Let’s start out with the local front:
- The prosecutors in the case of former Orleans Parish School Board member Ellenese Brooks-Sims suggested that Brooks-Sims should receive a shorter sentence because she cooperated in the case against Mose Jefferson. Jefferson was convicted of paying Brooks-Sims a $100K bribe
- Via the Facebook page of the Greater New Orleans Afterschool Partnership, this is “why we need quality child care and OST options EVERY DAY”.
- After 11 years of covering the costs, the State of Louisiana is going to start making local districts pay the $5,000 mandatory stipend owed to nationally certified teachers. According to the Times-Pic, this could cost the OPSB and RSD $200,000 each, while costing St Tammany and Jefferson Parishes (which have significantly more nationally certified teachers), upwards of $650K and $880K.
And now for some national-level stuff:
- Flypaper, the blog of Fordham’s Education Gadfly team, briefly mentions New Orleans in a post about the school system in Denver and the idea of a “school system of the future”.
- In Slate, Katharine Mieszkowski discusses the effects of the current recession on private and public school enrollments, and what it can mean for public schools when parents move their children from private to public schools.
- With the impending announcement of the Race to the Top Finalists coming this afternoon, several commentators and ed reform types have been speculating on who those finalists might be. Louisiana is roundly predicted to be a front-runner.
- But meanwhile, Rick Hess, who has expressed a fair amount of disappointment in the execution of Race to the Top, argues that this speculation is turning “school reform into an Us Weekly-TMZ-In Touch echo chamber”.
