Weekend Reading: Evidence doesn't support blaming black parents for school failure

  • Stop blaming black parents for underachieving kids. (Washington Post)
  • How school lunch became the latest political battle ground. (New York Times)
  • Harvard, Schmarvard: Seven questions that matter much more to your kid’s future than where they go to college. (Huffington Post)
  • Educators and researchers aren’t wild about the federal government’s plan for overhauling school turnaround grants. (Politics K-12)
  • West Virginia’s growing juvenile incarceration rate starts in its heavily policed schools. (Marshall Project)
  • An advocate of statewide teacher evaluation reform outlines a host of downsides to the approach. (TNTP)
  • Chicago’s teachers union president — also a possible mayoral candidate — is seriously ill. (Sun-Times)
  • A teachers union test score analysis underscores an achievement gap among poor students. (Edwize)
  • To boost student learning, a North Carolina school replaced desks with stationary bikes. (Fast Company)
  • Students are pressing Harvard University to stop sending graduates to Teach for America. (The Crimson)
  • A Common Core challenge: balancing grade-level reading with “frustration-level” texts. (Curriculum Matters)
  • Teachers unions are in a tight spot when deciding how to handle members who opt out of testing. (Teacher Beat)
  • Philadelphians are angry that the city canceled their teachers’ union contract amid budget woes. (Notebook)
  • A federal report reveals that states were moving away from NCLB even before getting waivers. (Politics K-12)
  • A mother says her young son’s frequent punishments ended when he found the right school. (Motherlode)
  • Des Moines is increasingly poor and nonwhite — and also seeing its schools improve. (National Journal)
  • More schools are hiring specialists to help teachers get comfortable with Common Core math. (Atlantic)