This Will Make Some Special Education Advocates Really Happy

New York students with disabilities will be held to the same academic standards and take the same standardized tests as other kids their age next school year, the U.S. Education Department said Thursday, spurning the state’s efforts to change the policy.

Legislatures Taking State Education Into Their Own Hands

The backlash against the Common Core has prompted lawmakers in at least 12 states to get more involved in setting their own K-12 academic standards, injecting politics into a process usually conducted in obscurity by bureaucrats.

New York Drops Proposal for Out-of-Level Testing in NCLB Waiver Extension

Under its recently approved No Child Left Behind waiver extension, New York will maintain the same testing regime it has in the past, dropping a proposal to assess some students with disabilities using tests that did not align with their grade level.

What is the Result of States Not Expanding Medicaid?

In states not expanding Medicaid, 6.7 million residents will remain uninsured in 2016 as a result. These states are foregoing $423.6 billion in federal Medicaid funds from 2013 to 2022, lessening economic activity and job growth. Every comprehensive state-level fiscal analysis that we could find concluded that expansion helps state budgets, generating savings and revenues that exceed increased Medicaid costs.

California’s New School Funding System Stumbles Into Its First Year

One California educator compares keeping up with the rules in California’s historic new school funding system to a cat chasing a laser pointer’s beam – a shifting target always just out of reach.

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