Education Week - October 28, 2015 - 4

Jeffrey D. Allred/The Deseret News/AP

NEWS IN BRIEF

After Defections, PARCC
Gets DOD Schools
The Department of Defense Education Activity, which operates
schools for children from military
families, announced last week
that it is joining the Partnership
for Assessment of Readiness for
College and Careers testing consortium.
The DoDEA runs 172 schools
serving 74,000 students of both
active-duty military personnel and
Department of Defense civilians.
The addition of DoDEA schools
comes after a series of defections
from the consortium. Arkansas,
Mississippi, and Ohio won't give
the PARCC test next year, while
Louisiana and Massachusetts are,
respectively, either reducing or considering reducing PARCC's role in
statewide testing for 2015-16.
-ANDREW UJIFUSA

Federal Guide Outlines Help
For Undocumented Students
The U.S. Department of Education last week released the first in
a set of resource guides designed
to help school officials support undocumented immigrant students.
The 63-page guide aims to clarify
the legal rights of undocumented
high school and college students,
share resources about federal and
private financial aid available to
them, and discuss how to support
students who came to the United
States as children to apply for relief
from deportation.
It also includes advice for educators on how to support undocumented youths, a list of private
scholarships for which they might
be eligible, and tips for migrant students working to access their education records for consideration from
deportation.
-COREY MITCHELL

READY, SET, AIM
Teachers practice shooting
during a concealedfirearms-permit class
called Safe to Learn, Safe
to Teach in South Jordan,
Utah. The training was free
for educators. Utah allows
permitted concealed
weapons in public schools.

EdTPA Scores Improving
For Would-Be Teachers
Scores on the edTPA teacher-licensing exam seem to be on the rise,
according to new research.
The exam requires teachers to
videotape part of a lesson, then analyze it, and submit lesson plans and
other artifacts for review.
More than 18,400 candidates participated in edTPA in 2014, and the
overall average score was a 44.3 out
of 75, up from 42.8 during the 2013
administrations. About 72 percent
of candidates hit the nationally recommended cutoff score of 42 points.
Meanwhile, most states have set the
passing bar slightly lower, at 41.
-STEPHEN SAWCHUK

First Lady Launches Site
To Help College-Bound
Michelle Obama unveiled a new
social-media site last week where
teenagers can swap practical infor-

4 | EDUCATION WEEK | October 28, 2015 | www.edweek.org

Number of Teachers' Strikes in 2015 Keeps Pace With Other Years'
Teachers in East St. Louis, Ill., remained on
strike last week, through more than two weeks of
school closures. A two-week walkout in Scranton,
Pa., ended the previous week. Those strikes follow
others that have been resolved in Seattle; in Pasco,
Wash.; McHenry County, Ill.; and Prospect Heights,
Ill., earlier this fall.
Even though it seems like an unusually high
number of teachers' strikes occurred this school
year, an Education Week Teacher analysis of strikes
over the past six years shows that their pace hasn't
increased or decreased significantly. And considering the thousands of school districts across the country, strikes are rare occurrences, attention-grabbing
though they may be.
The data show that 56 teachers' strikes took place
between 2010 and 2015, and those walkouts oc-

mation and stories about continuing education after high school.
BetterMakeRoom.org will be a
place for students ages 14 to 19 to
get information on such matters as
signing up for the SAT and ACT
exams, filling out federal financialaid forms, and applying to college,
aides said. Students will also be
able to share stories about their
goals, their progress, and what's
inspiring them to go to college.
Among the 20 media, business,
and nonprofit groups that are assisting the public-awareness campaign
are such recognizable names as
Mashable, American Eagle Outfitters, and the CW television network.
-ASSOCIATED PRESS

Ohio Board Withholds
Records Sought by Auditor
Additional documents sought by
the state auditor in his probe of the
Ohio education department's troubled charter school oversight office

curred in eight states: Pennsylvania, 20; Illinois, 16;
California and Washington, five each; Oregon, four;
and Ohio, Vermont, and Missouri, two each.
While 2015 has had the most strikes in recent
years, 2012 and 2014 were close behind.
Most states don't allow teachers to strike, as they
consider them to be essential public personnel.
Washington state, which has had dozens of strikes
in the past several decades, outlawed public-sector
strikes, but there's just enough vagueness in the law
that teachers have nevertheless walked out. Pennsylvania and Illinois both allow strikes; in the former's case, state law dictates how long strikes are
permitted to last to ensure that students have 180
days of instruction per school year. Illinois passed
a law in 2011 to limit the permissible terms of a
teachers' strike.
-ROSS BRENNEMAN

will not be released, a divided state
school board voted last week.
Auditor Dave Yost has been probing what many contend have been
questionable actions by the office
and its former director, David Hansen, who resigned in July. Hansen's
wife was the chief of staff to Republican Gov. John Kasich before leaving the role to manage the governor's 2016 presidential campaign.
Board members cited documents
that fell within attorney-client privilege in their refusal to release the
information.
-AP

Zuckerberg and Wife
To Open Private School
Hoping to counter poverty's toll
on children, Facebook mogul Mark
Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla
Chan, are launching a private comprehensive preschool and K-8 school,
linked to health services for children
and families in East Palo Alto, Calif.
The Primary School will target

the most disadvantaged residents
of East Palo Alto and eastern Menlo
Park and is set to open in August.
The school is the couple's latest
donation to education. Others have
included a $100 million gift to the
Newark, N.J., schools, $7.5 million for
college scholarships to undocumented
students, and a $120 million pledge
to schools in poor Bay Area communities.
-TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

Facebook Comments Land
Cafeteria Workers in Trouble
A federal lawsuit was filed last
week on behalf of two Indiana school
cafeteria workers who were disciplined after posting concerns about
school spending on social media.
The suit argues that the Brownsburg Community School District
Corp. workers' free-speech rights
were squelched. They purportedly
were told that their posts about two
tax referendums on a public Facebook group were against the dis-

http://www.BetterMakeRoom.org http://www.edweek.org

Education Week - October 28, 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - October 28, 2015