Morning Announcements: December 8, 2010

Despite Mayor Michael Bloomberg closing the notorious reassignment centers known as rubber rooms this earlier year, they are still in effect, the New York Times reports.

Thousands of Chicago Public School students have been unfairly flunked and forced to repeat a grade due to broken promises by CPS officials in implementing a controversial promotion policy, a parent group is expected to charge today, according to the Chicago Sun Times.

In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Chester Finn, senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, writes about the 2009 PISA results: “Fifty-three years after Sputnik caused an earthquake in American education by giving us reason to believe that the Soviet Union had surpassed us, China has delivered another shock. On math, reading and science tests given to 15-year-olds in 65 countries last year, Shanghai’s teenagers topped every other jurisdiction in all three subjects. Hong Kong also ranked in the top four on all three assessments.”

The Claremore Daily Progress writes abouta youth services center in Oklahoma that is at risk of shutting its doors due to lack of funding.