grade. According to the Wall Street Journal, if a student can’t pass state reading exams, the student will be required to repeat. The initiative is reviving debates about whether retaining students boosts achievement or increases their odds of dropping out.

The debate on teacher tenure continues to heat up in Virginia. As the Washington Post reports, lawmakers are debating whether to eliminate seniority-based job protections for public school teachers. The commonwealth of Virginia is quickly becoming another front in a national fight over tenure laws that critics say protect ineffective educators from dismissal.

National Public Radio continues its series on high school graduation and attendance. As NPR notes, many school leaders have found that something fairly basic works: the ABCs — Attendance, Behavior and Class– when it comes to lowering the high school dropout rate.