NAfME News
Our Next Hill Day 2019 Webinar on NAfME Legislative Agenda is June 5!
Our next and final webinar before Hill Day 2019 will cover the NAfME legislative agenda and Hill Day “asks”, including Title IV-A funding under ESSA and the Guarantee Access to Arts and Music Education (GAAME) Act. Click here to register for this webinar.
National News
2020 Democrats court teachers galvanized by protest movement
5/14/19- ‘The wooing of America’s teachers is fully underway in the early presidential battleground states as Democratic candidates work to capture the support of a core party constituency energized by widespread strikes and unrest.’
Education Department hinders policing of student loans, consumer agency says
5/16/19- ‘The head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says the Education Department is impeding access to information that regulators need to oversee the nation’s largest student loan servicing companies.’
2020- Joe Biden unveils education platform that boosts funding for low-income districts
5/28/19- ‘Former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign unveiled a set of education policy proposals Tuesday that would increase funding for schools in low-income areas, help teachers pay off student debt and double the number of health professionals working in schools.’
State News
How States Handle Arts Education in Charter and Magnet Schools Varies Widely
5/27/19- ‘Arts education is an often-neglected but frequently critical component of what schools can provide to students, particularly those from underserved communities. And there’s a diverse set of approaches states and school systems take when addressing theater, dance, music, and the visual arts in schools of choice such as charter schools and magnets.’
AZ: Gov. Doug Ducey signs Arts Proficiency law
5/22/19- ‘Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has signed into law a bill to create a State Seal of Arts Proficiency for graduating seniors from any Arizona public school demonstrating completion of a rigorous program of arts study based on state standards.’
CA: Sick Teachers Paying for Substitutes: Where and Why It’s Happening
5/17/19- ‘In San Francisco, an elementary teacher was informed that, due to state law, she would have to pay the cost of a substitute while she was out of the classroom on extended sick leave for breast cancer treatment.’
GA: Ga. Governor’s Plan to ‘Dismantle’ Common Core Rekindles School Controversy
5/22/19- ‘Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is crafting a plan to “dismantle” the common-core education standards, resurrecting a long-simmering political issue that puts school administrators on the defensive.
All high schools in Georgia must teach computer science by 2024
5/20/19- ‘Just one out of every two hundred high school students in Georgia takes a computer science course before graduating, but new legislation signed by Gov. Brian Kemp this month aims to change that.’
MI: Mississippi’s New Solution for the Teacher Shortage
5/15/19- ‘Mississippi has launched the nation’s first state-run teacher residency program to tackle two problems: a growing number of unfilled teaching positions in the state, and a lack of diverse teachers in the profession.’
Missouri teachers leaving due to low pay
5/20/19- ‘Teachers in Missouri aren’t in it for the pay. In fact, a recent survey revealed the pay is the number one reason teachers leave the profession.’
Maine moves toward hiking minimum teacher salary to $40,000
5/13/19- ‘A bill to increase Maine’s minimum teacher salary from $30,000 to $40,000 starting in 2020 is moving ahead in the Democratic-led Legislature.’
OK: Oklahoma Lawmakers Seek Return to 5-Day School Weeks
5/22/19- ‘A bill that would force more Oklahoma school districts to return to five-day school weeks has been given final legislative approval and is heading to the governor’s desk.’
TX: Texas moves to arm more teachers to prevent school shootings
5/23/19- ‘Texas moved a big step closer to arming more teachers and school personnel as a way to help prevent future campus shootings, under a bill sent to Gov. Greg Abbott.’
CO: Polis signs full-day kindergarten bill into law
5/21/19- ‘Fulfilling a key campaign promise, Gov. Jared Polis on Tuesday signed into law a bill funding full-day kindergarten to much pomp — complete with the North High School marching band — at a ceremony at Stedman Elementary in Denver.’
WV: Senators to return for special session Saturday
5/29/19- ‘Senate President Mitch Carmichael told his fellow senators that he plans to call for the special session on “education betterment” to resume Saturday.’
NV: Nevada Senate passes bill to overhaul education funding
Research & Analysis
5/20/19- ‘This Policy Brief highlights how states currently address schools of choice within policy, including those that intersect with arts education, and explores further opportunities to engage the arts in statewide policies and practices.’
K-12 Districts Wasting Millions by Not Using Purchased Software, New Analysis Finds
5/14/19- ‘A new analysis of K-12 school district spending bolsters the notion that many ed-tech products and software purchased aren’t actually used or don’t have the intended impact.’
Study: D.C. voucher program has no effect on student achievement
5/15/19- ‘The District of Columbia Opportunity Scholarship Program, the nation’s only federally funded private school voucher program, had no effect on student achievement after three years, according to a new report out Wednesday.’
Special Report: Blind Spots In Teacher Professional Development
5/15/19- ‘Professional development: It happens every year, for every teacher. And yet there’s broad agreement among those who participate that it often—very often—misses the mark. The trainings fail to take teachers’ prior knowledge and experience into account, or use instructional techniques that wouldn’t work with students. The things teachers say they want to learn—how to recover when a lesson goes south, how to recognize their own biases and design activities that reach all learners—are often overlooked.’
New federal data shows massive gap in college enrollment based on income
5/22/19- ‘A new batch of federal data out this morning reveals a huge 50 percentage point gap in college enrollment based on family income, as children from the wealthiest families are far more likely to enroll in college than their peers in the lowest income bracket.’