Friday News Roundup

It’s Friday. Here’s your News Roundup.

Trump Administration Abruptly Cancels National Exam for High Schoolers (EducationWeek)

According to EducationWeek:

“The Trump administration abruptly canceled a test that has measured the math and reading skills of the nation’s 17-year-olds for more than 50 years, speaking concern among education policy experts that recent federal spending cuts will affect the long-term data used to measure educational progress.”

I have a hunch this decision has nothing to do with cost-cutting. Here’s the deal – Donald Trump likes to be great at everything he associates with, and let’s face it – our NAEP scores haven’t exactly been setting the world on fire lately.

So, if you don’t like what the data is telling you, then get rid of the data. Without the data, MAGA Nation will believe anything their orange-haired leader tells them.

NAEP Costs May Have Played Role in Move to Sideline Testing Official Peggy Carr (The 74)

In a related story to the one above, The 74 reported this week that,

“For more than 20 years, Peggy Carr has helped the nation understand how students are performing in school….”

“But that era ended abruptly Monday when the U.S. Department of Education put Carr [National Center for Education Statistics’ (NCES) Commissioner since 2021], who has worked across both Republican and Democratic administrations, on paid leave….”

…

“’NAEP is going to take a haircut. I don’t think there’s a question about that,’ said [Mark] Schneider, Carr’s former supervisor and NCES commissioner under George W. Bush….”

…

“We’ve been doing main NAEP since the 1990s. Why do we need long-term trend tests?’ he asked. ‘NAEP has grown and grown and grown, and from my perspective, it’s way too expensive.”

I wonder if the Trumpians would think NAEP was “too expensive” if our public school system was performing better?

Ripton Has Weeks to Find 7 Families to Join Their School. Can They Do It? (Vermont Public)

Ripton is a mountain community near Middlebury, Vermont. The small village made news this week when public school parents were trying to find seven more families to join their combined kindergarten/first grade class so they can meet the school district’s per-class minimum of 10.

No kidding.

“’We don’t know if it will work. We don’t know where people will come from,’ said Jame McCallum, who is on the [school] board’s policy committee. ‘But I think we have to try.’”

Here’s what Ripton should do. If the Vermont Legislature could pass a law allowing public schooling to occur other places than a school, then the Ripton school board could sell their building and property to produce a sizable nest egg to pay for learning plans for every kid enrolled in the Ripton learning community.

This insistence to have learning happen in places called schools is outdated and costly.

It needs to stop.

Governor Phil Scott’s “Education Transformation” Bill Hits the Legislature, All 1756 Pages of It (VTDigger)

Staying in Vermont, VtDigger reported this week that,

“For the first time, Governor Phil Scott and his team released their education reform proposal in bill form, all 176 pages of it, for lawmakers’ consideration….”

“Among the key takeaways significant restrictions on private schools eligible for public money, class size minimums and a mandated 3% spending cap for school districts next year.”

“The plan, dubbed by Scott as the ‘education transformation proposal,’ charts a colossal restructuring of Vermont’s education governance and finance systems. Scott and Education Secretary Zoie Saunders have already announced some of the package’s boldest ideas, like consolidating Vermont’s 52 supervisory unions into only five regional school districts, paying for education using a foundation formula and stripping the State Board of Education of many of its powers.”

Change is hard, and it’s especially hard in Vermont – a state that prides itself on providing their children an excellent education. But K-12 spending is out of control nationally – especially in Vermont – so the Green Mountain State is faced with making changes necessary to bring the costs of teaching and learning downward.

That’s the news for this last week in February. Til Monday. SVB